St. Louis CITY SC takes on NYCFC, what to expect from Dante Polvara's homecoming.

St. Louis CITY SC will be looking for their first point on the road in 2026 today when they head to NYCFC, but the trip will mean a little more for former NYCFC Academy midfielder Dante Polvara.

Polvara earned high marks during his time with the Pigeons but never suited up for the first team, opting to grow his game at Georgetown, where he won the MAC Hermann Trophy following his 2021 season for the Hoyas. Recognized as one of the best in college soccer, the hype led to attention from overseas, and because he never signed the homegrown deal with NYCFC, Polvara was free to sign with Aberdeen when Scotland came calling. 

Now 25, Polvara will return to NYC while enjoying his first taste of Major League Soccer, albeit his former Academy teammates will be surprised to see him playing along the backline.

“I’m sure they expect me in the midfield because that’s where I ‘ve always been,” Polvara reflected ahead of the trip to Queens. “I’m starting to understand it more. It’s a case of thinking less and it becoming more 2nd nature, and that takes a little while, especially tactically when every game is presenting a different issue and the way we like to defend, a lot of times I’m pushing into the midfield to step into wherever the play is, and those tactics change quite a bit.”

Yoann Damet has been nothing but complimentary of his back three since the start of the year, to the point of seemingly preferring the younger Jaziel Orozco on the right and Polvara on the left ahead of the more heralded Fallou Fall and Mamadou Mbacke. 

“I’ve been very happy with his commitment, and with his leadership as well,” Damet said. “It’s been able to give us some interesting things on the ball. His ability to play under pressure, I keep in mind that he can give us a different look if he plays in the middle, or moves into the midfield with or without the ball, there is a flexibility to think about and consider for the future.”

Fallou Fall’s 45 minute start with CITY2 against LAFC2 should signal that the Senegalese U22 centerback is ready to step into the lineup but he’ll have to earn that from the dogged Polvara.

Against NYCFC, it’s easy to see a scenario where Damet sticks with the backline and midfield pairing that has been well structured thus far, but will it take something more inventive to steal points off of one of the Eastern Conference heavyweights?

The Pigeons come into this matchup fresh off a 2-3 loss to Inter Miami, the first stumble at home for them this season. This may come as a shock, but St. Louis CITY SC do not have a Lionel Messi type to take over the match from open play, but there is a glimmer of hope in this result. All 3 of Miami’s goals came from dead balls, 2 corner routines, and a dead ball Messi golazo. The visitors have that in their locker, but CITY SC will have to be as clinical as they were vs New England.

That’s the rub.

What to expect:

New York build in a nice compact block before using their width to enter the attacking third, against Miami, that looked like an interchange between Nicolás Fernández and Hannes Wolf on the left side, with Augustín Ojeda attacking the weakside while Maxi Morales and Keaton Parks provide the engine underneath. 

St. Louis will have to stay structured, but will also need Conrad Wallem and Rafa Santos to cover the flanks when NYCFC do try to utilize the wide spaces.

We talk a lot about NYCFC’s narrow field but that potentially helps St. Louis here as long as they don’t take the bait and leave themselves vulnerable in transition, like was the case in San Diego (or make sure you win the ball when you push the pressing trigger). 

Yoann Damet wasn’t worried about the dimensions when asked pre-match. Looks can be deceiving. The pitch at Energizer Park is 74 yards wide compared to NYCFC’s 70 yards between Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, and Damet is confident that his CITY SC are already prepared to deal with close, in tight moments.

“We train all week and almost everyday in tighter areas,” Damet said. “It’s part of our training methodology to reduce the pitch to basically increase the amount of repetition we’re creating in training, but also increase the quality of our decision making, tight space, tight areas, reduce the time players have to make a decision and execute. At the end of the day, we’re not looking at it as any type of excuse, just a part of the overall context of the game.”

They’ll find out how true that is in a few hours.

Lineup predictions:

Good news, bad news. CITY SC are down to 1 player on the injury list – even if Edu Löwen still has some time before he is up to speed. Unfortunately that 1 player is Célio Pompeu who suffered an ACL injury last week that should keep him out of the lineup for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, Cedric Teuchert has been back in training and is available to start next to Marcel Hartel if Damet is confident in his fitness levels. Outside of the result last weekend, that has been CITY SC’s best look, but I suspect there will be some wrinkles in the setup after an extra week of training and some positive comments regarding Mykhi Joyner’s U20 camp from Yoann Damet this week.

“Very happy for him,” Damet said. “It’s good that he gets some minutes, some international experience as well, that’s very good experience. Sometimes it's good to get out of the environment a little bit to experience something different I see that as a big positive. We looked at his performance, and we take the most out of it.”

Another note, CITY SC announced the short-term callup of 2025 SuperDraft pick Collin Welsh from CITY 2 Saturday morning. Both Roman Bürki and Ben Lundt made the trip to NYC, but the callup potentially signals that one of the pair aren’t going to suit up tonight, Ben Lundt recently made his first CITY2 start of the season vs LAFC2 and Bürki has had some load management in recent weeks but this could also be a moment to integrate Welsh into the group with US Open Cup play on the horizon. Neither took up a spot on this week's availability report.

Final Thoughts:

Up to this point, St. Louis has been better than expected against one of the strongest schedules in MLS to this point. They’ve been unlucky (read not clinical enough) to grab every expected point. The performances say that St. Louis should have grabbed 3 more points from their first 5 matches, but that slate isn’t getting any easier. 

They’ll have to take those performances up another notch if they are to leave New York with a point this evening.

As always, thanks for reading. I will be back tonight with some post match analysis. In the meantime, I am in KC covering today's highly anticipated playoff rematch between the KC Current and Gotham FC, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to support my work.