After a turbulent first half of the regular season, St. Louis CITY SC needed to find momentum wherever it could. During the group stage of the Leagues Cup tournament, CITY succeeded in that quest.
Despite losing in penalties to FC Juárez on Sunday, the club emerged from the match with plenty of takeaways from its first two games in the competition. Even amid the loss, there was much to like about St. Louis’ performance, especially as interim head coach John Hackworth rotated the backline and gave backup goalkeeper Ben Lundt a rare start.
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Also on Sunday, Simon Becher scored his first goal since arriving back in St. Louis—one of the obvious highlights of a two-match run that saw each of sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel’s attacking reinforcements make an impact on the scoresheet. The early contributions from Becher, especially, have been a revelation for CITY. Becher’s hold-up play, along with his ability to drop into dangerous spaces and make an impact on set pieces was on display across his first two appearances.
He also seemed to mesh well with new forward Cedric Teuchert. Becher’s sharpness covers up some of the holes displayed by Teuchert and fellow transfer addition Marcel Hartel as they continue to regain fitness lost over the offseason.
“I still think there’s a little bit to be desired,” Becher said about finding and finishing scoring opportunities. “I think we’re starting to click a little bit more, and just the interchanges and running behind and playing off each other. I think it’s still going to be a process, something we’ll continue to work on and take the positives and try to work on the things that we think, in review, that we have to get better at.”
As it prepares to face Portland in the Leagues Cup Round of 32 on Friday, St. Louis now has a better idea of how it will line up with a full deck—even as João Klauss, Rasmus Alm, and Joakim Nilsson remain sidelined with injuries. The hope is that they will be able to return around the time the season resumes on August 24.
“There’s a lot of positives there,” Hackworth says. “I think we’re continuing to become a better team. There’s things we need to do better, for sure, but the guys that we called upon [on Sunday] did an excellent job. That’s a really good Juárez team. But we dealt with it. We problem-solved our way through some interesting moments there, and that’s what I’m trying to get this group to do.”
Hackworth still has some spacing issues to iron out, though. That’s especially the case with figuring out how to best utilize Hartel and Edu Löwen through the midfield. In the Dallas match, Hartel and Löwen played on the left side together, pulling in Jayden Reid to combine down the flank. However, Löwen and Hartel often found themselves in each other’s space, leading to Löwen and Chris Durkin swapping sides in the double pivot. That move resulted in a much better Löwen performance vs. Juárez.
“I spoke earlier this week about the stepping stones for the team,” Becher said. “We’re just continuing to gel and continuing to progress. And I think we took another step [Sunday]. I think we’ll look to take what we can and then look forward to the knockout game. I think that’s something that we’re going to be really excited about, and having it here will be really nice as well.”
Both CITY and Portland will be looking to improve their performance against one another after playing to a scoreless draw at CITYPARK on June 8. If St. Louis can find a way past the Timbers, it will most likely run into Club América in the round of 16 in San Diego—a potentially huge showcase for the club as it looks to show genuine progress as it approaches the homestretch of the season.
