ST. LOUIS - St. Louis City SC closed its 2025 Major League Soccer season on Saturday night, hosting a Real Salt Lake team needing a positive result on Decision Day to make the Western Conference playoffs.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
City had nothing to play for but pride, and perhaps being a spoiler for RSL’s playoff hopes. In a weird, wild, and wet game, City found a last-ditch equalizer for a 2-2 draw.
For their final lineup of the season, City interim manager David Critchley picked a team out of availability and opportunity. Some will be playing their last game in a St. Louis City shirt, some will be part of the team’s bigger plans moving forward.
Roman Bürki made the start and wore the captain’s armband, neither of which is a big surprise. But the hearty souls who braved the elements on a rainy Saturday evening were pleasantly surprised with big news announced on the video boards before kickoff: Roman Bürki is here to stay, agreeing to a contract extension through the 2027 season, with an option for 2028.
The announcement ended rumors that have been ongoing since the summer transfer window, where Bürki was thought to be weighing his options outside of St. Louis. This team does not know what 2026 will look like right now, but Roman Bürki will still be in goal, wearing the captain’s armband.
“Every day I step on the pitch, I feel the support and passion from the city and our incredible fans, and it pushes me to be the best I can for this team,” said Bürki in a team press release. “It’s an honor to wear this badge. I believe in this club’s future and want to play a key part in helping it achieve its goals.”
Bürki, a City original, joined the team before the inaugural 2023 season, even playing matches for the reserve MLS NEXT Pro CITY2 team during 2022 after moving stateside. Over three seasons in STL, he’s made 90 MLS appearances, the most of any player in the team’s short history.
“Roman is an extremely important part of this club, and has been since he first arrived,” said Diego Gigliani, City President and General Manager, in a press release.
“His leadership on and off the pitch, his professionalism, his commitment to high standards, and his connection with our fans and this community embody everything St. Louis CITY SC stands for. As we enter a new chapter in the club’s young existence, we’re thrilled to see such a key player commit his future to what we are building. We’re confident he will continue to play a pivotal role in helping this team reach new heights in the years ahead.”
Bürki elaborated more postgame on his new deal with the team. The Swiss shot-stopper talked about why he decided to stay, saying Gigliani sold him on the team project to become a contender.
“I had a lot of talks with Diego [Gigliani], and [the team] showed me what they want to do,” said Bürki Saturday night. “Things that I can’t tell right now because they trust me and they’ve shown me what they want to build here, who they’re trying to bring in. It's a sign that they’re interested in making this club a winning club, bringing a winning culture into the club, that’s exactly what I want to see.”
“I was also very honest with [the team], sometimes I might react a bit over the top [on the field], but I told the team I need players who are not hiding. I need players that take responsibility who are not scared to say something, not worried about ‘Oh what is he thinking about me?’. We need to have honest conversations with each other. We are a team, and everybody wants to make each other better. The direction of the club was very important to me.”
The back four in front of City’s newly re-signed keeper, from left to right, were Conrad Wallem, Fallou Fall, Kyle Hiebert, and Tomas Totland. Eduard Löwen and Chris Durkin started in central midfield, as Critchley prefers.
Mykhi Joyner took up the left wing in the City attack, with Marcel Hartel roaming the middle and sliding into space with the attack, and Sangbin Jeong was a pacey outlet on the right wing. Joao Klauss started as the lone striker in the 4-2-3-1 formation.
Real Salt Lake opened the scoring just after the quarter-hour mark in the 17th minute. Capitalizing on some disjointed defending from St. Louis City, RSL played up the right side, and three of City’s four defenders bit over towards the ball.
This left tons of space for Salt Lake striker Victor Olatunji to glide into, and he just had to wait for a squared pass from teammate Zavier Gozo, who found the unmarked attacker in front of a gaping City goal for a tap-in.
Fifteen minutes later, the visitors doubled their lead, this time a perfect through ball from Diogo Goncalves that split City right down the middle and found Olatunji in stride bearing down on Roman Bürki. Olatunji slotted a shot to Bürki’s right and Real Salt Lake had one foot in the playoffs.
In the Western Conference playoff picture, RSL needed a win to not worry about results elsewhere. Even though they were two goals up, they never really controlled the flow and tempo of the game in any way. Looking at everything but the scoreboard, you’d think St. Louis City would have been the team in the lead. City were creating more chances, but not converting.
In the 38th minute, a Joao Klauss shot inside the box struck the flailing arm of Salt Lake’s Brayan Vera and referee Armando Villarreal didn’t hesitate to point to the penalty spot. Usually Eduard Löwen is the team’s chosen penalty-taker, but he deferred to Marcel Hartel, who needed one more goal to reach ten on the season.
Hartel stepped up, took a slow run with a stutter step, but hit a bad shot pretty much directly at Real Salt Lake keeper Rafael Cabral. But VAR would intervene, saying that Cabral was caught out by Hartel’s stutter step and jumped off his line early. After a quick review, Armando Villarreal called for a retake.
This time, Löwen decided to take the ball himself. City’s midfield maestro smashed a shot into the top left corner and City were right back in the game before halftime.
With no prior knowledge of the Major League Soccer standings, if you were watching the second half, it appeared as if St. Louis City were the team chasing a playoff berth, and Real Salt Lake were the team happy to see their season peter out.
City had 60 percent possession in the second half, took 17 total shots with five hitting the target. They were buzzing around the RSL box, with some shots being parried away by Rafael Cabral and others bouncing off the woodwork. It took almost all of the second half, but in the 88th minute, City’s endeavor paid off with an equalizer.
Long throw specialist Devin Padelford was brought on as a second half sub, and he launched a trademark arching throw into the box, where center back Fallou Fall flicked the ball on with a header to Joao Klauss, who directed a header to the bottom right of goal, bouncing as Real Salt Lake players watched the ball tuck into the corner.
It wasn’t a full Energizer Park Saturday night with the torrential rain the area saw all day, but the half-full and fully-soaked stadium exploded with joy when the equalizer went in.
Importantly for the visitors, this goal momentarily eliminated RSL from the Western Conference playoffs, now needing results to go their way elsewhere. A late goal from the Colorado Rapids in their game against LAFC saw Colorado leap frog Salt Lake for the last wild card spot.
But an even later goal from LAFC saved playoff soccer for City’s opponent on Saturday night. Armondo Villarreal blew his whistle for full time, City fans saw their team fight back for a point, and RSL were celebrating a playoff berth. A win-win game where neither team won.
“The game summarized the whole season that we’ve had,” said the freshly re-signed Roman Bürki. “Bad start, some chances to create and score goals, and in the end, we fought back, we tried, but it wasn’t enough to win the game.”
“Unfortunately we couldn’t get three points, but it was a great finale to end this year,” said City interim manager David Critchley. “It was exciting, entertaining, we’ve had adversity thrown our way and we showed the resilience and the character of our players, which is something we’ve spoken about for a long time. It’s important to not quit, even if you could say there’s nothing to play for. It's a great testament to the locker room’s character and spirit to close out the year.”
“Massive thank you to the players for their effort and determination tonight,” Critchley continued. “We wanted to go out tonight to make it a memorable night, an entertaining night for our fans who showed up tonight despite the weather in St. Louis today. We needed to give them nothing but 100 percent intensity tonight.”
The season ends on the field for St. Louis City, but the work begins to find the manager and sporting director for the team moving forward. The team hopes to have these decisions made over the next month or so, as they have a short period of time to rebuild the squad before the 2026 preseason comes around in January.
Players have been vocal about wanting David Critchley to stick around, pointing to how he held the team accountable and changed the culture after taking over for failed manager Olof Mellberg.
“We can already see the change since [Critchley] took over,” said Roman Bürki. “There was a change, mentality-wise; he was a little more strict [than Mellberg]. He had standards that he asked of us, which started off the field, but also obviously on the field. It wasn’t luck that we started to win away games all of a sudden. We worked hard for it. We changed the mentality, tried to bring in a different culture.”
The season ends, but this offseason kick-starts a new era for St. Louis City SC.
More like this:
