ST. LOUIS CITY SC v. SEATTLE SOUNDERS FC

Greetings to my brothers and sisters in Green. Sounders FC head to the misery that is Missouri for a Saturday afternoon meet-up with St. Louis City. Apparently St. Louis has scored an own-goal in each of our league fixtures to date. Best guests…evuh.

What: MLS league match, St. Louis City SC v. Seattle Sounders FC.

Where: CityPark, Olive Street, St. Louis, Missouri.

When: 5:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, Saturday 15 March 2025 CE.

At Stake: Points in the league. Determining if we can quickly and successfully adjust to playing without players we’ve lost to injury. A victory likely places us in the top 10. Sounders FC are currently 13th in the league on 4 points.

Where to Watch: Sounders website says MLS Season Pass via Apple TV. livesoccertv.com is in agreement.

Where to Listen: KJR 950 AM and El Rey 1360 AM. It’s an away match, so no alternate audio available. Saints preserve us.

Time to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off. Football waits for no man, or woman, or per– fuck it, forget it. The point is that we must adjust to our losses, both in player attrition and on the scoreboard. It’s time to channel that crankiness from getting jounced out of Champions Cup into psychic fuel for the lads.

Thems that are going to the match, look after yourselves, tie your scarves proper, and be aware that you are diagonally across the street from the local FBI office. Super fun.

For those of us here, gather your mates and rep it hard, whether you be at the pub or someone’s dwelling.

It’s a Saturday matineé in a land that gets barbecue completely right and politics completely wrong. GO ON YOU SOUNDERS!!! GET IN!!!

Before kick-off, please join me in the auld toast: “TO THE SEATTLE SOUNDERS FOOTBALL CLUB…AND VICTORY!!!”

One door closes, another door opens. Or maybe it’s one door closes,

a cab door opens. At any rate, doors are moving. Mend soon, lads.

The Good News

Sounders are scoring two goals per match in all competitions.

Still a lot of available players that can get us a goal. Rothrock, Musovski got one down in Mexico City, Ferreira, Rusnak, and Cristian are all more than capable of puttin’ one in the auld onion bag.

Our defence is still 7th best in the league, that’s not nothin’.

Kalani Kossa-Rienzi got signed to a first-team contract and he scored a goal from the right-back position last Sat against LAFC. The lad seems game to play up.

The Bad News

Gomez Andrade is not available this match, although he’s not injured according to the league’s injury list. I hope it’s just that he’s being rested or his wife’s having a baby and not a matter of in-house discipline, serious illness, or worse, a death in the family. With no transparency, we can only speculate.

We’ve lost Arriola, our first-choice left-forward, likely for the season, as he’s done his knee with the diagnosis being a torn ACL. Baker-Whiting and Morris, our first-choice centre-forward, are nursing hamstring issues, de la Vega, our first choice right-forward, has a quadriceps issue, and the timetable for their return to fitness is not yet known. This is very bad news. Not insurmountable news, but we must chuff up the lads and hope that the understudies remember their lines when the curtain is raised.

St. Louis are unbeaten this season in the league and feature the league’s best defence. They have yet to concede a goal in three league matches.

St. Louis, though seeing nothing but success at the moment, had been struggling to score goals, although they remedied this with three away goals whilst posting a clean sheet against LA Galaxy at Avalon Boulevard on Sunday.

The Side I Would Select

With Morris, Arriola, de la Vega, and Baker-Whiting out due to injury, I’d have this lot:

GK     Frei

LB     Nouhou

LCH    Ragen

RCH    Bell

RB       Alex

LDM    Vargas

RDM   Cristian

LF     Rothrock

CAM   Ferreira

RF     Minoungou

CF     Musovski

The Side I Think The Gaffer Will Select

I’d be surprised if it’s anything other than this:

GK     Frei

LB     Nouhou

LCH    Ragen

RCH    Bell

RB     Alex

LDM   Vargas

RDM   Joao Paulo

LF     Rothrock

CAM   Rusnak

RF     Cristian

CF     Musovski

Intangibles

Officiating.

Fotis Bazakos will be the Referee for Saturday’s match.

St. Louis record with Bazakos as Ref: 1-0-0

Sounders FC record with Bazakos as Ref: 4-3-2

Form.

Including pre-season, St. Louis has only lost two of nine (3-4-2). They’re 2-2-1 in their last five. Sounders just crashed out of the CONCACAF Champions Cup, and are 2-1-2 in their last five.

Morale.

St. Louis have the best defence in the league and have yet to lose a match or concede a goal. Sounders were just on the shite end of a 4:1 thrashing in Mexico where two of ours went down injured.

General notes on personnel

St. Louis transfers IN:

Baumgartl (Schalke 04) free

Wallem (SK Slavia Prague) loan

Morales (San Jose) free

Zalinsky - draft

St. Louis transfers OUT:
Klein (Charleston Battery) free

Nerwinski - released

Kijima (San Diego FC) expansion draft 

Thorisson (Sparta Rotterdam) loan

Pidro (FK Velez Mostar) loan

Vassilev (Philadelphia Union) €955,000

Comparison against common opponents

RSL 1:1 STL pre-season

RSL 2:0 SEA MLS

Know Thine Enemy

St. Louis as they lined up against LA Galaxy in their 0:3 victory at Avalon Boulevard on 9 March.

GOALKEEPER

Roman Burki, 34

Switzerland (9/0)

Notable Clubs: BSC Young Boys (2/0), FC Thun (4/0), FC Schaffhausen (9/0), Grasshoppers (110/0), SC Freiberg (34/0), Borussia Dortmund (176/0), St. Louis City SC (68/0)

Estimated Transfer Value: €2M

Notes: Developed by FC Munsingen and BSC Young Boys. Won a Swiss Cup with Grasshoppers. Won two DFB Pokal and a DFB Supercup with Borussia Dortmund. Named to MLS Best XI 2023. Named MLS Goalkeeper of the Year 2023.

DEFENCE

Conrad Wallem, 24

Norway

Notable Clubs: Tonsberg (40/11), Odd (71/8), Slavia Prague (31/6), St. Louis City SC (3/0)

Estimated Transfer Value: €2.2M

Notes: Developed by Husoy & Foynland, Notteroy, and Tonsberg.

Kyle Hiebert, 27

Canada (2/0)

Notable Clubs: St. Louis City SC (50/2)

Estimated Transfer Value: €1.5M

Notes: Developed by Linden Woods SC and WSA Winnipeg. Played his university football for Missouri State Bears (88/6).

Henry Kessler, 26

United States (2/0)

Notable Clubs: New England Revolution (98/4), St. Louis City SC (11/1)

Estimated Transfer Value: €2.5M

Notes: Developed by New York RB and Beachside SC. Played his university football for Virginia (52/1). Won a MLS league title with New England. Won a CONCACAF Gold Cup with United States.

Tomas Totland, 25

Norway

Notable Clubs: Sogndal (72/7), Tromso (27/5), Hacken (44/1), St. Louis City SC (33/2)

Estimated Transfer Value: €1.5M

Notes: Developed by Fana. Won a Swedish league title with Hacken.

MIDFIELD

Chris Durkin, 25

United States

Notable Clubs: DC United (96/5), Sint-Truiden (68/2), St. Louis City SC (30/1)

Estimated Transfer Value: €2M

Notes: Developed by Richmond Kickers and DC United.

Eduard Lowen, 28

Germany

Notable Clubs: FC Nurnberg (65/8), Hertha BSC (14/0), FC Augsberg (16/2), VfL Bochum (26/2), St. Louis City SC (55/11)

Estimated Transfer Value: €5M

Notes: Developed by SV Hottenbach, FC Kaiserslautern, and FC Saarbrucken.

Jannes Horn, 28

Germany

Notable Clubs: VfL Wolfsburg (13/0), 1. FC Koln (69/0), Hannover 96 (21/0), VfL Bochum (2/0), 1. FC Nurnberg (34/0), St. Louis City SC (12/0)

Estimated Transfer Value: €1.5M

Notes: Developed by Rot-Weiss Braunschweig and VfL Wolfsburg. Won a 2. Bundesliga title with Koln.

FORWARD

Marcel Hartel, 29

Germany

Notable Clubs: 1. FC Koln (8/0), Union Berlin (54/4), Arminia Bielefeld (55/1), FC St. Pauli (98/24), St. Louis City SC (12/4)

Estimated Transfer Value: €4.5M

Notes: Developed by SC West Koln and 1. FC Koln. Won a 2. Bundesliga title with Arminia Bielefeld. Won a 2. Bundesliga title with St. Pauli.

Joao Klauss, 28

Brazil

Notable Clubs: HJK Helsinki (33/21), Linzer ASK (42/15), Hoffenheim (4/0), Standard Liege (33/7), Sint-Truiden (8/2), St. Louis City SC (49/15)

Estimated Transfer Value: €3M

Notes: Developed by Internacional (Porto Alegre), Juventude, and Gremio. Won a Finnish league title with HJK Helsinki. Named Finnish League Player of the Year, won the Golden Boot (21 goals), named Striker of the Year, named Breakthrough of the Year, and named to the Finnish League Team of the Year, all in 2018 for HJK  Helsinki.

Cedric Teuchert, 28

Germany

Notable Clubs: 1. FC Nurnberg (41/11), Schalke 04 (9/0), Hannover 96 (93/33), Union Berlin (30/3), St. Louis City SC (13/6)

Estimated Transfer Value: €3.5M

Notes: Developed by DVV Coburg and 1. FC Nurnberg.

Familiar Faces

None.

Squads

St. Louis from:

Burki, Lundt, Olivares, Kessler, Yaro, Hiebert, Nilsson, Totland, Horn, Baumgartl, Zalinsky, Perez, Durkin, Morales, Watts, Celio Pompeu, Ostrak, Lowen, Hartel, Wallem, Becher, Joao Klauss, Glover, Teuchert.

Sounders FC from:

Frei, Thomas, Baker, Bell, Burney, Hawkins, Kim, Kossa-Rienzi, Nouhou, Ragen, Alex, Sousa, Joao Paulo, Leyva, Cristian, Rusnak, Vargas, Ferreira, Minoungou, Musovski, Rothrock.

Injury List

(as listed on mlssoccer.com at press time)

St. Louis -

OUT: Alm (hip), Girdwood-Reich (ankle), Reid (foot), Wentzel (leg).

MATCHDAY DECISION: Nilsson (knee).

Sounders FC -

OUT: Baker-Whiting (hamstring), de la Vega (quadriceps), Morris (hamstring), Arriola (knee), Gomez Andrade (undisclosed).

MATCHDAY DECISION: none.

Discipline

(as listed on mlssoccer.com at press time)

No players suspended from either squad.

Fun Fact

Former University of Washington and Sounders FC Reserves right-back Kalani Kossa-Rienzi was signed to a first-team contract on Monday 10 March. Well done, lad! Welcome to the squad!

Sounders FC Reserves host San Jose Earthquakes Reserves at Starfire on Friday, 14 March at 7 p.m. PDT. Go on lads! Get in!