CHESTER, PA. - For the first time in their MLS history, St. Louis City SC visited the “City of Brotherly Love” on Saturday night to take on the Philadelphia Union.
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It’s the first meeting between the two teams, but not the first time City has seen the new Union head coach Bradley Carnell. Carnell led City to the playoffs in their inaugural 2023 season, but the team’s slow start to 2024 cost him his job in St. Louis.
In this reunion against the Union, Carnell was the story of the matchup heading into Saturday night, and City’s former coach took bragging rights and all three points off his old club. City fell behind early before falling down a man late and suffered a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Carnell’s Philadelphia side.
The big question for St. Louis City before the game was just who would start for the team following Tomas Totland suffering a hamstring injury in last week’s 1-0 home win against the Seattle Sounders. It proved to be Akil Watts, who has been trusted by City head coach Olof Mellberg in multiple roles in different areas of the field.
While Watts replaced Totland, the rest of the City defense was quite familiar. Conrad Wallem took up the left wingback spot, and Mellberg chose his preferred three center backs, from left to right: Jannes Horn, Henry Kessler, and Kyle Hiebert.
The City midfield had no real surprises, with Eduard Löwen playing alongside Chris Durkin making his 100th career MLS start, and Marcel Hartel played in a bit more advanced midfield position. Cedric Tuechert started yet again, this time joined up top by Simon Becher instead of Joao Klauss.
Philadelphia came out of the locker room hot, looking to challenge the City backline from the opening kickoff. With a mostly unchanged defensive setup beyond Watts on the right wing, a lack of familiarity wasn’t an excuse for a sloppy start for St. Louis on the defensive end.
It took the Union just eight minutes to find the game’s first goal, and the first goal any team has scored against City in MLS play this season. Philly’s Kai Wagner swung in a cross that Ian Glavinovich, a defender on loan from Argentine club Newell’s Old Boys, headed home beyond a lunging Ben Lundt in the St. Louis goal.
“I'm really disappointed with the start of the game,” said St. Louis City head coach Olof Mellberg. “We don't do the things we [planned to]. We had a great start to the game against the Galaxy away, I really liked the energy. It's not like this is happening every week. But [Philadelphia] is a difficult place to come to, difficult with the pitch. The way they play, very directly with the long balls, fighting for the second balls, a lot of crosses, they’re good on set pieces, we knew that, and we have to be up for the fight.”
Lundt was quite busy in the first half, making a number of saves that kept City in the contest when Philadelphia piled on the pressure. Lundt made his second straight start after Roman Bürki was injured in training before last week’s match.
Lundt made seven saves in the first half to keep the score at 1-0 going into the halftime break. St. Louis was winning the possession battle but found themselves trailing for the first time all season going into the locker room.
City tried to stretch the field more in the second half, using their speed to create chances running at the Union defense but lacked the quality with their final touches and passes to truly threaten Philly goalkeeper Andrew Rick, who was filling in for the regular Union keeper Andre Blake, who was away from the team on international duty.
In the 66th minute, things went from bad to worse for the trailing City side. Eduard Löwen picked up a second yellow card, deemed to be guilty of time-wasting in the eyes of referee Ricardo Fierro. Löwen picked up his first yellow in the first half, professionally fouling a Union player to prevent a counter-attack.
The red card is just the second for Löwen in his entire career, and his first since picking up a straight red card in the Regionalliga Bayern (German lower regional league) for 1.FC Nuremberg II.
Down to ten men, City huffed and puffed, still searching for an equalizer. Olof Mellberg brought on Joao Klauss for Simon Becher, Josh Yaro for Kyle Hiebert, Alfredo Morales for Chris Durkin, and Celio Pompeu came on for Cedric Teuchert for some fresh legs all over the field.
“I thought we did really well [after going down a man],” said Mellberg postgame. “We had players in good positions. And I think we had a little bit of momentum. So, the guys did really well. They had confident play, and the energy level was a little bit higher.”
Those fresh legs gave St. Louis a bit of life and a bit of pace, but still had no threat going forward in attack. City fired a couple speculative shots but never challenged Philly’s deputy keeper Rick, who faced just one shot on target through 90 minutes and stoppage time.
Joakim Nilsson made his second appearance of 2025 as a late sub in the 86th minute, coming on for Conrad Wallem, who had moved to a more attacking role as City chased the game late. Olof Mellberg tried to shuffle the deck a bit after going down a man, but still, City couldn’t create and were simply out of gas in the late stages.
The referee blew for full time, condemning City to their first defeat in 2025, Mellberg’s first defeat in charge of the club, and an end to City’s shutout streak. The streak was bound to end at some point, but Saturday’s game was an ugly affair that the club will wish had gone quite differently.
St. Louis City posted five total shots over 90 minutes. One of those was a Simon Becher pot shot hoping the Philly keeper was off his line, one of those was an Akil Watts shot that was closer to the luxury boxes in the stands than the goal, and only Cedric Teuchert’s tame shot in the first half counted for a shot on goal.
If it felt like City didn’t offer much sustained pressure in attack, it’s because they didn’t. Philadelphia had more total shots in the box (11) than City had total touches of any kind in the box (10). City had more completed passes than the Union, 277 compared to 218, but 190 of those City passes were in their own half.
City didn’t complete a cross all game, and their passing performance was lacking, to say the least. It’s a continuation of something Mellberg and the team know they have to get better at, playing with more quality and completing more passes to create offensive opportunities.
“We need more quality on the ball and to combine better,” Mellberg explained. “We had our chances today. We had a few incredible chances, even though they were not always shots on target.”
Ben Lundt explained that the team can’t start so slow and expect a result on the road.
“We didn’t start the game the way we wanted to,” Lundt said following the game. “We were a little bit less aggressive, a bit on the back foot, and we paid the price.”
The club will have a chance to rebound back in St. Louis next Sunday afternoon, when City hosts Austin FC. They’ll be doing so without Löwen, who will be suspended for the match following his red card Saturday night.
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