Football Season Guide

St. Louis City were never expected to return to the heroics of their inaugural season in MLS which saw them crowned Western Conference champions in 2023, but an improvement on the disappointing second year was a realistic goal. Unfortunately for City supporters, 2025 was even worse as the team finished one place lower in 13th and with fewer points. Olof Mellberg had made an impressive start as the new head coach. A highly-regarded centre-back during his playing career, the Swede appeared to instantly improve the defence with clean sheets in the first four games of the season, but it wasn’t sustainable. Uninspiring attacking displays eventually caught up with them and City failed to win any of their next 11 MLS matches, which led the club to pull the plug on Mellberg. David Critchley was promoted from St. Louis City 2 to become interim-manager of the first team for the remainder of the season. The Liverpudlian brought a far more exciting style of play but didn’t deliver results, with 11 losses from his 19 games in charge. A change in the club’s hierarchy saw Corey Wray named as the club’s new sporting director after the departure of Lutz Pfannenstiel. Wray appointed Yoann Damet in what will be his first chance as a permanent head coach. The Frenchman has worked as an assistant to decorated coaches Greg Vanney and Wilfried Nancy – winning MLS Cup and Leagues Cup under the latter at Columbus. Still very much a gamble for a club that has been on a downward trajectory to put their faith in someone so inexperienced. The club spent the offseason clearing out some deadwood. Players who struggled with injuries like Henry Kessler and Rasmus Alm were let go, along with several others who weren’t considered starters. The biggest loss was star striker João Klauss to LA Galaxy. Fans had started to express frustration with some of the Brazilian’s performances, but he still ended the season as top scorer and the club have yet to bring in a replacement. City did a lot of transfer business midway through last season with the likes of Fallou Fall, Sang-bin Jeong and Simon Becher already becoming regulars in the starting lineup. The current window therefore hasn’t seen many arrivals, but almost all of them have previous MLS experience. A lot of St Louis’ potential success will obviously depend on how their best players perform. Club captain Roman Bürki was voted the best goalkeeper in MLS a couple of seasons ago but had a poor year by his standards in 2025. Key midfielder Edu Löwen missed large portions of the campaign due to his wife’s ongoing cancer treatment and he is a huge loss to the team when not on the field. Marcel Hartel often stepped up in Löwen’s absence and should now be viewed as one of the leaders of the team.