Can RSL slow down the hottest expansion team in MLS history?
St. Louis City heads west after becoming the first MLS expansion club to win four-straight to open their first season. Can Real Salt Lake take points off the surging expansionists?
Real Salt Lake’s next opponent, St. Louis City SC, is atop the table.
Yes, you read that right.
The club called “City” or “CITY” or “STL” or a handful of other names leads the Western Conference with a historic 4-0-0 record — the first-ever expansion club in Major League Soccer history to record four consecutive wins at the start of their first season.
And they’re coming for more Saturday in Sandy (7:30 p.m. MDT, MLS Season Pass).
St. Louis is an expansion club with more team play than star power, though Hoffenheim transfer João Klauss’ three goals is tied for second in the league (behind the ever-present Atlanta United rising star Thiago Almada) and Eduard Löwen and Roman Bürki have been nothing short of splendid for the first-year club.
Instead of a star playmaker, City like to dig into the midfield, force a lot of turnovers, and capitalize on even the smallest mistake while punishing their first four opponents by an aggregate score of 11-4.
Eventually, does that become your style?
“They go for it. I think they’re the team with the first- or second-most pressures in a team’s attacking half,” RSL manager Pablo Mastroeni said. “And when we’re at our best, that’s what we’re doing; we’re moving as a collective, we’re getting pressure on the ball, moving balls higher up the field, creating more transition moment, which they do.
“They’ve had a lot of fortuitous opportunities, but that always comes from what they create themselves. They’re an industrious team that is well-organized, and they’re getting results that keep confirming the belief in what they do.”
In other words, St. Louis plays like an expansion team — which they are, even if a chunk of their players started a year ago under the St. Louis City FC 2 banner in MLS NEXT Pro.
(For what it’s worth, City itself has embraced its underdog role.)
Expansion teams have nothing to lose; nobody expects anything of them. RSL has been there, as have a ton of other teams in the league, both actual expansion sides and otherwise. So no pressure, right?
Unless ….
“I don’t think they look at themselves like an expansion team,” Mastroeni said. “I think if they did, they wouldn’t win four games in a row. I think that’s a team that, as a club, has had a good amount of time to put this group together, be really specific what type of players they want to play in this system, and they’ve been really deliberate.
“I think when you have that kind of time, that’s the product that you get … But more importantly than an expansion team, they’re a group that believes. We, on the outside, put labels on groups. They define who they are by the way they play.”
Of course, regardless of the opponent, RSL also faces a stiff challenge with absences due to injuries (not to mention, MLS’s continuing policy of playing through a FIFA-approved international break and its myriad of callups).
Here’s the absence report:
OUT: Zack Farnsworth (thigh), Axel Kei (ankle), Bode Hidalgo (hamstring)
QUESTIONABLE: Marcelo Silva (hamstring), Erik Holt (achilles), Bryan Ovideo (calf), Danny Musovski (ankle)
INTERNATIONAL: Rubio Rubin (Guatemala), Jefferson Savarino (Venezuela), Braian Ojeda (Paraguay), Diego Luna (U-20 USYNT), Gavin Beavers (U-19 USYNT)
It should be noted that Savarino did not report to Venezuelan team camp due to a nagging calf injury. But the RSL winger won’t be available for Saturday’s match, regardless, due to the concern.
That leaves a limited roster, in which newly arrived Colombian left back/center back Brayan Vera could see his first minutes of his RSL career. Midfielder Pablo Ruiz and his lethal left foot are also likely to see their first minutes of the season, as well.
For the 24-year-old native of San Luis, Colombia has been training with the first team all week, and the only thing stopping him from seeing time may be his own fitness, Mastroeni said.
“I think it’s a good time for him,” Mastroeni said of Vera. “Often times, when you have a full group it’s tough to see your way into the team. Him having an opportunity to train with the first team and maybe play at the weekend — fitness becomes an issue. But when you don’t have options, the universe gives you an opportunity.
“That’s sometimes an easier acclimation than waiting and rotating. It’s just a more natural segway into this group.”