St. Louis CITY SC (2-6-4) v. kansas (3-8-1) Wednesday, May 14, 2025, 7:45 PM CT Energizer Park MLS Season pass, Apple TV+, FS1, Fox Deportes MLS Soccer Match Information St. Louis CITY SC Record: 2-6-4, 10 Points, 9 GF, 14 GA, Net -5, Form: DDWWLLLLDDLL Home: 1-3-2, 5 Points, 2 GF, 5 GA, Net -3, Form: DWLLDL Road: 1-3-2, 5 Points, 6 GF, 9 GA, Net -3, Form: DWLLDL kansas record: 3-8-1, 10 points, 17 gf, 22 ga, net -5, form: llldllwlwlwl home: 2-3-1, 7 points, 9 gf, 11 ga, net -2, form: ldlwlw road: 1-5-0, 3 points, 8 gf, 11 ga, net -3, form: llwlwll The season of our discontent continues with a midweek Garber-contrived rivalry match against kansas. Our actual rivalry match is still three months away. CITY’s weird Noah’s Ark season continues, with all wins, losses, and draws coming in pairs. kansas started 0-5-1 but has been 3-3 with alternating wins and losses since. CITY started 2-0-2 but is winless in the last eight matches. CITY can’t score and kansas can’t defend. kansas has an interim coach and CITY needs an interim coach. The weather currently looks like it will be warm, humid, and boring. The match is pregnant with meaninglessness, so buy stuff from the vendors, because the food’s tasty, they aren’t to blame, and they are nice people who have families to support. Discuss.
Here are the MLS Game Guides for our match. These are updated regularly through kickoff, so check back from time to time.
I'll be there, hoping for the best, fearing the worst. I was listening to the Flyover Footy guys and they think this is a win or bust game for Olof. If we do end up pulling the trigger on Olof's doomed tenure, I hope we have our ducks in a row to quickly move on, and not just waste another season with an interim. Give it Hack full time or go get another full time.
It would still take time to land another permanent coach, so an interim may be necessary. If CITY goes after Jim Curtain, he has already said he will not coach this season because he wants to spend time with his family. One coach who is available right now and has MLS experience is Gary Smith. A plus for him is that he managed Colorado and Nashville, knows many of the players, and has a rep for developing and using younger players.
I think Curtin is the best available, and if you could get him to commit to next season, then you can go the interim route the rest of this year. If not him, my vote is Hackworth. Hackworth did well enough last season, he has been with the organization from day 1. I doubt he will do it on an interim basis again, so I would be ok with letting him do it. He would be the cheap option too, which is obviously a consideration for our ownership group.
PRO's assignments: Center Referee Lukasz Szpala, ARs Lyes Arfa and Myes Nickerson, Fourth Official Rubiel Vazquez, VAR Edvin Jurisevic and AVAR TBA
MLS is slow getting out the information about the midweek matches. PRO's assignment (updated): The AVAR is Joshua Patlack.
Broadcasters. English language: Max Bretos and Brian Dunseth. Spanish language: Jorge Perez-Navarro and Marcelo Balboa. Two good broadcast teams this week. The Spanish language team is superb. Player Availability and Disciplinary Summary reports. St. Louis CITY SC. Suspended: none. YC Accumulation Warning: none. OUT: Eduard Lowen, Alfredo Morales, Tomas Totland. Questionable: Chris Durkin. kansas. suspended: none. yc accumulation warning: none. out: none. questionable: logan ndebe and memo rodriguez.
Only if he never comes back. Unfortunately, he wasn't suspended for practice and probably will still pick the Starting XI and bench.
Hartel and Mellberg's Pre-Match Press Conference. (There are some unintentionally funny moments if you follow along with the AI transcript.)
Starting XI (in ridiculous jersey number order): Burki-Wallem-Ostrak-Klauss-Pompeu-Yaro-Hartel-Watts-Hiebert-Baumgartl-Teuchert Bench: Lundt-Becher--Girdwood-Reich—Kessler-Nilsson-Reid-Xande Silva-Zalinsky
What a miserable point. There are the playoffs gone. I've changed my mind on an interim coach, just get Olof out, this season has already been wasted. On the positive side, Olof's presser was refreshingly honest, he definitely had a different perspective watching from the outside. While Lundt has been admirable, Burki's presence is immense. Semi positive, we scored our first goal from open play in a month, it was only the most fortuitous goal ever. Now to the rest of it. Olof spent his SDFC post game presser and the SKC pregame presser lamenting the lack of fitness by Ostrak who could only make it 72 minutes on Saturday. Somehow, he magically got fitter since Saturday and they decided to push him to 82 minutes. At about the 60 minute mark, it was clear he was slowing down and we needed a change. Then when he pulls up with cramp, they summon JGR to replace him, but Ostrak waves him off, and they send JGR back to warm up some more (he had been warming up since the first half), only to decide a minute later, let's make the sub. You know what that screams? WE DON'T TRUST JGR! We would rather keep an unfit, cramping Ostrak on the field, than bring you on. Yaro is gonna Yaro. Someone help it make sense, that when we bring Kessler on, it is for Baumgartl and not Yaro. Baumgartl was the Y98 radio broadcast's MOTM...and Yaro was SKC radio broadcast's MOTM (ok, that part I may have invented). Now on to Klauss. Klauss does a lot of things that don't show up in the box score. He is a very honest, hard working player. Hartel made the run in the second half (and should have scored) and wound up off the field. Klauss immediately dropped into midfield and as Hartel tried to hustle back, Klauss motioned to him to take his time, that his spot was covered. 2 minutes later, Klauss breaks into the box, has a shot with his left that he skewers out for almost a throw in. Pretty much sums up Klauss. If we exercise his option and that allows him to be bought down out of his DP role, I am ok keeping Klauss on board, if we go get another DP 9, one who actually scores, kinda like SKC's. If Klauss can't be bought down, he's gotta go. Teuchert was awful (his match rating magically boosted by his "goal") and Hartel only slightly better. Let's bring the CITY2 guys up for Saturday and rest "the big guns" and then let's make a Cup run, it's all we have left!
This club is quickly turning into the laughing stock of MLS. I forget the publication, but we were recently ranked the 42nd most valuable club in the world, yet we’ve never paid an actual transfer fee?? Olof and Lutz should’ve been out three or four games ago. Keeping them on at this point is a slap in the face to fans, especially seeing Carnell’s Union in second place in the East. Amazing what happens when you give a good coach the pieces he needs to succeed. I know Carolyn loves Lutz, but if she can’t do what is clearly needed at this point, she should sell the club. signed, an extremely frustrated season ticket holder.
One of the things that bothers me is the overall lack of fitness, and that has been a problem last year and all this season. Many (not most or all, but many) of the training injuries and match injuries suggest lack of fitness. The second half dropoff screams fitness. The poor passing, with rushed passes without pressure, failure to step up to the pass, and alternating weak touch or heavy touch suggest lack of fitness. When players are gassed, and the coach goes to the bench, the team performance doesn't improve. That suggests that the remaining players from the Starting XI can't sustain the match, and it comes across as putting new tires on a car that doesn't have an engine. Over the years, there have been MLS players who are training and conditioning freaks. Wells Thompson comes immediately to mind. He runs a training and fitness company. A friend of mine who is a pro athlete in a different sport used their services, and had a huge increase in his performance. He said it was a career changing experience. Is it too much to ask that CITY bring in a company from the outside to assess and improve player fitness? There are quite a few companies in this field, so I'm not endorsing or pushing one particular company. Olof has to go, and right now. I don't care "how it looks" to change coaches quickly. I care more about finding the right coach and moving forward. This isn't working. If you take the wrong exit on a highway and are heading in the wrong direction, the only solution is to turn around and get back on the right road. Continuing to drive the wrong way because it would look embarrassing to turn around is plain stupid. CITY has some young guns who have real potential, enough to be selected for US Youth MNT play. This season is lost. What is the harm in giving them MLS experience? What is the harm in working to bring them to MLS level? Are the fans going to be more forgiving when a young gun makes a mistake? Of course. Are the fans going to come to see matches with more young guns in the Starting XI? Sure. Are the fans going to come to see matches with an interim coach? Sure. What the owners need to consider is the extent of discontent fans are feeling right now. We know the game and love the game. What we're seeing isn't good soccer. Change is needed. Right now. Before Saturday's match.
The good news there is CKB could turn a healthy profit if she sells now. If she doesn't, she risks running the value into the ground. Starting to question my decision to renew for another 3 years.
We would have to buy American MLS players instead of 2.Bundesliga players on frees because they are too injured to stay in Germany, you know players like Stroud, Parker, Indy, players like that! They obviously don't fit the Lutz model. This, a million times this!
Presser thoughts: Olof looks and sounds defeated and like he has run out of ideas to fix it. You can see the pressure is affecting him, and to my mind, that is a good thing, he does care. Burki said "Even if the tactics aren't 100% right, we should win when 2-0 up." (maybe a little paraphrase in there) The interesting thing there is him questioning the tactics. Maybe it's a language barrier, but I interpret that as him believing the tactics aren't 100% right. If that's true, and the captain doesn't believe in the tactics, Olof has to go. Celio cares. You could see and hear the anguish and passion from him. In fairness, you could see it throughout the game. I'm not on the same Celio bandwagon that a lot of fans are, I think he is a useful player, but not a matchwinner, but at this point, it's not about skill as much as heart. Celio might not be as talented as some on our roster, but nobody cares as much, and right now, that alone is what we need. We have to fight and claw and scratch to dig ourselves out of this hole. We need people who care, and right now, he is the one who shows it the most.
Lieber Lutz, Benötigen Sie Geld, um Ihre Rendite ins Vaterland zu zahlen? Benötigen Sie uns, um eine Website "Go Fund Me" zu finden, die Ihnen hilft, St. Louis zu verlassen? Dear Lutz, Do you need money to pay your return to the fatherland? Do you need us to found a website "Go Fund Me" that helps you leave St. Louis?
Should this go up on Craigslist? FREE SOCCER COACHGently used Swedish soccer coach, excellent condition. Skills include beard modeling, obfuscation, deflection, equivocation, and parking large multi-passenger vehicles. Can blame officials, colorfully if desired, but is a bit of a card collector when doing so. Conveniently parked near curbside on the NW corner of N 20th and Market Streets in St. Louis for easy pickup. Hurry, because this one won’t last!
Of all the ideas floated here to fix CITY's problems, this one is the most risky and the one I disagree with. If the team were sold, are there potential owners in the St. Louis area with that kind of coin to drop on an MLS team? There are plenty of cities in the U.S. who don't have MLS teams that would love to have one. Selling to someone like Anthony Precourt would be an unmitigated disaster. Next thing you know, the Chicago Fire will be shifted to the Western Conference because the recently-moved St. Louis to Indianapolis team will be playing in the East!