St. Louis City SC will attempt to extend their historic start Saturday night when they host the Minnesota United.
Last Saturday, St. Louis (5-0-0, 15 points) scored all its goals after halftime in a 4-0 win at Real Salt Lake to set an MLS record for most wins to start an expansion season. The 2009 Seattle Sounders won their first four MLS games.
Joao Klauss scored his team-leading fourth and fifth goals to move up to second place in the MLS Golden Boot race. Goalkeeper Roman Burki made a crucial save on RSL’s Brayan Vera moments before halftime to keep the match scoreless.
City have been winning in increasingly convincing fashion, and now boast an MLS-best plus-11 goal differential. Only five teams posted a better mark over the entirety of the 2022 season.
“I think the way the boys have prepared themselves gives them confidence, right?” St. Louis coach Bradley Carnell said this week. “I think the way the boys have been willing to accept, maybe this philosophy and this mentality, and everyone’s been hand-picked. And for them to come together as a group and commit to each other, it’s not so easy to do this process. But when you get it right it becomes a thing of joy.”
Minnesota had its own joy deferred last weekend, earning only one point at home against Vancouver when the Whitecaps got the leveler from Simon Becher in the eighth minute of second-half stoppage time.
The Loons (2-0-2, 8 points) had held the lead for nearly an hour after Mender Garcia’s 40th-minute goal.
It was still an impressive performance for Minnesota, considering the Loons were without seven players called up for international duty. And last year’s attacking leader, Emanuel Reynoso, continues to be a no-show for personal reasons that aren’t clear.
“I just wanted for the players to get the reward for getting over the line, because there’s five or six of them on fumes at the end,” Minnesota coach Adrian Heath lamented. “And I thought they deserved to take something from it. And it’s always disappointing when it is the last kick of the game.”
In their seventh season in MLS, the Loons are looking to extend their season-opening unbeaten streak to five games, which would be a club record.
–Field Level Media
