Action lines | St. Louis City SC is trendy, but not good

It is time for a marathon in St. Louis and I'm not talking about running 26.2 miles. St. Louis City comes to the city and you stay a little longer than our usual guests (MLS game on Saturday, Usoc on Wednesday), which means that I have to notice several times about these boys in a few days. Unfortunately, they have put together a fairly inconspicuous season so far, but I did my best to summarize everything for the edition of the storylines this week. Let's take a quick look at what is going on in the world's chess capital.

Trend, but not good

I would like to prepare this section by saying that I have a slight personal beef with a city. In their opening season in MLS (2023) I predicted that they would end the last in the league, and I was more than a little cheeky. They went at the head of the Western Conference and although it fell on SKC in the first round of the playoffs, my pride had already scored a goal when the bulletin board, which I had given them, was thrown back in the face. Touché, St. Louis, Touché.

However, I have to be a DJ because these tables just continue to rotate.

In order to paraphrase the legendary Minnesotan Bob Dylan, writers and critics who predict themselves should not speak too early with their pens as soon as they are A-Chang. In their second season, STL missed the playoffs as a whole and this year they will need a serious turn in shape if they want to break this downward trend. Was I wrong in 2023? Perhaps. Or maybe we spoke too early.

Similar to the overall story of her club, head coach Olof Mellberg and his squad began in 2025. They did not allow a single goal in the first four games of the season, and during two of them there were 0-0, they looked as if they were defensive, clever squads of the league. Since then, the numbers have revealed them because they admitted six times in the following four lights and eight in the four afterwards. Only throw in your rivalry against SKC this week and you have now approved 16 goals in 13 games. This number is not far behind the best in the league (Vancouver is at 10), but given the trend at the other end, it is simply not good enough.

When we use the same play blocks to analyze the gates scored by STL, the picture becomes ever darker. After achieving four in the first four years, they only made one goal in the following four games. You have scored six points in the last five points, including a few 2-2 draws that indicate that the only way for this team to score several goals in one game is to be exposed. They did not achieve six occasions at all, they only scored several goals three times in the same game, and their goal difference from -5 only looks good because it sits next to the amazing note of the galaxy at the end of the table.

The trend is clearly down; Can we agree on it? While the availability of the players is part of the picture due to injuries and so on, this does not change reality: this team needs a boost. In my research I found some interesting data points that support my first section and rub a little more. Enjoy these farewell evidence.

While I was looking for trends, I dared to compare Stl's house and away form just to find out that they were exactly the same. Almost scary, actually. Your seven home games went in the following results:

I know this is just a random list, but just wait. Your six away results are as follows:

Either that's cool or I have to go outside more often. Don't tell me that at least you can't find that, light interesting; They are mirror pictures from each other! I would never bet on sports, and I would not advise anyone else … But if I did it, I would bet on a tie this weekend, just because of this anomaly.

Interestingly, the most difficult defeat and their biggest victory from City came to the streets in 2025, which means that they were in their best and worst outside of home. This victory I mentioned was a 3-0 victory against the galaxy, so I don't know that it is really so impressive, but a victory is a victory. Her 4-1 loss against Seattle a few weeks ago felt much more precise to assess her level of threat.

While City is preparing for two Straight games against a team of Minnesota United, which only lost to Allianz Field in 2025, they have to find something special to get something valuable out of this extended journey. Nevertheless, I learned my lesson when I predicted one last place in 2023. I will only make concrete statements after the game and not count anyone.