Previewing Houston Dynamo at St. Louis CITY SC with Matt Baker
(image via St. Louis CITY SC)
The Houston Dynamo kick off their 2024 schedule tomorrow night with the first leg of the Round One Champions Cup match up with St. Louis CITY SC. We talked to our friend Matt Baker from Flyover Footy to get some insight on St. Louis ahead of tomorrow’s match.
Bayou City Soccer (BCS): This will be the first competitive match for both teams in 2024, how was St. Louis’ offseason? What were their big additions and departures?
Matt Baker (MB): Overall, I would say it was a very good offseason for St. Louis CITY SC. They added depth and higher end talent to 3 key positions that saw a lot of issues last year - CM, LB and RB. Bringing in Chris Durkin not only provides a good level of talent to a position we were not deep in but it also allows us to use people like Indiana Vassilev in his more comfortable attacking mid role. At fullback, Nikolas Dyhr and Tomas Totland at left/right back provides more upside & an increase in talent ceiling along with players who perfectly fit our system as 2-way fullbacks who can also defend well in space 1v1. Key departures are Nicholas Gioacchini (F) and Jared Stroud (MF) who provided 10 and 5 goals respectively. The belief is that Stroud's workhorse play can be replaced by our attacking mid depth in AZ Jackson, Indy Vassilev, Tomas Ostrak & Celio Pompeu, all of whom showed flashes of brilliance last year and look to see increased minutes this year. Gioacchini's loss put more pressure on Sam Adeniran and Nökkvi Thórisson as forwards to complement Klauss in both minutes and goal scoring. Sam ended last season strong but neither have full season MLS experiences behind them.
BCS: St. Louis shocked a lot of people by finishing first in the Western Conference in the regular season. Coming in to year 2, what are the expectations like in the fan base?
MB: Expectations are plainly to make the playoffs and win a playoff match (really, moving onto the 2nd round). Which translates to not experiencing a big 2nd season regression. Cup wins are seen as bonuses but STL always has as soft spot for the USOC, so competing and succeeding will be wins in STL and progressing in our first intercontinental competition so early in Champions Cup would not only be a big success but would also be our first real success in any Cup competition.
BCS: Roman Bürki won GK of the year last season after a fantastic first season in MLS. How important is Bürki to what CITY do both as a goalkeeper and a leader?
MB: You could argue that no single player is more important to STL right now than Roman Bürki. Not only in his shot stopping abilities, but he truly acts as a 3rd center back at times. Our ability to utilize his on the ball play to break a press is huge. His distribution abilities are elite and when he's finding success in his shot stopping and on the ball handling, it provides cover for our fullbacks who, as mentioned before, will want to press higher a lot.
BCS: St. Louis play a very distinct style under Bradley Carnell. How would you best describe the way CITY plays and will we see much deviation from that this season?
MB: St Louis CITY's style is a high press, swarming, counter attack style. They were 2nd only to the NYRB in those categories last year and they look to continue that as their bread and butter. They're working to add an on the ball ability this preseason, as they learned well that teams used low blocks and forcing them into possession to make them uncomfortable last year. If they are able to successfully add that when they need to, it would make defending this team much trickier.
BCS: Do St. Louis have any injuries coming into the match and what do you expect for a starting lineup?
MB: The only injury right now is to RW Rasmus Alm who is recovering from November sports hernia surgery. Edu Löwen and Joakim Nilsson obtained green cards this offseason which caused them both to miss preseason time. Löwen is progressing a bit quicker in his return than Nilsson. A likely starting XI based on what we saw at Coachella is a 4-4-2 w/ Bürki, Dyhr, Parker, Yaro, Totland, Blom, Löwen, AZ Jackson, Vassilev, Klauss, Adeniran. I look for CITY to put their strongest XI since this is an important Cup & they have an extra day of rest compared to a typical midweek match & their first MLS regular season match.
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We want to thank Matt for his time and wish our friends in St. Louis the best of luck tomorrow night.
