Energizer Park will play host to a rare sight when St. Louis CITY SC plays Premier League club Aston Villa on Wednesday night.
Aston Villa comes to town looking to gain sharpness ahead of its season opener on August 16. The seven-time champions of England kicked off a preseason tour in the U.S. last Saturday in Louisville, with a 2–2 draw against Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt. In St. Louis, the Champions League quarterfinalists will likely feature three recent acquisitions: attacker Ollie Watkins and midfielder Donyell Malen, who came to life in Louisville, as well as starting keeper and World Cup champion Emiliano Martinez, who has yet to take the pitch this preseason. St. Louis supporters will also see the majority of Aston Villa’s contributors, including Jamaica’s Leon Bailey, who last visited Energizer Park during last November’s Nations League quarterfinal.
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The friendly happens at an interesting time for CITY SC. When the club originally set out to plan this night, a legendary Aston Villa defender, Olof Mellberg, had just been hired to implement an evolved style of play for the St. Louis club. That plan went haywire, however, and Mellberg was fired after 17 matches in charge. Although Mellberg’s absence may loom large during the friendly, CITY SC caretaker manager David Critchley is excited for the opportunity.
“It’s a great personal accomplishment,” said the Liverpool native. “I’m a fan of both [Aston Villa manager] Unai [Emery] and his staff and what he does with the team, and a massive fan of Villa themselves as a club. So it’s going to be exciting to come up against these guys.”
Critchley, a diehard Liverpool FC fan, quipped that he wishes Aston Villa success in 2025–26, though he hopes the team doesn’t replicate Bayer Leverkusen’s run after visiting St. Louis in November 2022. Much like that occasion, the match on Wednesday night will provide St. Louisans with an opportunity to take part in the global sport.
“It brings a global audience to us. It brings a celebration,” Critchley said. “We bring in an EPL team, one of the best leagues in world football, one of the teams that’ve been competitive there now for many, many years.”
St. Louis will look to unlock more from its squad. Fallou Fall, CITY SC’s new U22 center back, will make his debut wearing No. 95. The squad hopes to find some chemistry ahead of hosting Nashville SC on Saturday, August 9. CITY2 players such as Mykhi Joyner, Miggy Perez, and Tyson Pearce may also play a role soon, as Critchley hinted at a larger roster to take on the seven-time English champions.
While the friendly’s final score doesn’t ultimately matter (as much as St. Louis hopes for a win over an EPL club), the night will celebrate soccer in St. Louis. Aston Villa alums Ahmed Elmohamady and Alan McInally will lead a CITY Futures event in conjunction with the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center.
“We need to celebrate these moments,” Critchley said. “We want to be competitive in this game, but much more important than whether we win the game is celebrating this as a collective.”
