What led to St. Louis CITY SC's decision on Lutz Pfannenstiel?

St. Louis CITY SC reached the end of the 2025 Summer Transfer Window with some ever-lurking questions about their roster and a fleeting dream of playoff soccer. It has been an interesting season, made more intriguing by the club’s decision to part ways with Lutz Pfannenstiel after five years in charge of St. Louis CITY SC.

Pfannenstiel’s presence at CITY SC has been constant since day one. No one is more responsible for the club’s initial success, from his work establishing the academy, to CITY2's success, to the highs of year one. However, it was the overachievement in year one that led to Monday’s decision to part ways with Pfannenstiel.

St. Louis sits over ten points off of the final playoff spot for the second season in a row. While Pfannenstiel was busy this summer — filling the club’s U22 spots with Fallou Fall and Sangbin Jeong — it was the winter roster build and complete failure of a coaching hire that made the move necessary.

St. Louis has a DP spot opening up — 2 if they switch to a 3 DP-3U22 roster build — a managerial search, and a coaching hire to take care of in just a few short months.

Diego Gigliani will be a busy man, sharing the technical aspects of the Sporting Director role with CITY SC Swiss Army Knife John Hackworth as they embark on hiring the club’s second Sporting Director to enact their next five-year plan.

“It’s never a happy day,” Gigliani said of firing Pfannenstiel. “Those of us who have worked in sports know that this is a results-driven business, and also see what is happening. We are frustrated with our performance, and we all want this team to be where we think it deserves to be, for the fans and for the owners.”

Pfannenstiel staked his reputation on the Mellberg hire.

Pfannenstiel entered the season with a need to deliver playoff soccer to the St. Louis faithful to complete his original five-year plan. The club felt they were on the right path after an exciting end to the 2024 season, and decided to appoint former Aston Villa defender Olof Mellberg as the club’s second full-time manager.

Talkin Soccer is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Mellberg came with a promise to build on the success under John Hackworth, and evolve into a club more comfortable with the ball at their feet. The belief was that Mellberg had his previous club, Brommapojkarna, punching above their weight while marveling in the development environment that created players like Viktor Gyökeres and Lucas Bergvall.

Unfortunately, Mellberg brought none of that to St. Louis and was fired following 11 straight winless outings in MLS play. Over Mellberg’s 15 matches in charge, St. Louis were kept off of the scoresheet 8 times, an unacceptable output for a club that has invested in a DP striker and attacking midfielder.

It was anti-soccer, a dearth of excitement.

Mellberg’s failure also shone a light on the haphazard nature of the roster build this winter. Mellberg arrived with the promise of wingbacks and flexibility, but his 5-3-2 failed to yield dynamism, and his lineup preferences meant that Pfannenstiel would need to be creative, loaning in Conrad Wallem to play the wingback role from Slavia Praha while simultaneously blocking the development pathway of promising winger Mykhi Joyner.

It was a complete disaster, and while Joyner had been given opportunities at wingback, it was too little too late for a manager who brought rigidity to the job after promising flexibility.

The antithesis of CITY SC’s stated principles of play.

Pfannenstiel and Gigliani decided to move on from Mellberg after just 17 matches across all competitions, promoting David Critchley to caretaker manager after his short stint at the helm of CITY2.

“At the time of letting Mellberg go, we were not in active conversations around Lutz.” Gigliani said, “Those things are important decisions. We need to give them the right time and process to make sure that we are comfortable with them. So, it wasn’t a consideration at that time.”

Pfannenstiel preferred Mellberg in the hiring process, and — while Pfannenstiel pushed to move on from Mellberg — it was ultimately his reputation that took the hit.

Critiquing the roster.

While managerial mistakes defined Pfannenstiel’s tenure, it was his roster decisions that will leave a long-term impact.

The good news, Pfannenstiel left behind a roster that will be easy to turn over under a new direction. The club won’t be locked into long-term deals with players that aren’t MLS level, but it’s easy to argue that the roster was only finished with the U22 signings of Sangbin Jeong and Fallou Fall this past month.

There are obvious what-ifs around the health of Joakim Nilsson and Rasmus Alm, but their absences were especially noticeable in a year where injuries and the decision not to replace Indiana Vassilev during the winter window thoroughly tested the club’s depth.

“I think we have the building blocks of a competitive team,” Gigliani assured. “We need to look at where we can improve, we need to look at big impact things like DPs and U22s, which are the signings that will make a big difference. We also need to make sure that we’ve got a squad of players that can be on the field and be available. Low injury players will be very important, and if we can make a few good, impactful signings, we’ll have a better squad.”

Pfannenstiel tinkered — promoted Jaziel Orozco from CITY2, a Hail Mary trade for Xande Silva — but it wasn’t enough, finally filling the club’s open U22 spots. Struggling but talented winger Sangbin Jeong was acquired for a club record intraleague cash trade, while Senegalese CB Fallou Fall nearly broke the club’s transfer record.

Unfortunately, it was too little too late, and Pfannenstiel met his fate.

St. Louis will enter the 2026 offseason roughly in the same spot they were over the back half of 2023:

There are decisions to make at the 6.

Who are the long-term fullbacks? (Certainly not loanee Devin Padelford, who has started every match since arriving from Minnesota.)

Can a homegrown player break 1000 minutes in a season?

If Chris Durkin is the long-term option at the 6, there still has to be progress on JGR’s ability to play more meaningful minutes in the rotation. If the club learns anything from Pfannenstiel’s tenure, it’s that they can’t afford to miss on U22 players. No one benefits from the investment into the U22 spots on the roster unless those young players can either come in and contribute or come in and raise their market value. St. Louis doesn’t benefit from those U22 spots unless they actually use them to their benefit.

The long-term full back question might also answer the homegrown question if Tyson Pearce can be that player, but if not, a fresh perspective may be needed to finally address the roster's biggest holes.

What’s Next?

Gigliani and Hackworth will share the Sporting Director duties until a new SD is hired, but Gigliani is certain that the club is sold on their current style of play.

“Reflecting is a great thing to do in moments like this, but are we in a position where we are abandoning our style of play? I know we will not reflect at that level.” Gigliani assured. “We believe in the importance of having a style of play. We believe in the style of play and how it connects to the ethos of St. Louis, of being a hardworking, gritty, aggressive team. We want to maintain that intensity.”

So, the search for the next Sporting Director is on, and from there, a new manager as well.

The season marches on, and they’ll have some important decisions to make with players on the last year of their contracts.

If that means Roman Bürki will be back in St. Louis next season, that remains up in the air, but Gigliani is certain that Pfannenstiel’s absence won’t negatively affect the current negotiations.

“Negotiations are going great, he knows how important he is to the team, how we value what he brings on and off the pitch. He knows that.” Gigliani said. “We have started having those discussions with him and his agent. Lutz for sure, but also with myself, and we are confident that we’ll get this done.”

There wasn’t a sense that this hire would come from the MLS ranks. Gigliani boasted his connections as well as John Hackworth’s insights, but this is very much a decision that Diego Gigliani will make, and one that potentially defines his time in St. Louis.

What happens next? Will players who were brought to St. Louis because of their relationship to Lutz Pfannestiel want to leave? Or will Gigliani be able to see a vision of CITY 2.0 that finally comes to fruition?

Time will tell.

Talkin Soccer is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.