On Jan. 6, 2020, six people, including St. Louis City SC owner Carolyn Kindle, gathered in a small office behind the Enterprise car rental location on Maryland Avenue in Clayton. They were the first, and at that point, only employees of the new Major League Soccer team and there, in the room where Kindle’s grandfather Jack Taylor started the company that made this all possible, they looked at each other and said, “OK, now what?”
Three years and just under a week later, about 25 players, plus coaches and training staff, will take to the field for the first day of preseason camp at the team’s state-of-the-art training facility, across the street from the team’s state-of-the-art stadium in downtown St. Louis and take the first steps towards becoming a team.
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“I’m glad it finally starts,” said City SC sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel. “We’ve worked so long for that, it’s about time. I would call it, getting in rhythm. My life rhythm is on the weekend I have a game. The last 2½ years, it was not really like that.”
The team will train at its practice facility every day except Monday, with an intrasquad scrimmage scheduled for Sunday morning, through Jan. 18. The team will then train in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, from Jan. 19 to 29.
The baton now passes from Pfannenstiel, who has put together the team, to City SC coach Bradley Carnell, who will now mold it. Carnell has been waiting a while for this too, having been named head coach on Jan. 5, 2022, long enough ago that he already has more tenure with his current team than six other MLS coaches.
Carnell faces several challenges in camp: beyond getting the team in shape for its opening game on Feb. 25, he’s got to figure out who his starting 11 is and blend together a team that has, for the most part, never played together.
The team got a slight head start on getting to know each other thanks to the players it was able to sign last season and have together with the City2 developmental team. Thirteen of the players in the camp have trained with other members of the team at some point, although rarely if ever at all. As many as 11 have appeared in a game together, although many of those are players promoted from City2 who don’t figure to get much playing time with the first team. Some key players — defensive midfielder Njabulo Blom, who won’t be on the field Wednesday while his work permit is finalized, or center back Joakim Nilsson, who didn’t train much as he rehabbed a knee injury — will still need to get acquainted on the field.
And while Pfannenstiel has a white board in his office with the team’s depth chart, he says nothing is set in stone. (Which is true; the names are all on magnets for easy moving.)
“At the end of the day, everybody comes in with a certain mind,” he said. “You will have your first 11 in your head, but mostly things are always coming different than you think they are. There will be surprises — there should be surprises. No one has signed a contract where it says I’m guaranteed a first team spot. They all need to fight, they all need to prove themselves every single day.
“Even if you look up front, Klauss is a designated player, he had a great scoring percentage in Europe, but the guys who are behind him, I don’t think (Niko) Gioacchini comes over here from Orlando to look at the Arch and say ‘well, that’s a great thing.’ I think he wants to play. I see (midfielder Rasmus) Alm will normally play a lot of games, but the other guys also want to play. Jared Stroud doesn’t come from Austin because St. Louis is a beautiful city. Or (Isak) Jensen didn’t come over from Europe to sit on the bench. That’s the way it should be. Obviously there is a little bit of steps in the squad, that’s normal. Celio (Pompeu) played his whole life at college, maybe not as easy as Alm, who played the last nine years in the Swedish top division. I always say, everybody who boils, boils water, right? Whose water gets a bit hotter? Everybody has an opportunity.
“I do see a tendency of who could be the first 11, but I think preseason, I like the underdogs, I like surprises, I like people who work themselves into the first team. Knowing Bradley and the way he works, he’s not worried about names or previous clubs or reputation. Every moment, every session counts. Every moment, every session, you need to put in 100 percent. There is no first 11. There is a squad of players, everybody needs the motivation to be first 11 and every day should be a battle in training to get that possibility, get that option, get an opportunity to show yourself. First 11, not Bradley Carnell’s world or my world. Work hard, deserve it.”
On the eve of camp, City SC announced Carnell’s staff for the inaugural season, utilizing coaches already in the organization. John Hackworth, the club’s director of coaching and the coach of City2 last season, Elvir Kafedzic, who had been Hackworth’s assistant with the developmental squad, and John Miglarese, who had been coaching the club’s under-21 team, will be assistants, along with goalkeeper coach Alex Langer, who had been the goalie coach for City2 as well. A new coach for City2 will be announced next week.
Sights and sounds from the first game ever at St. Louis City SC’s CityPark. Marching in with the St. Louligans and other supporters before the game then chants from the stands in the supporter’s section. Video by David Carson, [email protected]
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