As we get ready for the 2023 MLS season to kick off we’ve all got sugarplum fairies dancing in our heads, but the preseason pundit predictions have started to roll in and the picture they’re painting may not jive with our dreams of glory. That’s ok. We have to remember we are an expansion team and there are a lot of questions to be answered about this team that’s been assembled from scratch. We won’t know for a while how it’ll all shake out, but it doesn’t mean you’re a bad fan if you also have some doubts. Our friend Chris Dollenmeyer puts on his skeptic hat and looks at what could go wrong. Don’t hate, but check out what he’s saying. Keep an eye on these things as the season unfolds. These will be some of the things that determine how successful CITY will be in their first season. -Brad
I’ve learned with many (many) years of supporting different sports teams throughout my lifetime that having low expectations is always the way to approach things. Less disappointment and all that, right? So as St. Louis City’s first MLS season nears, excitement is through the roof in the STL soccer community. People are mentioning playoffs as a possibility in year 1 – even though MLS may or may not be revamping the format less than 2 weeks before the start of the season. So before I (or you) get too caught up in the excitement and optimism, I thought a healthy dose of skepticism might be in order. For all of us.
Let’s start at the top. Lutz Pfannenstiel was hired with little knowledge of the current MLS despite his well-recounted world travels in his goalkeeping career. And while the game on the field can vary in style from country to country, MLS’s roster rules provide a whole different learning curve for assembling the most competitive team possible. It’s nearly impossible to keep up with the ever-changing salary dynamics, discovery rights, Garber bucks, U-22 initiatives… you get the idea. Most top execs in the league – Garth Lagerway (formerly Seattle, now Atlanta) and Ernst Tanner (Philadelphia), for example – are very familiar with the challenges this provides and have found strategies to maximize the talent on their rosters. Hopefully he’s figured it out in record time.
Lutz’s first big move was hiring Bradley Carnell as head coach. Coach Carnell has 14 games of head coaching experience as a professional. I know. Every great coach has started their career having no experience. But we also know that out of 10 coaches given their big break, at least 8 or 9 don’t tend to get it right the first time. Bill Belichek is the first example that comes to mind in American Football. That first stint with the Cleveland Browns was horrendous. So will Carnell be the exception that is successful with his first big coaching gig?
On the plus side, Lutz and Bradley seem to have a very good joint vision of the style of play they want for City. The next question mark though, is this: How effective will this style be in MLS? High energy, constant pressing in the way they want it played can work great. Until it doesn’t and the opponent finds their way through with calm passing and good movement off the ball. And then you end up with opponents in 4 v 2 situations. We saw the defense shattered occasionally last season with City 2. When it was bad, it was 4 or 5 goals worth of bad. And we are playing against far better competitions now than at the Next Pro level.
Had enough yet? I hope not. Now we get to the roster! Are Carnell and Pfannenstiel good at evaluating talent to fit their system? We sure hope so. We’ve seen a theme with many of these signings – guys either Carnell or Pfannenstiel coached or recruited at a prior club that never quite made it. I find that a bit worrying. So in the event things don’t pan out as expected, here’s some places we could be hurting at each level of the field:
Forward: Where will the goals come from? Klauss is a big fast guy. We saw him dominate in a short run-out against 19 year olds in Next Pro. He’s bounced around on various loan spells with middling success. Behind him, we have a 22 year old and 24 year old with a combined zero top-division goals. Yes, Gioacchini has put the ball in the net a few times for the USMNT and for 2nd division sides in France. Adeniran was a beast in USL last season. But zero first-tier league goals between them. And MLS experience totalling 6 games. Oh, and a very talented 15 year old is next man up after them.
Attacking midfield/wingers: There’s a lot of bodies here for likely 3 starting spots. We have the European contingent (Alm, Jensen, Ostrak), the City 2 guys (Watts, Pompeu), and the other new American guys (Jackson, Stroud, Vassilev). Stroud and Vassilev have combined for 92 MLS matches played… and 6 goals between them. Stroud fell out of favor with Austin, who after benching him, made a run to the Western Conference finals last season. Fair or not, that’s how it went last year. Most of us haven’t watched much of the European footy from Sweden or Denmark to know much about Alm or Jensen before their arrival here. And Ostrak… fell out of favor at Koln before joining City and spending time with City 2. We all enjoyed Watts and Pompeu with City 2 last season. Both are versatile, but this year will be a big step up that I’m not convinced either is ready for. Hopefully someone, or rather, 3 someones, emerge from the morass to help this attack succeed.
Defensive midfield: BLOM! Yes, it’s gotten to be a bit of a joke on STL soccer social media pages, but the kid looks like a serious player. The caveat: he’s coming from a league that is comparable to the lesser teams in USL Championship or the better clubs in USL League 1 in the United States or the 3rd Bundesliga in Germany. And that’s being generous to the South African league. We expect Blom to start alongside Edu Lowen, who we are told is maybe a 6, maybe more of an 8, but wears number 10. I’ve watched enough soccer in many leagues to know that if one of these 2 isn’t cleaning up potential messes in front of the center backs, we will allow a ton of goals. Behind them is Max Schneider who still isn’t healthy and… no one else, apparently. Maybe one of the above guys (Vassilev and Watts seem most likely) gets moved farther back in the formation. Maybe a center back gets moved up the formation. An injury to one of these guys could be devastating.
Defense: I was a lot less anxious about this group. Until Nilsson’s was announced to be out until at least May and Bell wasn’t cleared for game action until late in the preseason. However, this is the one part of the team that boasts significant MLS experience. We have 2 guys (Parker and Nerwinsk) with significant MLS experience and 2 more with at least a handful of MLS starts between them (Nelson and Bell). So that with Bell not fully match fit, it leaves us with 2 options to start alongside Parker at CB. Josh Yaro and Kyle Heibert were fantastic with the City 2 squad last year. One or both should be able to hold down the fort until we get more healthy. Left back is up for grabs, and hopefully either Pidro or Nelson can give us consistent threat offensively and scramble back defensively. The other concern here is the 2nd right back. Nerwinski should be fine, but when he needs subbed off or has a day off, are we really starting Owen O’Malley straight out of college, where he was a winger? That seems to be the plan. Blom also has experience at RB, but defensive mid is already a thin position, so that doesn’t seem the wisest move. It’s a long season, and I only hope Nerwinski and Parker don’t miss extended time with injuries. It wouldn’t be pretty.
Goal Keeper: Let me say first that I’ve watched nearly every Dortmund match for the last 6 years. I saw some spectacular performances from Roman Burki. He was fantastic for several seasons. I also watched the wheels slowly fall off. Was it confidence? Was his skill already in decline? Was the defense in front of him just that bad? Probably a little bit of all 3. But I can tell you with certainty that in the last 30 games he played for BVB, rarely did a match go by in which Burki didn’t make at least one jaw-dropping mistake, be it with his feet or hands. He was benched for half of one year for journeyman Marwin Hitz and then sat behind Gregor Kobel for another season before finally being allowed to leave. So we have a keeper who was becoming more mistake prone, who hasn’t really played in competitive matches for nearly 2 years at a high level. And we are paying him more than any GK in MLS. I hope we see the old Burki bounce back. But this is the defining move for Pfannenstiel’s STL City roster build. And I’m going to keep my confidence in check about that until I see otherwise.
So there you have it. All the skepticism you need to head into the MLS season with your expectations at a healthy, low level. This team may have some wild swings in games, and will definitely have our hearts racing in both positive and negative ways this season. Here’s to hoping more of them are positive.
Chris Dollenmeyer
Really enjoyed reading this article. Thank you.