St. Louis CITY SC notebook, fallout from Aston Villa, Nilsson buyout.

Only nine matches remain in the 2025 season, and St. Louis CITY SC will need a miracle at this point to reach their stated goal of making the playoffs. That shouldn’t be news to CITY SC supporters, but the club has been whipping up some news this week.

Sporting Director Lutz Pfannenstiel has attempted to plan for a brighter CITY SC future. The squad has gotten significantly younger heading into the final year of his contract, while the managerial situation is still up in the air as David Critchley sees out the rest of the season.

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Aston Villa fallout.

The 1-2 loss to Aston Villa was impressive given the state of the squad heading into the matchup. Critchley was ecstatic with his squad’s fight; the attack had its moments while the midfield trio of Marcel Hartel, Tomáš Ostrák, and Edu Löwen had some serious juice against last year’s Champions League quarterfinalists.

“It's a good feeling,” Critchley said afterwards. “I thought both groups came in and gave us a lot of energy, first half group and second half group, good performance by us against a top-level team. So, we got better. And that's the process that we're in right now as a team. How do we consistently get better every week?”

The squad’s greatest asset right now is the competition for places at virtually every position. No one outside of João Klauss, Hartel, Löwen, Timo Baumgartl, and Roman Bürki are safe in the starting XI. So far, that hasn’t resulted in wins, but a trademark of this group’s success over the first year and a half was the competition in training that kept players hungry to stay in the lineup.

Injuries throughout the year have decimated that competition, especially as off-roster homegrowns Mykhi Joyner and Tyson Pearce were the only youth players given serious minutes through the first half of the season.

The transition past Olof Mellberg’s trusted older contingent had to happen, and CITY SC enters the homestretch of the season with more optimism because of it… even if it is far too late.

Still, Critchley was happy that both groups of “starters” played well. The first XI only allowed one goal against Villa’s presumed strongest lineup, while the second XI, which included Miggy Perez, Fallou Fall, JGR, and Brendan McSorely, scored out of a crucial pressing moment.

*I wrote about Cedric Teuchert’s goal and challenge in this week’s STL Magazine profile.*

“I look at that performance tonight, collectively from the group, and we got better as a team against a really good opponent.” Critchley continued. “I always want to win, but sometimes you have to look at it and say, hey, we had a good performance against a really top, top-level team in Europe. We're happy with it and we move on.”

St. Louis had a refreshing weekend as the Leagues Cup kicked off elsewhere, but as they return to host Nashville this weekend, they must turn that progress into much-needed points on the table.

*I talked Patrick Schulte and the Columbus Crew for MLSSoccer.com*

Joakim Nillson buyout.

Pfannenstiel has never been shy about moving on from players as he tweaks the roster, but the buyout of Joakim Nilsson feels like the end of an era. Nilsson arrived in St. Louis as a regular in Sweden’s backline with major Bundesliga credentials.

Unfortunately, Nilsson’s injury history meant that his roster spot and $1,255,750 cap hit became an albatross for a desperate CITY SC. The Swede was one of the best CBs in MLS on his day, but he played just 1,937 minutes in Major League Soccer across the better part of 3 seasons.

Nilsson’s time in St. Louis will still be remembered fondly.

To this point, when Joakim Nilsson trained with CITY 2 during his rehab stint last season, former CITY 2 manager Bobby Murphy said that Nilsson was adamant that he should train in CITY 2 training gear.

It’s a small thing, but Bobby Murphy explained the outsized impact on his young players — someone with Nilsson’s pedigree insisting to be just another player in the group.

It’s heartbreaking when a player with Joakim Nilsson’s talent, character, and professionalism can’t find their way back onto the pitch.

That’s sports. The highest of highs and the lowest of lows.

Players can only rest on the impact they have left behind.

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More MLSNP success.

On to some good news.

St. Louis CITY 2 continues to thrive under John Hackworth and Dale Schilly. Hackworth was just named manager of the Month for July, while goalkeeper Christian Olivares was named MLSNP Goalkeeper of the Month.

CITY2 hasn’t lost since May 11th — with a record of 9W-1D-0L during that time — while giving important minutes to players like MLS NEXT MVP Eddie Niles as the CITY SC academy prepares to graduate more players into the first team pipeline.

The future is bright, as haphazard as the season has been for the first team.