When Major League Soccer published its St. Louis CITY SC season preview last month, Joakim Nilsson’s name was noticeably absent from the club’s projected best XI.
The omission is understandable.
Are you a CITY SC fan?
Subscribe to the CITY Scene newsletter to get a fan’s guide to the pro soccer scene in St. Louis.
The knee injury that postponed his North American debut until August prevented him from hitting his stride in 2023, and his absence from the second half of CITY’s preseason camp this winter turned him into an afterthought—at least, out of St. Louis. But CITY head coach Bradley Carnell never lost belief in the Swedish center back. St. Louis has known all along exactly what they had in their towering defender.
Now, four games into the regular season, Nilsson has appeared in every minute of MLS play while providing an impact on defense and set pieces as CITY navigates the early stretch of the schedule. Two weeks ago, Nilsson landed on MLS’ Team of the Matchday for his excellent breakout defensive effort in the win over New York City FC. On Saturday against the LA Galaxy, Nilsson followed up with another strong effort. This time, he contributed in multiple facets to help CITY claim a crucial road point in the 3-3 draw.
Nilsson already has a reputation as a lockdown defender. But he’s also proving that he can help St. Louis on set pieces. CITY led the league in goals from set pieces and corners last season with 13, but the club has just one so far this season.
This past weekend, Nilsson stepped into that role beautifully.
With CITY trailing 2-1 early in Saturday’s second half, Nilsson stood in the box awaiting Aziel Jackson’s corner service in the 60th minute. The ball, however, sailed wide to Sam Adeniran. As Adeniran rose to meet it, Nilsson had to think fast. He turned, left his feet, and produced a highlight-reel bicycle kick goal that leveled the match.
“It all went fast,” Nilsson said after the match, “It’s Sam who heads it, and then I kind of felt that I had to do something. I don’t know. I thought it went over, to be honest, at first but it’s perfect up in the top corner.”
A well-executed overhead strike is rare, but Nilsson has that kind of skill in his toolbox, even if he’ll try and downplay the skill required to pull off a goal of that magnitude. Tomáš Ostrák, though, was eager to applaud Nilsson’s acrobatics. “Unbelievable,” Ostrák said. “Joakim is amazing. I mean, that should be the goal of the week, for sure.”
Of course, Nilsson’s ability to help on set piece opportunities isn’t the only reason why CITY believes he’s such an important part of the club’s season. Since his arrival, CITY players and coaches have gone out of their way to compliment Nilsson’s professionalism and his commitment to putting the club first at all moments.
That sort of mentality spreads like wildfire through a club like CITY.
“We believe in ourselves,” Nilsson said. “Even in tough moments, we show up, and we show that we’re good soccer players. We have this mentality of wanting to take every point, every game. I think we showed that it’s a good opponent we played against [on Saturday]. So, in the end with a chance we created, one point is okay. But like I said, I love the character and the mentality we showed out there.”
St. Louis CITY SC will return home this weekend to take on some old friends in DC United’s Lucas Bartlett and Jared Stroud. Bartlett’s play this season has earned him a starting job in DC, and he’s seemingly better for having worked closely last season with former teammates such as Nilsson and Parker. CITY, though, will hope that it is not a fun reunion for the former boys in red.
Although wins have eluded CITY over the past two weeks, the club has built confidence from its strong road performances against Austin and the LA Galaxy. Even so, St. Louis is hungry for a victory, and no one wants to get back in the win column more than Nilsson.
“We showed character and a lot of good things in this game that we can take with us into next week,” Nilsson said.
