2025-2026 St. Louis CITY SC Off-Season Catch-All Thread

You are crazy optimistic. How many of those guys have been on the roster the last 2 years that hasn't made the playoffs?

Celio is a better fit with your description of the backup group (not ready, underperforming, inconsistent) than he is with the description of the other 2 starters. There is a reason Celio has failed to hold down a starting spot under every single coach we have had (BC, Hack, Olof, and Critch) and that reason is he doesn't have the quality to be an everyday starter even on a team that hasn't made the playoffs for 2 years running.

The midfield group is fine as long as we have Lowen. I sincerely hope and pray that Lowen's personal situation allows him to be available for the entire season, but I think it's foolish to not have a solid contingency plan in place. None of the others are ready to step in and produce at his levels.

Your solid back line had 1 clean sheet after Fall joined last summer (against mighty Montreal), and that was with a center back combo of Fall and Kessler. Forgive me for not sharing your enthusiasm for running it back with worse players.

 

The Louligans go in again. I really hope the FO realizes just how close they are to losing all the goodwill of the fanbase.

Many moves does not equal big moves. We need some quality starter signings.

— St.Louligans ☠️ (@StLouligans) January 26, 2026

 

I really do appreciate your most positive reading of everything. My cynicism reads that comment as, "We weren't anticipating losing Klauss, so we don't have a plan B at the moment, so hopefully we can come up with that plan by the summer transfer window."

 

Edu Löwen is not with the club for today's match. He traveled back to St. Louis for personal reasons, per the club.

That's why he's not in the XI of either half today. #AllForCITY https://t.co/NCJqwW0BoN

— Matt Baker (@MattBakerSTL) January 28, 2026

 

@fortcollins I could use some of your optimism following a draw with a USL team and only scoring from set pieces. How are we spinning this to make me feel better?

 

Mamadou is #AllForCITY 🇸🇳

We have acquired Senegalese defender Mamadou Mbacke Fall on a permanent transfer from @FCBarcelona.

🗞️ https://t.co/9XjCWlx2IJ pic.twitter.com/3I2XMkIytn

— St Louis CITY SC (@stlCITYsc) January 29, 2026

I like this signing, but he has a Transfermarkt value of $300k. We are still shopping at the 99 cent stores.

 

It doesn't matter who the coach is with the collection of players we have...nobody is winning with this crew. The crazy thing is we only have 1 senior roster spot remaining. Hopefully that gets filled with a DP.

 

I think that you have to put Edelman on the Morales line, and I would still consider that an upgrade. Santos has to be on the Padelford line, he is a direct replacement for him. I'm going to say that is an "=" at best, but probably a downgrade. Seeing as how JGR gave us the equivalent of nothing, Polvara has to be an upgrade.

The only problem with these things, we didn't upgrade on any starters. Replacing Watts/Morales, and JGR with upgrades raises our floor, but not our ceiling.

 

I'm gonna try on some positivity for a change. Looks like Teuchert scored today! If we are to have any chance, we are gonna need him to produce, so having him get back to health and on the scoresheet is only good!! (Wow that felt good, now back to your regularly scheduled programming)

 

That's too much for me! I'll believe it when I see it.

 

Honest question for everyone in the group...

Who is the last player we signed who you legitimately knew of before we signed them? Who did you not have to Google to see how good they were? Kessler?

For me, the answer is Burki. He is legitmately the only player we have ever signed that I knew of. I am not saying that is the only way to get good players, obviously, but it is hard to get fans excited for all the new signings.

Asked another way, who of any of the signings would you put their name on your jersey, no questions asked?

 

House of Cards, I agree with you. I do not have the grasp of players as Fort Collins does. Burki is the only person who comes to mind for me . . . At this point in time, I do not believe ownership is committed to winning trophies. For them this is a business. Keep your labor costs low. Hire young or under value. Use a lot of buzz words and act like you know what you are doing . . . . and hope that somehow you get another miracle type of year as we saw in year one . . .

 

As I was asking, even knowing them, which one of those players would you put on the back of your jersey without having seen them play for CITY? By contrast, Minnesota is already selling boatloads of James jerseys. If we were to get someone like Sargent tomorrow, you would sell 10,000 jerseys with his name before the first game.

 

Welcome to CITY, Lukas!

We have signed defender Lukas MacNaughton through June 2027 with a club option for the 2027-28 MLS season.

🗞️ https://t.co/9fQB5Eau8x pic.twitter.com/wiUQibODmu

— St Louis CITY SC (@stlCITYsc) February 10, 2026

Does this take our last senior roster spot or is he going on the supplemental roster? If he’s supplemental, whatever I don’t care, if we don’t have a roster spot to sign Klauss’ replacement, I’m so done!