ST. LOUIS - It's been a rocky month and change for St. Louis City SC. After a promising start to the season on the back of rock-solid defending, goals started to go in the City net, and losses have piled up quickly.
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Olof Mellberg’s men started the season with two wins and two draws without conceding a goal, which was heralded and celebrated by fans and media alike. A different and more cautious approach than the “controlled chaos” City had been used to in the club's first two seasons.
What a difference a month makes. Since that start, City have dropped four straight, including a 2-0 loss on the road in Kansas, handing I-70 rival Sporting Kansas City their lone win of the 2025 season.
Last Sunday's 2-1 defeat against the Columbus Crew at Energizer Park will read as just another tick in the L column in the MLS standings, but was probably the team’s best-played game of 2025. If João Klauss’s late goal that was seemingly wrongly deemed offside would have officially counted, City would have notched a point against one of the best soccer teams in this hemisphere.
Obviously, wins are paramount. On the back of the four-game losing skid, St. Louis City is 12th out of 15 teams in the MLS Western Conference. City head coach Olof Mellberg says the team’s fans, who've stuck by the struggling side, deserve a win on home turf.
“From my perspective, [City fans have] been amazing,” said Mellberg. “The support we have throughout the games has been amazing, and we're obviously not happy with the results of the last few weeks. [City fans] just keep on supporting us. They deserve a win now at home, and we know this, and we're working extremely hard to give them that.”
Mellberg has repeatedly used the term “balance” when describing what it takes for the team to win games. Part of that balance is finding the right spots for players to make an impact.
City fan-favorite and winger Celio Pompeu might have thought he was on the outside looking in of the starting eleven to start the 2025 campaign following his 2024-ending leg injury. In recent times, he’s found a home lining up alongside João Klauss in attack, but playing his natural game on the left wing, running at defenders and whipping in dangerous crosses.
“Some players might have been a little worried about their role in our system when they saw us playing one way, and Celio [Pompeu] was maybe one of them,” Mellberg elaborated Friday afternoon. “But we always adapt to the quality of the individual, and I think the role now for Celio is perfect and exactly the position he likes… He's positive, doing well, and hopefully continues to grow.”
One man who City fans have been wanting to make more of an impact in games this season has been Marcel Hartel. After arriving in St. Louis last summer, Hartel put MLS clubs on notice with eight goal involvements (three goals and five assists) in nine games. In eight games in 2025, Hartel has found the scoresheet just once.
Recently Hartel has found himself playing in Eduard Löwen’s more central midfield role while Löwen is away from the team. It's a deeper role than he's used to in St. Louis, but not one he's unfamiliar with in his career.
“We’re trying to get the most out of [Hartel], he covers a lot of ground,” said Mellberg. “So I think it's possible for him to be part of the build-up and [attacking] in the final third. In the same way we want to use him as best we can in defending.”
“It's a role he played in the past as well, especially towards the end of his last season at St. Pauli [in Germany’s 2. Bundesliga]. He's comfortable playing there.”
In search of a first win in more than a month, City will welcome the best team in MLS to Downtown West on Saturday evening, the Vancouver Whitecaps, who have been one of the league’s biggest surprises in the early stages of the season.
Last week, the Whitecaps dispatched of Austin FC in resounding 5-1 fashion at home at BC Place. Striker Brian White scored four goals, the first player in Vancouver's history to record such a feat.
Vancouver leads MLS in points with 19, and also leads the league in goals with 17 following their five-goal outburst last week.
It's not that Vancouver didn’t have the talent available to be a good team, but they’ve been the best team in MLS without some key players. Ryan Gauld could be one of the best players in the league, and he’s missed significant time due to a knee injury suffered in early March.
Midfielder Sam Adekugbe has been out for just as long with a quad injury. Adekugbe scored twice in Vancouver’s first two games of the season and was proving to be a key figure in the team alongside Gauld and White.
Both Gauld and Adekugbe have been ramping up their recovery, but both are still ruled out in St. Louis Saturday night. Perhaps Whitecaps head coach Jesper Sørensen is keeping them fresh for a big two-legged CONCACAF Champions Cup tie against Inter Miami that starts next Thursday.
St. Louis City welcomed good news from the training ground this week: right wingback Tomas Totland and left wingback/left center back Jannes Horn were back in action and training with the team this week. Olof Mellberg didn't say for sure that the two would be starting, and the team has often taken a cautious approach to bringing back players coming off an injury.
“It's definitely a case-by-case basis,” Mellberg explained on players returning after prolonged injury breaks. “It's close teamwork with the medical staff, and what they think is possible. We talk a lot with them and keep an open mind during the game, depending on what the game looks like for each individual player.”
There still isn't any further update on City's No. 10 Eduard Löwen, and it's seemingly unclear when the club's midfield metronome will return to the team. Löwen left the club to deal with a personal matter following the loss in Philadelphia on March 22, in which he picked up a red card and would have been suspended for the following match.
Captain and keeper Roman Bürki is “getting close”, but is still “a few weeks away” from returning from a fracture in his hand. Bürki was training this week and wearing his goalkeeping gloves for the first time since the injury in early March.
Center back Josh Yaro, who was removed from last Sunday's game after taking a cross to the head and falling rather dramatically to the ground, luckily does not have a concussion from the incident. Team doctors wanted to stay on the safe side and take him out of the game, especially given Yaro’s history of concussions.
Center back Joakim Nilsson isn't being ruled out of Saturday's contest after being subbed off after less than a half hour in City's 2-0 loss in Kansas City.
Other injury/availability notes: midfielder Chris Durkin doesn't require surgery, but needs plenty of time to recover and heal before training again. Jay Reid, who could feature as a wingback for Olof Mellberg, is hopeful to return to training in the next few weeks. Reid underwent foot surgery in the offseason.
Those fit and able will be taking the field at Energizer Park against the MLS leaders Saturday evening, with kickoff set for 7:40 pm. The game is streaming on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, with local radio broadcasts available on KYKY 98.1 FM in English and KXOK 102.9 FM in Spanish.
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