SAINT PAUL, Minn. - St. Louis City SC went into the 2024 Major League Soccer season with expectations of reaching the playoffs and righting the wrongs of 2023. Instead, poor play, a rash of injuries, and a lack of points from a combination of the two saw St. Louis spend most of the 2024 season dwelling in the cellar of the MLS Western Conference.
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Saturday night, City made their final stop on their 2024 tour when they took on Minnesota United in Saint Paul. City SC, long eliminated from playoff contention, looked listless and never posed much of a threat in a 4-1 defeat to close out the season.
“We haven't been good on the road,” said interim St. Louis City head coach John Hackworth. “We're here yet again, and it's not the way we wanted to end our season in any way, shape or form.”
Hackworth picked about as strong a City team as possible, with Chris Durkin kept off the team sheet as the team looked to be cautious with his injury in a largely pointless game. Akil Watts once again started in his stead in central midfield.
Hackworth went with two attackers from the outset, with both Joao Klauss and Simon Becher getting starts Saturday night. Despite that, City failed to create much of anything offensively until it was too late.
Referee Lukasz Szpala was called over to the VAR monitor less than five minutes after kickoff, with Henry Kessler taking down MUFC striker Kelvin Yeboah in the box. Szpala took a look at the foul for nearly four minutes, and ultimately decided there was no penalty by Henry Kessler on the play.
From the outset, it was clear Minnesota United was playing for something, and St. Louis City simply was not. Minnesota was by far the more dangerous team all night, but especially in the first half, constantly threatening Roman Bürki’s goal and breaching the City back line.
In the 21st minute, the Loons’ pressure finally told, and Robin Lod opened the scoring for Minnesota, timing his run perfectly to split the City backline and run onto a pass from Kelvin Yeboah before beating Roman Bürki to his right.
City’s best chance of the first half was probably an attempted pass rather than a shot when Cedric Teuchert curled a ball in from the right wing that eluded MUFC keeper Dayne St. Clair. Teuchert’s cross smashed off the post and out, but there were no City Confluence Kits in the vicinity of the loose ball to convert.
The first half attacking numbers were not pretty. City didn’t pose a real threat to the Minnesota defense, totalling a 0.14 xG (expected goals, a metric of attacking danger) and their only shots on target were rather tame.
City did have much more possession thanks to the Loons’ defensive structure. The hosts sat back, and forced a City team that’s better moving forward to prod around and look for an opening.
Minnesota scored their second in the 72nd with a nice bit of interplay that hung the St. Louis defense out to dry. Substitute attacker Sang Bin Jeong ran onto a squared pass from Franco Fragapane to close off the move and give MUFC a two-goal lead that felt like a clincher when it went in.
Marcel Hartel tried to convince otherwise just three minutes later, when a City counter attack saw Hartel play an outlet pass to Joao Klauss running into space on the left wing. Klauss picked his head up and chipped a pass back in the path of Hartel, running into the top of the penalty area.
Hartel hit a shot with his right foot in stride and beat the sprawling Dayne St. Clair, who managed to get a finger on Hartel’s shot, but not enough to keep it out of the net.
That could have been the springboard for a late comeback for City, to go into the offseason with their heads held high. In the 78th minute, a City player scored a goal, but at the wrong end.
Henry Kessler’s attempted clearance of a corner ended up bouncing off the center back’s head and beyond Roman Bürki into the City goal. A deflating goal that restored Minnesota’s two-goal lead, one they’d add to minutes later.
Sloppy defending at the back combined with the fresh legs of Minnesota substitutes created a fourth and final goal allowed on the evening and the 2024 MLS season. Sang Bin Jeong once again slotted home after a teammate, this time, Tanitoluwa Oluwaseyi squared the pass across for Sang Bin Jeong to convert.
Joakim Nillson and Henry Kessler, the presumed starting center back pairing for City moving forward, were beaten rather easily on the break and didn’t offer much challenge to the attack. Minnesota looked likely to add even more, and it took Roman Bürki to keep the scoreline from devolving into something worse.
4-1 the final score at full-time, and it was a performance that didn’t necessarily instill a lot of hope for the future. St. Louis City showed that they’re still a bit of a flawed team, and John Hackworth admitted they were second best on the night.
“It's a tough game to try to really describe, but at the end of the day, we didn't play well enough,” said Hackworth postgame. “You’ve got to give credit to Minnesota. They're a very good team.”
While an ugly scoreline, Hackworth, a self-proclaimed optimist, believes one bad game doesn’t undo the work St. Louis City has done in the past three months or so to turn the page on an ugly start to 2024.
“It's a game of soccer where we didn't play well,” Hackworth explained. “We didn't do what we're supposed to do in a moment… So I don't think we should change all of the positives that we felt about what we’ve done since the start of July, just because we didn't win our last game on the road against a really good team.”
Hackworth brushed aside the idea that the loss will affect any momentum heading into the 2025 campaign.
“I would say we still have lots of momentum going into next year. I think we're going to be a really good team next year. No questions about it.”
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