Vancouver?! Hardly know ‘er.

Happy Thursday! We got another victory at CITYPARK and we must talk about Miggy.

But first . . .

📝 Some notes from Matchday 15

Lineup

After going scorched-earth on SKC, Carnell decided to keep the same lineup against Vancouver. That’s a logical call and it turned out to be a good one. I think it’s the first time we recycled a lineup. I’m ready for Klauss to come back (he won’t be this weekend 😩), but I have faith in our team to crush skulls without him.

Also, at the end there…was that a 6-4-0? Did we have six toasties running interference? I think we did.

Lutz saved a bird

Phillip Grooms of Flyover Footy with this breaking news:

Lutz reported back later. The mission was a success.

By the way, this is not Lutz’s first run-in with a bird. Have you heard about the penguins?

Scary Jerry needs a snack

Stroud collects yellows like they’re holographic Charizards. Parker, too. Carnell made the right call pulling Jerry out before he could collect another. Stroud gets a crazed look in his eyes right before he’s about to pop-off. He is very passionate—which I love—but it wouldn’t kill him to be a little choosier with his fouls. He will be out against the Dynamo due to yellow card accumulation.

Bartlett was an absolute unit

Has Bartlett always been this good? If an attacker even looked at him funny, Bartlett said “absolutely not.” Dare I say he out-played Parker? More of this, please.

👨🏼‍🎓 It’s Miggy Miggs

So if you’re like me, you saw that Löwen goal and thought: “Well, we are the best team on the planet and nothing cooler could possibly happen tonight.”

And then it happened.

The Pride of Pattonville gave us this:

Look at the joy on Miggy’s face! Look at the joy on Carnell’s face! Miggy graduated from Pattonville High School this week and decided to give us a gift that earned him a spot on MLS’s Young Players of the Matchday list.

Congrats to Miggy on his amazing week. We are lucky to have him!

📰 Other CITY news

Blom out for Nashville and Galaxy?

Bafana Bafana—the South African national team—has released its 34-member preliminary squad for its upcoming Africa Cup of Nations qualifier. Unsurprisingly, our #6 made the cut. This could mean we are Blom-less for the Nashville and Galaxy games. Great for him! Not great for us.

Are we contenders?

Sam Jones of MLS’s The Daily Kickoff doesn’t think so. He classifies CITY as “so close yet so far away.” To be fair, that’s not really a dunk. We are a brand new team—to even be mentioned in an article about Cup contenders is absolutely bucknuts.

According to Jones, our style (pressing rill hard) doesn’t translate into playoff success. I hope he’s wrong. Even so, he referred to us as the Fightin’ Toasted Raviolis. I respect that. He also classifies us as a Tier II team overall. I’m not mad about it.

Voting is open for MLS All-Star Game

If you want to see our guys at the All-Star Game against Arsenal, you know what to do. You can vote once per day. Let’s get to work.

Can we be the best expansion team in MLS history?

With our win over Vancouver, we became the fastest expansion team to reach 25 points. Only one team spends less on salary and yet we are sitting second in the West with two games in hand. Read more at The Athletic and be sure to check out the part about Max Breto’s reaction to Löwen’s goal. And if you want to go further, here’s Sam Jones’s take from The Daily Kickoff.

Vancouver’s coach is too much

Vanni Sartini, Vancouver’s chief toddler, insists they were the better team last Saturday:

So yes, Sartini believes his team lost 3-1 because the ref was a meanie. It had nothing to do with that abysmal own-goal or his decision to field a second-rate lineup. In my experience, the best managers take zero responsibility for their own bad decisions. 😉

Sartini and six of his players have now been fined for essentially being obnoxious.

I’m Löwen It

Löwen got Goal of the Matchday for that incredible free kick from approximately 2,324,239,234 yards out. BuT wAs It InTeNtIoNaL?! tHe KeEpEr ShOuLd’Ve SaVeD iT! Nobody cares. It was an awesome goal. STFU.  

Number 7

We moved up a spot in this week’s power rankings, which are bookended by LA teams: LAFC at the top and LA Galaxy at the bottom. I went to several Galaxy games during the Donovan/Beckham/Keane era. It’s hard to believe this is the same club. They have now sacked their president, St. Louis native Chris Klein. KC is 23.

Firmino…….or Firmiyes?

Listen. I know in my heart of hearts that we aren’t getting Firmino. But it’s impossible not to get a little excited when our team is tweeting stuff like this.

For those who don’t know, the Brazilian forward just ended his eight-year run with Liverpool. Tom Bogert tweeted back in March that CITY was interested in Firmino, who has links to Lutz and Klauss. While we have an open DP slot, I’d be shocked if this “designated team” drops a fortune on Bobby, especially after Lutz tweeted in early May that we have no plans for a third DP. But a boy can dream.

Tim Parker pet a horse

At the AB brewery. End of horse news.

The Podcasts

Extratime ➡ May 30, 2023 ➡ 15:50, 56:10, and 1:28:00. The last section covers the possibility of CITY fans being dubbed “the best fans in soccer.” We aren’t doing that.

TSS ➡ May 30, 2023 ➡ 47:40

👓 CITY-Adjacent News

STL sends a lot of players to MLS

Not surprising. Seven players in the league list STL as their birthplace. Only NYC has more. There are, of course, some nuances to these numbers and you can read more at STLtoday.

Bürki Bits

Soccer nerds will know that Bürki came to us from Borussia Dortmund. He played at the absolute highest level there, with 33 Champions League appearances to his name. Julian Trejo at RFT brought us the story of how Bürki landed in STL. Basically, the Bürkness Monster could’ve made MUCH more money elsewhere—he earned $6.5 million annually with Dortmund—but he was ready for something new. We are very lucky to have him.

And perhaps Dortmund could’ve used their ex-keeper last weekend. The German side came within inches of winning the league, only to choke and give Bayern Munich its 11th title in as many years.

Luton Town: A blueprint for Wrexham

You’ve heard of Wrexham. But have you heard of Luton Town? If you’re nerdy enough to subscribe to a soccer newsletter, there’s a good chance you have. Luton earned a spot in the Premier League after beating Coventry City in PKs on Saturday. Why is this exciting? Because nine years ago, Luton was playing in the fifth tier of English football, the very league Wrexham just escaped. I won’t force-feed you images of their quaint little stadium. But if you haven’t seen it, give it a Googlin’. It’s hard to imagine Erling Haaland playing at Kenilworth Road next season.

LAFC in CCL final

For those who don’t know, the Concacaf Champions League is North America’s version of the UEFA Champions League. Basically, the best performing teams from the continent’s biggest tournaments/leagues come together to fight it out for ultimate supremacy. By the time you’re reading this, LAFC will have played its first of two matches against Club León as part of the CCL final. The teams will meet up again on Sunday in LA for the second and final match.

There was a time when MLS teams didn’t stand a chance against their Mexican counterparts. That is changing. The question is: do we root for LAFC? A rising tide lifts all boats, after all. Or do we send out bad vibes, hoping to tamp down LAFC’s fire so CITY stands a better chance to top the Western Conference?

As bad as it may sound, I want LAFC to win. I think if any MLS team truly wants to become a global brand–and Carolyn Kindle has suggested that’s the goal for CITY–we must first make MLS a global brand. So good luck to LAFC this week. But only this week. We’re coming for you.

A lot of college students are betting

This one comes to us from Kendall Baker over at Axios. It’s not CITY-specific, but it’s interesting. According to survey results released by the NCAA, more than half of college-aged Americans are betting on sports. The number is 67% for on-campus students. I dabble in sports betting myself, but I don’t know how I feel about these numbers, especially considering 63% of participants recalled seeing advertising for sports betting. Unless and until industry advertising is regulated, I expect sportsbooks will actively target older teens.

While we’re here, I encourage you to subscribe to Baker’s newsletter. Despite my rabid obsession with CITY, I’m not a huge sports guy. But Baker’s work grabs me by the throat and somehow gets me interested in things like park golf.

Also…and now this is awkward…here are the odds for next week’s matchup against the Dynamo. Spoiler: We’re favored.

One last thing

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please take a moment and share it using the icons at the top right of this email. It means a lot!

Until next time,

Klaussless in Klayton