ST. PAUL, Minn. - St. Louis City SC’s ongoing tour of turning their 2025 Major League Soccer season around made a trip to St. Paul on Saturday evening to take on the Loons of Minnesota United FC.
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City went down in the first half and never looked like turning the game around. Two more in the second half from MUFC sealed a 3-0 defeat for City.
Olof Mellberg returned to the touch line for City, after watching Wednesday’s 2-2 draw at home against Sporting Kansas City from the confines of a luxury box at Energizer Park. His team featured a change in midfield, a first-time MLS starter.
That man would be Jake Girdwood-Reich, who saw some time as a substitute on Wednesday, but made his first-ever MLS start in a City shirt playing as a central midfielder alongside Tomas Ostrak.
Behind them were a familiar five: Celio Pompeu as a left wingback, Kyle Hiebert, Timo Baumgartl, and Josh Yaro as center backs, and Akil Watts playing right wingback.
Conrad Wallem played a more advanced role and was joined in attack by Marcel Hartel. Cedric Teuchert started as the lone striker, with Joao Klauss on the bench as Olof Mellberg attempted to shake up the attack.
Moving Wallem up a bit had the benefit of letting the technically gifted Norwegian get on the ball in more threatening areas of the field, compared to his time spent at wingback or as a holding midfielder so far this season for City.
Wallem found a few shots on goal in the first half playing a bit higher, a half-chance in the 21st minute from Wallem was shot hard but Dayne St. Clair in the Minnesota United goal was quick to get down to his right and deny him.
City’s set-piece defending wasn’t at its sharpest in the first half. In the 14th minute, an unmarked Nicolas Romero found space at the near post and forced Roman Bürki into a reflex save. In the 33rd minute, a failure to clear a corner kick led to a Minnesota goal.
A bouncing ball just outside the City six-yard box fell to the feet of Tani Oluwaseyi, who had his back to the City goal. Instinctively, Oluwaseyi swung his left foot backward and backheeled a shot through a forest of legs and into the back of the net.
For the shake-up in attack, St. Louis City did not create much in attack. Conrad Wallem’s 21st minute shot was the most dangerous scoring chance the team had all game. MInnesota had the advantage heading into halftime, and with City’s anemic offense, that lead was in no danger.
Searching for some semblance of offensive output, Olof Mellberg brought on Simon Becher for Tomas Ostrak. Becher got on the ball occasionally but couldn’t provide the life the City attack was searching for.
MUFC added a second through a combination of strong link-up play in attack and some rather stationary defending from St. Louis. United’s Robin Lod played a pass into the City 18-yard box to attacker Tani Oluwaseyi, who laid off a first-time pass to teammate Joaquin Pereyra, who had plenty of space to hit a left-footed shot to Roman Bürki’s right as the City captain and keeper was moving to his left.
The goal had a feeling of inevitability to it. Minnesota were cruising, City were struggling to even move the ball in Minnesota’s half of the field.
Minnesota’s big transfer deadline acquisition, Julian Gressel, came on as a substitute in the 76th minute for Bongokuhle Hlongwane. Gressel had the ball in the back of the net in less than two minutes on the field.
Gressel was running in acres of open space on the right wing. Joaquin Pereyra spotted him ghosting into the City box and crossed it into Gressel’s path. The MLS legend had a simple tap-in to beat Roman Bürki, with no City defenders anywhere in sight.
If this reads like a bad City performance, that’s because it was, to put it bluntly. After a catastrophic collapse Wednesday against Sporting Kansas City, City didn’t show any resilience Saturday night. Minnesota had scored three goals that were largely the result of lackluster defending in front of Roman Bürki.
Minnesota’s attacking output waned as they brought on the backups for some minutes in garbage time late. The clock slowly ticked to full-time, and for the second time in two weeks, St. Louis City had lost a game on the road by three goals.
City had more possession and more passes, but that’s only because Minnesota let them. MUFC prefers to play on the counterattack, and with City’s woeful offensive displays this season, the Loons felt more than comfortable letting them try to string an attack together.
The only positives of the game for City were the return of Chris Durkin and Rasmus Alm from injury. Both came on as substitutes in the second half as the team struggled to string passes together. It’s Alm’s first appearance of the season, and the first for Durkin since March 30th when he went down with an MCL injury.
City had five shots on target, all of them in the first half, and only Conrad Wallem’s 21st minute effort made Dayne St. Clair work in the Minnesota United goal. Over 90 minutes, City had only 13 touches of the ball in the United box.
“A very bad game from us,” said Marcel Hartel, who played a more attacking role Saturday night but had little impact on the game. “The first half was not good, and the second half was not enough… We have to fight out of this situation because nobody is happy, the fans are not happy, the staff is not happy, the team is not happy. We have to find the solution as fast as possible.”
Despite 10 straight winless games in MLS play, Hartel believes there’s a better team in there, somewhere.
“We are a much better team than our position in the table,” Hartel railed. “Everyone knows how well Minnesota is playing. Today was a very bad game for everybody. [Our] quality is not the problem.”
Olof Mellberg also gave credit to Minnesota, rather than pushing the blame onto his team.
“[Minnesota] plays well,” Mellberg explained. “They take their time on set pieces, slow the game down, and that's how they created the chances they had in the first half. And they scored on one of them… They are strong and have a clear identity of how they play. And yeah, we couldn't handle that well enough today.”
City will have to pick their heads up, as they play this same Minnesota United squad on Wednesday night, also in St. Paul, in US Open Cup play, which has become the only realistic opportunity for City to win a trophy in 2025.
“Maybe it's good timing, so that we can show a better reaction immediately on Wednesday,” Marcel Hartel wondered. “We have to show a better direction, 100 percent, we have to go for it and try to find a solution.”
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