By Justin Horneker
As St. Louis CITY SC hosted Bayer Leverkusen Wednesday night at CITYPARK in Downtown St. Louis. It wasn’t perfect, but the action on the field was quickly put on the back burner as the night proved to be a celebration of STL soccer culture.
“I’ve always said that this is a great soccer city, from the players it produces to the fans in attendance, we have the opportunity to show everyone what this club is all about,” CITY2 Head Coach John Hackworth said Wednesday night.
It’s that sentiment that made Wednesday night such a celebration for the city of St. Louis… we used to dream of nights like this.
It’s refreshing when someone like Xabi Alonso takes notice as well, “It’s a beautiful, proper football stadium” Alonzo said during Wednesday’s press conference, “You have to respect your opponents and respect yourself, but they showed true professionalism in how they’ve built what they have here, St. Louis showed a good level tonight.”
Alonso’s team didn’t look extremely sharp for a midseason friendly against a hybrid MLS/MLS2 squad, especially as the game stretched deeper into the cold November night. However, that probably says more about the cold conditions, than a Leverkusen team that won 3 in a row before the break – including a 5-0 win over Union Berlin. Leverkusen eventually wore St. Louis down, led by a Callum Hudson-Odoi who scored the first goal and picked up an assist on Leverkusen’s second just before the half.
The St. Louis press seemed to be more effective in the 2nd half as Leverkusen keeper Niklas Lomb was forced to stretch out 4 times over the last 20 minutes of the game. Maybe it’s a sign of the game losing the intensity it had from the start but you can still draw some positives from St. Louis’ performance.
For one, Josh Yaro had a strong game at CB – a showing that had to feel good for the man who bet on himself by signing with CITY2 last season. Yaro spoke to that mentality after the game, “You watch these guys play every weekend, you watch the intensity of the Bundesliga and it feels pretty good to battle with them. It’s an adjustment for sure, but it’s going to make all of us stronger for battling through it. Tonight was the best moment I’ve experienced as a player, just seeing everything come together after you started with nothing.”
“It was important to us to see them get that experience”, Lutz Pfannenstiel mentioned in his availability, “We’ve watched them play in front of 30 people, and now they get to experience what we’ve built from words on paper just a few years ago.”
It’d be easy to forget that this expansion team really did start from zero, sure there are the bones of past clubs in St. Louis but Pfannenstiel was given a completely blank slate to work with, “We’ve learned a lot over the past year… how to properly travel to Vancouver, for example… we had to wait a year because of COVID but maybe we’re lucky. We have a fully built training facility, we get to have a home opener, we have a developed Academy system, we have all of these things that we wouldn’t have had if we debuted last season.”
St. Louis is truly entering MLS in a unique position, having most of your team already training together including the four teenagers that played tonight. That includes 15 year old (and potential Leverkusen target) Aaron Heard, and 16 year old Miguel Perez who have risen through the academy/CITY2 ranks this season. An academy that comes into focus as teams around MLS are selling young players abroad with increasing frequency.
Not many have had those luxuries entering year one, it is still truly outrageous that not every MLS franchise has a full academy but St.Louis has fully fleshed out every level of their pyramid. It doesn’t just stop there, John Hackworth took the time to remind everyone that he never had a practice facility during his time in Philadelphia, training in a local park for most of his five years with the Union.
So, while a 0-3 loss isn’t an ideal way to open your stadium, the positives outweigh the negatives in so many ways and the “2023 preview” was a massive success.
Afterall, the 2023 MLS regular season starts in 100 days.
-Justin Horneker