Corey Wray's early vision for St. Louis CITY SC

New St. Louis CITY SC Sporting Director Corey Wray laid out his vision on Wednesday, or at least the framework for it. 

Over the course of the 40-minute press conference, the Ontario native kept his cards close to his chest, citing a further need to evaluate the roster and the club’s processes. That might feel anticlimactic to some CITY SC supporters, but Wray is not someone who will jump into decisions without understanding the full situation. That’s what was eye-opening about a few of Wray’s commitments, pointing to the club’s need to reassess the sporting department’s working relationships, calling for more collaboration, along with a need to “redefine” the club’s efforts.

Analytics? Now we’re talking.

 So, let’s talk about Corey Wray’s biggest items.

Immediate opportunities to improve:

Wray kicked off his availability by thanking the people who have helped him most in his career so far: his wife Jaimie, Ali Curtis, and Tim Bezbachenko. 

It’s a telling look into what drives the 41-year-old CSO, and speaks to what drew the club to a young sporting exec who has yet to prove himself as the man to lead an organization truly.

Now, with a CITY SC desperate to find success, he’s going to have the space to rethink the club’s sporting department progressively. That work will start immediately with the upcoming MLS offseason opportunities, the free agency period, the waiver and re-entry draft, and – maybe the club’s most needed revamp – the MLS Superdraft. 

“We have a few different opportunities through the MLS mechanism coming up that you're probably aware of in terms of re-entry draft, free agency, and superdraft.” Wray laid out. “So those will be looked at as quickly as possible, and then from there, we need to set a lot of things in the structure long term.”

If the knock on Lutz Pfannenstiel’s tenure was an unwillingness to use every roster mechanism available for building an MLS roster, Wray’s vision is a sight for sore eyes. MLS clubs find key contributors from these mechanisms every year, and for a club that will have to be creative next season, there’s value in players who might just need a fresh opportunity in a new system. 

This season, players like Mark Delgado, Ilie Sanchez, and Jack Elliot were key contributors for LAFC, Austin FC, and the rejuvenated Chicago Fire, respectively. Now, players like Hassani Dotson, Rudy Camacho, Justin Haak, and Anibal Godoy could hit the market among other MLS-capable veterans. There is an opportunity after the club failed to replace the losses of Indiana Vassilev and Hosei Kijima last offseason. The club currently has 1 full-time FB on the roster.

There’s work to do, whether that’s promoting Tyson Pearce into the first team or dipping into the Superdraft for a player who could more easily slot into the lineup. 

Pearce is an interesting name to consider.

CITY SC needs to take a step forward in its development pathway next season, and while Mykhi Joyner is the obvious name, there’s a chance Pearce can move up as an outside back – or even Miggy Perez – even though both are viewed as midfielders first and foremost. 

Long Term Goals:

Wray was non-committal on the topic of DPs and U22s ahead of an important decision this January. He wants to sit with the roster and explore if the 3/3 or 2/4 model is best for this group; either way, there will be room to add at least one player in those spots. The question becomes if they’ll address that this winter or next summer, but in the meantime, Wray sees an obvious need. 

“Based on some high-level assessments, we need to improve, probably, maybe some of the expertise in the sporting leadership by January.” Wray continued. “I will harp on it, I am one person, I am not going to change everything by myself, I'm not going to be able to make this powerhouse by myself. 
And so I think we could really use some additions in that space.”

A quick look at the sporting department right now reveals some clear gaps in the organization. The 2025 season was defined by confusion around who was occupying what responsibilities, with Diego Gigliani, John Hackworth, Dale Schilly, and others wearing many hats across multiple positions. 

More diffusion of responsibilities in the Sporting Department should be a positive step; there is a clear need for more analysis within the FO.

In this year’s ASA anonymous MLS Analytics survey, CITY SC was viewed as a club that was overwhelmingly not analytically advanced. 

In that survey, Toronto and Columbus were viewed as analytically advanced organizations, and Wray had a large hand in both of those departments. Toronto was at the forefront of MLS analytics during the time of their domestic treble, and Wray injected that DNA into Columbus’s Front Office as AGM and Crew 2 GM. 

“The second thing is to kind of redefine or re look at how we're scouting players. There's probably a gap.” Wray said. “Currently, you know, we do have people on staff. I think my job will be to support them and to try to create a scouting process that can look at you, domestic, international, and then also incorporate the internal side that I was speaking about and find a way that we can have it talk to each other.”

He won’t be starting a scouting and analytics department from scratch; instead, his job will entail pushing that department into the new age of front office data investment. St. Louis does employ Aidan Reynolds as the club’s senior recruitment analyst, along with Kyle Chin, who serves a similar video analyst role for CITY2. Wray sees the need to increase that capacity while streamlining the way that the traditional scouting and analytic departments talk to each other. 

“Making sure we are using [data], making sure it's at the right place of the process, and then using it to make our traditional scouting and our other processes better.” Wray continued. “
And so having the traditional side, you know, the art and the science of scouting, speak to the data, and have the data speak to the traditional scouting is how I see a working kind of process going, and I've seen that work really well in the past.”

Conclusion:

While Wray was more focused on the processes than the roster in his press availability, he was excited by the current pieces already on the CITY SC roster. No doubt that Wray looks at last season’s expected goal difference – one that projected an 8th-place expected finish in the Western Conference – and sees an opportunity to build a competitive roster without too much surgery. 

Of course, that conversation centers around the incoming manager. 

On that front, Wray outlined a few of his principles.

The incoming manager “first and foremost” has to connect on a personal level with Wray and the front office; they “have to be a good person.” Wray stressed his need for collaboration and the need to be a voice in the room. 

“If you look at wanting to be on the front foot,” He said of the club’s philosophy over the back half of the year. “If you look at, you know, excitement for the fans, if you look at a lot of the, you know, grit and determination that people want to see from the players, I don't see that changing, and I think that is just smart, and kind of roster building and smart soccer in some way.”

That statement seems to hint at Wray agreeing with David Critchley’s approach last season, one that would have had CITY SC in a playoff spot if not for burying themselves through the first 15 matches of the season. Then, there’s also Laurent Courtois, who followed the CSO from his post at Crew 2 – where he won an MLS NEXT Pro championship – before Courtois was relieved of his duties earlier this season following Montreal’s similarly bad start. 

So, the club won’t rush a decision on a manager, but the clock is ticking.

“I will run a thorough process that is clear to everybody involved,” Wray finished. “There will be no favors given, and the right candidates will be brought in here, because they're the best candidates.”