ST. LOUIS - Nearly three months after their 2024 MLS season came to an end, St. Louis City SC got back to work last week at their training campus just south of the newly named Energizer Park. The team was greeted by cold temps, cold training fields, and new head coach Olof Mellberg.
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Mellberg arrived a week before camp was set to start, and got a taste of St. Louis sports on his first night in town.
“[Mellberg] landed and we went straight to a hockey game,” said Lutz Pfannenstiel, who was spotted with Mellberg and City midfielder Eduard Löwen at the January 3 St. Louis Blues game.
“But straight the next day, he went to the office and started to really work on the details of preseason with the coaching staff.”
Early Doors
The preseason started officially on January 13. On Monday, January 20, the team escaped the frigid temps of St. Louis for the sunshine of Bradenton, Florida for a week and a half of training camp, and two preseason friendlies: one against the New England Revolution on January 25, and one against the New York Red Bulls on January 29. Those preseason games won’t be available for streaming.
The Florida preseason camp will include a number of CITY2 players, MLS SuperDraft picks, homegrowns, as well as the City first team, as head coach Olof Mellberg takes the time to assess his new squad. Those CITY2 players, draft picks, or homegrown players that impress the new boss will advance to a second preseason training camp at the Coachella Valley Invitational in California.
City will play three more preseason friendlies in Coachella Valley: February 5 against Real Salt Lake, February 8 against Austin FC, and February 12 facing New York City FC. City then plays a closed-door friendly against the San Jose Earthquakes on February 15, bringing their total of preseason friendlies to six.
Of note, two big contributors for St. Louis City, Tomáš Ostrák and Célio Pompeu, are recovering from long-term injuries suffered last season. Both have been participants in the first week of camp in St. Louis but will be integrated more into team training sessions over the two camps in Florida and California.
Roster Shake-Ups
With City players and new head coach Olof Mellberg putting in the hard yards on the frozen practice fields in the shadow of the St. Louis Wheel and Union Station, Lutz Pfannenstiel and crew were busy with a handful of roster moves over the past week.
First, the outgoings: Nökkvi Thórisson, who played important minutes for St. Louis City during some hard times last summer, has been loaned to Dutch Eredivisie club Sparta Rotterdam, with a purchase option at the end of the loan.
“Having challenged himself and gaining valuable experience here in St. Louis, this loan move presents Nökkvi with a fantastic opportunity to continue his development in a competitive European league,” said Sporting Director Lutz Pfannenstiel. “Sparta Rotterdam, the oldest professional football club in the Netherlands, has a rich history and a strong ambition which makes it an ideal environment for Nökkvi to continue improving as a player.”
Thórisson has been a controversial figure to many fans since his arrival, but perhaps too many expectations were put on those in the 2023 team that broke MLS records for an expansion franchise.
Nökkvi has shown the ability to be in the right places at the right times, collecting five goals in limited playing time, usually as a substitute. With last summer’s additions, and the likes of Tomáš Ostrák and Célio Pompeu recovering from injury, there wouldn’t be much playing time for Thórisson if he hung around.
St. Louis City’s first-ever MLS signing was Selmir Pidro, a Bosnian left back who was playing for FK Sarajevo in the Bosnian first division when signed by City in 2022. During the first week of camp, the team announced Pidro would be returning to Bosnia, on loan to FK Velež Mostar through June.
“We wish Selmir the best of luck in his home country,” said Sporting Director Lutz Pfannenstiel. “This move will hopefully set him up for success and allow him to get invaluable playing time and experience in a competitive league where he has already had a lot of success in his career.”
Since his 2022 signing, Pidro made two MLS appearances as a substitute (in the span of one week in 2023 when the team was figuring out just who would play left back), and started two US Open Cup matches. Pidro was then loaned to Czech outfit FC Zlín for a year and was demoted to CITY2 upon his return last summer.
In a perfect world, Selmir Pidro would have been the left back St. Louis City spent the next year and a half looking for, and a Bosnian who could represent the city’s large Bosnian population with pride. That perfect world never materialized for City or Pidro. While Selmir’s loan is a short-term loan through June, it is likely that he will be sold on to a new club this summer.
It was pretty much assumed by those who follow St. Louis City that Thórisson and Pidro were on their way out, but last week’s incoming loan signing could be seen as the first piece Olof Mellberg felt the team needed.
City acquired engine room extraordinaire Conrad Wallem from SK Slavia Prague on loan for the 2025 MLS season, with a purchase option for the future. Wallem, 24, has played in the UEFA Europa League with Slavia Prague and has tallied nine goals and nine assists in 47 matches with the Czech giants.
“A versatile player like Conrad, who can play on both sides of the field, will make us a better team,” said Sporting Director Lutz Pfannenstiel. “He is a talented player that was coveted by multiple teams in Europe because of his ability to play multiple positions. A dynamic player who can play wingback or winger will give us options within the team. He is a threat high up on the field and can be an asset to the defensive side of the ball.”
As Pfannenstiel alludes to, Wallem is a midfielder but much more than that, with talent on both sides of the ball. That gives St. Louis City, and Olof Mellberg, positional flexibility. Mellberg likes to play with wingbacks and three defenders holding down the fort, and Wallem can slot in as a wingback on the left, opposite of Tomas Totland on the right.
At the risk of cranking up the hype machine, Wallem is a very talented player who should start in this St. Louis team, either as a wingback or a winger, or even potentially in central midfield.
Meet The New Boss
Conrad Wallem, like everyone in City-branded Adidas training gear, will be sweating it out in preseason to impress new boss Olof Mellberg. It’s the first preseason camp in St. Louis City history without Bradley Carnell at the helm following his midseason dismissal in 2024.
A new man in charge, but no plans to rethink City’s playing philosophy, according to Lutz Pfannenstiel, speaking at the team’s camp-opening press conference. Instead, the vision for the club is to achieve a sort of “City 2.0”, building on their established principles.
“We will not change our style, we will not change our philosophy,” said Pfannenstiel. “We want to have our style 2.0, which means we want to be better with the ball. We want to involve our playing style, but we want to get better every year.”
“I think that’s where [Mellberg] as a central defender comes in, I think we want to tighten up our defense, but most importantly get better with the ball, play some attractive football, and that’s why I think we made a good choice with Olof Mellberg… Olof played the football in Sweden that we want to play.”
Some may question Olof Mellberg’s lack of MLS experience, as MLS is a soccer league that is very different from most top level leagues around the globe. Pfannenstiel and City General Manager Diego Gigliani dismissed those doubts at their season opening press conference.
“I think we have enough people in our staff that have a lot of MLS experience,” Pfannenstiel explained. “It’s not that we have a completely new coaching team with five or six guys who’ve never visited the United States before.”
“We have lots of people who’ve worked in the league for many years, even in the double digits. [That experience] is one thing when it comes to traveling, when it comes to preparing, when it comes to different climates, different time zones, but that’s not rocket science. We want to have a coach who makes us better as a team, and I don’t think MLS experience is the key for that.”
Gigliani expanded further, saying the St. Louis City front office examined data to find if there was any proven difference between coaches that come to MLS with or without experience in the league. Per Gigliani, “There really isn’t”.
“It becomes a matter of [a team] thinking short term, medium or long term,” Gigliani continued. “In the short term, it’s probably likely that someone who knows the league will have some advantages. But we’re making decisions for the medium term and the long term versus the short term.
“We had the benefit of time to run [the hiring] process better than most teams can do when they need to replace the head coach. We were able to consult a database of 25,000 head coaches around the world. Once we decided that MLS experience wasn’t a requirement, we’re able to cast a wider net.”
Gigliani continued to elaborate on the data-driven process that led City to Olof Mellberg.
“We were able to start filtering by things like experience level, number of years (coaching), the ability to add value to their team, the ability to get better results than the quality of team they’ve been given, their win ratios, their ability to win trophies or achieve promotion. We’re able to look at game model stats, expected goals for and against, and we really went deep into defining through data who we were trying to find, and using that data to source candidates we might have missed otherwise.”
“It was really great being able to combine the use of data with the obviously incredible knowledge on the sporting side from Lutz, who has an incredible network and familiarity with head coaches all over the world.”
Indiana Vassilev, US International
St. Louis City’s charismatic locker room leader Indiana Vassilev joined the team in training camp in Florida this week a bit late, as Vassilev was called into international duty by US National Team head coach Mauricio Pochettino.
Five years after breaking onto the scene in England as an 18-year-old playing for Aston Villa, Vassilev earned his first senior international caps for the US, coming on as a substitute in a 3-1 win over Venezuela on January 18 and playing about 70 minutes as a starter in a 3-0 win over Costa Rica on January 22.
“I’m so happy with him,” said Mauricio Pochettino on Indy Vassilev. “He’s doing well.”
Vassilev was a split-second from a first international goal in the game against Costa Rica, but the ball was cleared just before it fell to his feet off the rebound of a US shot on goal.
“It’s a big opportunity for us,” said Vassilev during media availability while on international duty. “The goal of this camp (for the US team) was to see the whole player pool, see who they like, see who’s going to be able to help in the future.”
CITY2 Update
It’s not just the City first team answering to a new head coach this preseason, the MLS NEXT Pro team, CITY2, will now be led by David Critchley, after previous head coach Bobby Murphy took a head coaching job with USL League One side Portland Hearts Of Pine.
Joining Critchley as an assistant on the CITY2 staff is former Chicago Fire and LA Galaxy stalwart Baggio Hušidic, who retired with 154 MLS appearances.
“Baggio’s wealth of playing experience, especially in MLS, will be invaluable as we continue to develop our players at CITY2,” said CITY2 head coach David Critchley. “We have an exciting season ahead, and a good group of staff and players who I believe will help us achieve our goals this season."
CITY2 also made an addition on the field, signing 20-year-old Jaziel Orozco to an MLS NEXT Pro contract for 2025. Orozco, a Mexican American defender, last played for Larne FC in Northern Ireland, on loan from Real Salt Lake.
Orozco made his MLS debut with RSL in 2022 at just 18 years old, and bolsters the defense of a CITY2 team that made the MLS NEXT Pro Final last season.
“Jaziel is a composed defender with excellent game awareness and a fearless approach to defending,” said David Critchley.. “He possesses all the qualities we value bravery, tactical intelligence, and technical ability. His experience at both the domestic and international level will bring a strong, competitive edge to our team as we continue to build toward success.”
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