Good morning! ☀

Sorry for missing our usual Thursday drop. There’s a lot to cover and Wednesday was a long night.

Let’s discuss, shall we?

🤠 Nashville

We got Mukhtar’d. We saw it coming and it still hurts. Some would say it’s (mukht)hard to accept.

We’re talking about a likely back-to-back MVP here. Mukhtar is not just one of the best players this season—he’s one of the best players in MLS history. With his three goals against Gio & The Boys™ (settle down, SKC), Hany became just the third player in league history to score 50 goals and make 30 assists in a three-season run. 🚨 Absolute unit alert 🚨 

Speaking of great players, did you hear what Taylor Twellman said about Bürki during the broadcast? The St. Louis native opined that Bürki could be the best goalkeeper in MLS history.

But let’s get back to being sad. There’s not much to say about our performance. We looked solid in the first half—surprisingly solid considering our player availability. But things quickly changed in the second half due to some questionable changes by Carnell.

This 👇👇👇 however, made me prouder than a win ever could:

🧂 Salt Lake

Even with our loss to Nashville, we entered Wednesday with the most goals (34) and highest goal differential (+14) of any team in the Western Conference. AND THEN WE BLEW IT!

The only thing saltier than that stupid lake was our fanbase’s reaction on twitter. Britney would be proud, because toxic.

It’s true there aren’t many positives to take from this game, but I’m not worried…yet. I think we need a larger sample size of DP-less games before we panic. Any MLS team will struggle without their DPs.

Still, I’m becoming increasingly skeptical of Lutz’s “no new DPs” stance. I love the idea of a “designated team,” and we can maintain that philosophy! But we already have DPs, so adding a third changes nothing. More on this below.

Because LAFC beat the Sounders, we now sit second in the West.

💻 San Jose

Lutz & Friends travel to San Jose on Saturday to take on the Quakes. We beat them 3:0 on March 18, 2023. We won’t be that dominant in our second meet-up. That said, San Jose lost 4:1 to Houston on Wednesday, so hopefully they’re sad and depressed like us! The Quakes are currently 5th in the West. They’ll likely be missing some players for international duty.

Odds.

📰 Other CITY Stuff

Transfer season 🔀

So are we going to do this thing or not? I’m not super interested in half-a*#ing the rest of the season. In his piece for MLSsoccer.com, Joe Lowery included CITY on his list of teams with the biggest transfer needs.

AGREED, JOE! I just don’t see any reason to let this team fall back to earth after a record-breaking start. That’s not to say Lutz doesn’t have a good reason for not signing new players, but I think admin owes it to the fans to share that justification.

Taylor Twellman also agrees we need some backup:

I’m not sure how feasible it would be to buy down Löwen and Klauss’s contracts such that they’d no longer be DPs. It seems Twellman is also unsure because he deleted that comment. But I’m intrigued nonetheless!

By the way, in case it’s not obvious, we’re talking about this because quads are the devil’s muscle.

Ultimately, though, as long as we make the playoffs, none of this really matters. We’ve built a huge cushion. If we can get the team healthy and win a couple of games during The Darkness, we will be a force in the post-season.

Leagues Cup 🏆

The Leagues Cup is rapidly approaching. The World Cup-style tournament will see all teams from MLS and Liga MX compete for a (reversible?) trophy and three spots in the Concacaf Champions Cup. MLS will make way for the Leagues Cup starting on July 21 and will resume play upon completion of the tournament.

CITY will begin its Leagues Cup campaign against Club América on July 27, 2023 at CITYPARK. América is one of los cuatros grandes in LIGA MX, along with Chivas, Cruz Azul, and Pumas. América is arguably the biggest club in North America. The Mexico City-based team enjoys continent-wide support. They also enjoy staring at their 12 Liga MX title trophies.

I cannot wait for this game. One of the oldest clubs on the continent is coming to St. Louis to play the newest club on the continent.

🎉FUN FACT🎉 → CITYPARK holds 22,423 fans. Estadio Azteca, home of América, holds 87,523. You can check it out here.

We’re entertaining! 💃

In his new piece for The Athletic, Tom Bogert discusses which MLS teams are most entertaining to watch ($). We clock in at number 8:

Damn right, Tom. Damn right.

↪ CITY-Adjacent News

USA! USA! 🦅

The USMNT won the Concacaf Nations League final on Sunday against our neighbors to the north. Folarin Balogun made his first goal for the USA and promised more to come.

Before beating Canada, the men’s national team absolutely trounced Mexico 3:0 in a very intense semifinal. El Tri surrounded Weston McKennie at one point and managed to rip his shirt. McKennie’s reaction will remain in our collective consciousness for decades.

Unfortunately for St. Louisans, the USMNT roster for the Gold Cup will be decidedly less stacked. We will not see Balogun, Pulisic, McKennie, Weah, Adams, etc. at CITYPARK next week.

Messi 🦩

Two quick Messi Morsels:

• It looks like the Argentine will make his debut with Miami at the Leagues Cup match against Cruz Azul. Whoever organized the Leagues Cup (Concacaf probably?) struck gold. What a way to launch a new tournament.

• We now know more about his contract.

• It has now been over two weeks since the 🐐 said he’d join Miami and the MLS website still looks like this 👇. We get it. It’s huge! But there are 28 other teams in the league. Settle down.

Best wishes,

Löwenless in Ladue*

*Not really. I ain’t rich.

Or am I?

haha I’m not