Olof Mellberg wants his St. Louis City team to be unpredictable in his first season, whereby the ownership of the club demands a play -off run.
This weekend, St. Louis is organizing the Colorado Rapids in their first match of the MLS campaign, after he hired former Sweden defender Mellberg after a half season under interim coach John Hackworth.
They finished 12th in the Western Conference last year, but Mellberg hopes that they can catch their rivals in 2025.
“We definitely want to be an unpredictable team and a surprising team,” said Mellberg in a press conference for the season.
“You know, we like to have direct attacks and go behind the opponents, and that is something we are working on.”
However, Mellberg will not get a respite period, with owner Carolyn Kindle who says that St. Louis's goal is always to make the late season.
“The expectation for 2025 is that we will make the play-offs,” said Kindle de St. Louis after Dispatch. “There is no distance explanation. That is the expectation.
“We have said from the first day that we want to be a team of playoff quality every year. If you don't make the play-offs, you really have to do a deep dive:” What else should we do?
“I think everyone – whether it is sporty or company – has taken the time and really did that deep dive.”
48 hours pic.twitter.com/pjtox1plov
– St Louis City SC (@stlcitySC) February 21, 2025
Colorado was one of the teams that made the play -offs before St. Louis last year and finished seventh in the West in their first season under Chris Armas.
They were 9-1 crushed on aggregated by the final MLS Cup champions La Galaxy in the play-offs, but Wednesday's 2-1 victory over Los Angeles FC-in the first stage of their Concacaf Champions Cup-Easy game suggested that they could build on that implementation this year.
“It was a pretty smooth transition and it was just back to what we were working on last year,” Aras said about his approach of his second year that was in charge.
“It was clear that there was a sour taste in our mouths of the way the season ended, so it's about coming back and increasing the standards.”
Players to watch
St. Louis City – Cedric Teuchert
Teuchert registered a team-high nine target contributions (five goals, four assists) despite playing in just 10 games for St. Louis in 2024, after his arrival in the middle season.
He immediately saw him the least matches played by a player who led a team in target contributions in every MLS season (Clint Mathis for the Metrostars in 2001, Danny Koevermans for Toronto FC in 2011).
Colorado Rapids – Djordje Mihailovic
With 11 goals and 12 assists last season, Mihailovic became the first Rapids player to record 10 goals and 10 assists in a single MLS campaign.
The 23 target contributions from Mihailovic in 2024 were most equal by a Rapids player in one regular season (next to Diego Rubio in 2022).
Match forecast – st. Louis City Win
Colorado collected 50 points in 2024 after a total of only 27 in the 2023 campaign.
That 23-point jump is the biggest improvement on an annual basis due to the rapids in their MLS history (excluding the short 2020 season), which exceeds a 21-point bounce from 2015 to 2016.
The Rapids also won both meetings with St. Louis last season and beat them 7-1 in those competitions, after City had achieved four points (W1 D1) from Colorado in two meetings in 2023.
However, St. Louis has a reputation as fast starters, which are unbeaten in competitions before March 30 in each of their first two MLS seasons, with six wins and four draws in their opening of five games of those campaigns in general.
Opta wins probability
St. Louis City – 47.2%
Colorado Rapids – 26.5%
Drawing – 26.3%
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