There’s added intrigue to this weekend’s St. Louis City SC fixture as the club travels to Philadelphia to face the Union. Saturday evening’s match is the first time the team will face a pair of familiar faces in former manager Bradley Carnell and Indiana Vassilev. It’s set to be a tactical battle as Carnell’s aggressive pressing squares off against Olof Mellberg’s resilient defense.
League Leaders Square Off
Carnell’s Union have been one of the best teams in MLS through four weeks, boasting an impressive 3-0-1 record; building one of the league’s top attacks and the establishing themselves as second highest pressing side in the league. Philadelphia has scored more goals (11) than any other MLS team this season. They are also leading in expected goals (xG) and sit third in the Supporters Shield standings.
Mellberg’s St. Louis side aren’t a pushover though. St. Louis’ defense is tops in the league as they are the only club yet to concede a goal. City sits on 8 points with a record of 2-2-0 which includes back-to-back wins over Los Angeles and Seattle. While City are still figuring out how to hit full gear in the final third, the club sits just 68 minutes from setting the record for longest streak of play without conceding a goal to start a season in MLS history.
Who’s In? Who’s Out?
For just the second time this season, City will face a team on full rest. That doesn’t mean Union will be at full power, however. Leading scorer Tai Baribo, who has 6 goals through four games, joins Dániel Gazdag, Andre Blake, Danley Jean-Jacques and Jesús Bueno in the list of players called to their respective national teams during this international window. Olwethu Makhanya will also miss the match as he serves a suspension for a red card issued in their 3-1 loss to Nashville SC last weekend.
Expect to see Bruno Damiani step into the leading role on the attack for Union. The clubs’ record signing has one goal this season after joining from Nacional for a reported $3.4M fee in February. The rest of Carnell’s 4-2-2-2 should include Kai Wagner, Quinn Sullivan, Jovan Lukić, Mikael Uhre and Francis Westfield. In terms of tactics, Carnell seems to employ a similar style as he did in St. Louis. A high pressing defense with an offense that looks to take advantage of width through wing backs but tends to also play direct to goal with long balls trying to send strikers in behind defensive lines. Union have attempted the 8th most long passes this season with 305 and are 5th in aerial duels won which is reflective of a desire to play those long passes; looking for forwards to win the battles and link up with other players running off them in the attack.
As we know from his time with City, Carnell is not afraid to have his players press relentlessly. Which means St. Louis will likely need to remain composed in those moments; a challenge Mellberg says they are ready for. “We have looked at the way they press and I’m sure they will adapt a little bit to the way we play,” he told reporters Friday. “We have been looking at ways to effectively play out of that press.”
St. Louis will be making some adjustments to their squad as well due to recent injuries. Roman Bürki will be out for a month after suffering a fracture in his hand during training last week. Tomas Totland is expected to miss about the same length of time after pulling a hamstring in the victory against Seattle. The club is also expected to be without Rasmus Alm, Jay Reid and Jake Girwood Reich who continue to recover from preseason injuries.
I don’t expect a massive shift from Mellberg tactically, but I think we’ll see a few changes in the squad. The injury to Totland may mean we could see some rotation on the backline from Mellberg based on his comments on Friday. “With Tomas getting injured we don’t have that much depth in the wing back positions, whilst we have more depth in the center back positions. So that’s obviously something that we’re looking at; how we can add quality to the squad.”
Does that mean he’s open to moving Conrad Wallem to the right, Jannes Horn to the left wing back and bringing in another center back? Maybe. With Joakim Nilsson, Timo Bamgartl and Josh Yaro all available, it’s a possibility. But I don’t think we get that much of a change in this one.
Starting XI and Prediction
I think this match up calls for the return of a two striker look for City. St. Louis can look to take advantage of a high press and send balls forward to Klauss who can take advantage of a Union team that’s lost nearly half of its’ aerial duels. I think Teuchert will slide along slide or just underneath him to make runs with Marcel Hartel to stretch to Philadelphia backline. Speaking of defenses, I think that’s where we see the other small change. I think consistency is the name of the game for Mellberg’s defense, so I’m slotting Akil Watts in and RWB and keeping the rest of the defense unchanged.
When it comes to the result, I’ve had a hard time coming to a decision. When I appeared on Top Corner Talk earlier this week I called for a 1-1 draw. Oscar Rojas made a great case for there to be more optimism heading into the away day arguing that we could capitalize on spaces Philadelphia will give us and find goals. After taking a few days to reflect, I’m calling an audible and going with a 2-1 City win with Klauss and Hartel netting the goals.
City’s match against the Union kicks off at 6:30 p.m. CST at Subaru Park in Chester, Pennsylvania.
As always, thanks for reading! Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions with me in the comments here or find me on X or Bluesky.
Taking his passion for soccer and St. Louis to the next level, Jeremy aims to provide analytical coverage of all this St. Louis City SC.
