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Goals and a clean sheet for the goalkeeper: STL Soccer Talk

St. Louis City SC beat writer Tom Timmermann and co-host Beth O'Malley talk about the team's 3-0 win over the Los Angeles Galaxy, where City finally scored a goal (three!), and goalkeeper Roman Burki stood on his head to preserve a three-game clean sheet record.

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Hochman: Is St. Louis City SC good? Glimpses of greatness so far, notably vs. LA Galaxy

City SC hosts Colorado Rapids — City SC head coach Olof Mellberg motions to players on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025, in the first half of the home opener against Colorado at Energizer Park.
Christian Gooden, Post-Dispatch

A once-familiar feeling is seeping through from the sepia-toned good ol’ days of, well, 2023.

It’s a feeling of (cautious) optimism.

City SC’s fans felt it during the start of the inaugural season, when City took over the city, and Major League Soccer, by winning its first five games.

But since the 2023 playoff failure — and last season’s debacle — hope’s been on a downward slope.

But three games into 2025, there should be — again, cautious — optimism. No one is saying this team will win the MLS championship. But owner Carolyn Kindle’s declaration to the Post-Dispatch — “We will make the playoffs” — sure seems reasonable.

City tied its first two games, both 0-0. The second match, against upstart San Diego, was rough. But on this past Sunday, St. Louis played a brilliant brand of soccer for, at least, three-fourths of the game. It was a statement win — a statement both to the fans of City and the fans of MLS (and, really, a statement to City players themselves and to the other teams in MLS).

St. Louis — 3

Defending champion LA Galaxy — 0

In LA!

Sure, yes, LA was missing three key players from last year’s title team. But there still were numerous stars and standouts out there. And City smothered them.

St. Louis now has points in all three games. And it is the only team with clean sheets in all three games.

“It’s early in the season, it’s a new coach (in Olof Mellberg), new coaching staff, new ideas,” City SC forward Cedric Teuchert said. “But I think it’s getting better and better. So I think the win was very important for the team. ...

“I think the momentum is on our side. Three-zero away win in LA, three clean sheets. And we keep building in the in the training (sessions). And I think Seattle is a strong appointment. I think we are prepared for the next game (Saturday at Energizer Park), and with our fans too, we are going hard for the next win.”

Much is made about goalie Roman Burki, who, strictly in MLS terms, is as respected a sports wall as Pittsburgh’s Steel Curtain or Boston’s Green Monster. Burki saved the day Sunday with his saves, but credit Teuchert, Klauss and Marcel Hartel with their forward-thinking play in space.

And, of course, their big play.

So City led 1-0 to start the second half — but four minutes in, the boys doubled their lead.

Oh, it was beautiful!

Near midfield in transition, Hartel tapped a pass to Klauss — who one-timed it back to Hartel.

This unlocked the opportunity.

Suddenly, space.

Hartel to Teuchert on the left wing ... who one-timed it toward Hartel at the top of the penalty box. Sprinting hard, Hartel tapped the ball ahead and then unleashed a left-foot strike for a goal.

Three players, six total touches, more than half the field covered.

“We enjoy to play together,” Teuchert said of the trio. “So the coach says to us, ‘Feel free in the offense, but stay compact in the defense.’ And I think today we show it. ... And I think in each week it gets better and better.”

Hartel hardly was a presence in San Diego. But he was omnipresent in LA.

In fact, check this out: He ran for a total of 7.9 miles in the LA game, per Apple TV+. That’s, um, a lot of running.

“And first of all, it was nice to see him play, because he had a little bit of a stomach bug (Saturday),” Mellberg said postgame of the midfielder. “He was struggling little bit at night, so we were not sure if he was going to be ready to play. But yeah, for sure he was.

“We found him more often today, I think, when he’s dropping down or finding that the space between the defense and the midfield of the opponent. And he’s also putting the in the work. So we did well. We struggled defensively in the first 15-20 minutes on the second half, and then we changed around a little bit, and he played a little bit more to the left — and did really well defensively there as well.”

Quite simply, the team looked like a team. There was cohesion and connection. Again, it wasn’t a 90-minute work of art. And the Galaxy had a couple how-did-they-not-score-there moments. But overall, City dominated a quality opponent on the road. As St. Louisan Taylor Twellman, a former MLS MVP, said on the Apple broadcast, City played with a “purpose” and with a “confidence” he saw in the players coming off the bus.

So yeah, Saturday night should be fun. The place should be packed full of (cautious) optimism.

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A breakthrough performance: STL Soccer Talk

St. Louis City SC’s offense clicks, but it’s Burki’s saves that set up team’s 1st win

Coaches may change at St. Louis City SC, formations may change, the attackers may change, but through three seasons, there has been one constant for the club, one person who has gotten them out of more tight spaces than anyone else with the club: goalkeeper Roman Burki.

In the team’s first two games of this season, it didn’t need Burki too much as the defense allowed only one shot on goal. But when the Los Angeles Galaxy turned up the heat in the first half Sunday in Carson, California, Burki took over. He had eight saves overall, but it was the ones in the first half, when the game was 0-0 and could swing in either direction, that stood out.

“What an amazing game,” said City SC coach Olof Mellberg. “He kept us in the game.”

“That’s why he’s the best goalkeeper in the league,” said forward Cedric Teuchert.

Burki was diving, punching, parrying as City SC’s defense allowed more chances than it had in the previous two games but still came away with its third shutout in three games. Teuchert had a goal and an assist, getting the season’s first goal and setting up Marcel Hartel for the second, and then Simon Becher scored a late goal as City SC beat the defending MLS Cup champion Galaxy 3-0 at Dignity Health ��Ƶ Park. The Galaxy became the first defending MLS Cup champ to lose its first three games of the following season.

All of a sudden, City SC, which had left some questions unanswered about how the team’s rebuilding was going after two ties to start the season, is unbeaten in three games. It is the only team in the league yet to allow a goal and is one of eight teams, four in each conference, yet to lose. Also, it got its first win on the road, and did it in March, six months earlier than it did last season and became just the 11th team in MLS history to start the season with three shutouts and just the fifth in the last decade.

And while its possession stats were every bit as bad as they were the previous week, they did way more with the chances they had and, if not for some sloppy finishing, would have had even more.

“We had our chances as well,” Mellberg said. “We probably should have scored at least one more goal in the in the first half. We had a lot of half-chances as well when we went on the break. We lacked that quality in the final pass and the finish on a couple of occasions.”

Burki did not lack quality. City SC had most of the chances in the first 22 minutes, but when Teuchert couldn’t finish a nice feed from Hartel and shot into the outside of the net, it turned around. Suddenly, the Galaxy were constantly in front of City SC’s goal, and in the 24th minute, Marco Reus, a former teammate of Burki’s from Borussia Dortmund in Germany, took a shot that required a diving save from Burki, tipping the ball off the post.

Burki punched away a corner kick in the 33rd minute and extended his right arm in the 34th minute to make a reaction save on Christian Ramirez. All of those had the potential to put the Galaxy ahead.

“Amazing,” Teuchert said. “I don’t think he made a single mistake. Quite a lot of shots on goal, and he managed to hold most of them strong in the air and was good on the ball. So top, top performance.”

But to avoid another 0-0 tie, City SCs offense had to do something, and it did. With a beaten down Galaxy roster that already had key players hurt and played a game in Costa Rica on Wednesday, City SC attacked from the start and nearly scored a few times. The team’s first goal of the season finally came in the 44th minute, off a corner kick by Hartel. He put the ball amid a cluster of Galaxy players, who pretty much got in each other’s way. Goalkeeper Novak Micovic could not get hold of it and ball bounced off Klauss and Henry Kessler (who got his first MLS assist, in his 109th game) before coming to Teuchert. From five yards out with an open net in front of him, he drove it in.

“I think it was one of my easiest goals in my career,” Teuchert said. “But I think for us as a team, we need sometimes goals like this. I’m very happy to score the first goal of the season for our for our team, and I think it was a very deserved win.”

City SC almost got another goal before the half but Tomas Totland missed from close range but got it four minutes into the second half, where Klauss fed Teuchert, who fed a sprinting Hartel who shot from an ever-tightening angle and roofed it to make it 2-0. Becher scored in the 84th minute to seal it as the three attacking players the team picked up last summer all scored. Teuchert had five goals after joining the team, Becher had four and Hartel had three and now they all have one on this season’s ledger. Last season, the three combined for 29 goal contributions, and none of them played in more than 10 MLS games.

“We’ve been working during the week on our focus,” Mellberg said, “a lot on our own game and our quality on the ball, especially under variation, trying to be direct at times, looking for the ball in behind but also have a little bit more possession attacks.

“I liked our positioning. I thought we looked really dangerous. I was just hoping for us to be able to put three or four good passes together and we were dangerous. We had our one-versus-one situations, our two-versus-two situations. I was really happy with the way we looked formation wise, and added a little bit more quality today, especially in the final third. Some great finishing for the goals.”

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