St. Louis CITY's big test, Charlotte FC switch it up & more from Matchday 7 | OneFootball

By Matthew Doyle

Jack McGlynn, No. 10? God, finally. I’ve wanted to see that for two years.

We’ll explore that, a bunch of teams that are missing final-third continuity, and the Revs staring at a brutal remaining schedule (yeah, we’re already looking at “remaining schedule” for a few teams down near the bottom of the Eastern Conference).

We’ll start, though, with a St. Louis side that’s lost their attacking identity under their new head coach.

In we go:

The Presentation

There were two main selling points for new St. Louis head coach Olof Mellberg when he was presented by sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel back in the winter as the permanent replacement for Bradley Carnell:

On point No. 1, the defense has certainly been better. Following Saturday night’s 2-0 loss at Sporting Kansas City – the new coach bounce is real, and it’s spectacular! – CITY SC have conceded just four times all year, and that’s on only 7.0 xGA (a very respectable fourth in the Western Conference). Which is to say that, while they’re overperforming their numbers, they’d still be a very good defensive team if they weren’t.

All of that has come at the expense of consistent danger going forward. Now, there’s a caveat here: Mellberg’s team has been hamstrung by injuries and other absences. He’s rarely had what should be his first-choice XI in the 3-4-2-1 he’s implemented.

But that brings us to point No. 2: there has been little youth development thus far in 2025. Not a single minute has gone to anyone under the age of 24 despite the promises made this winter, and it’s especially confusing given Mellberg’s commitment to the 3-4-2-1, since 1) it’s a super wingback-dependent system, 2) the first team is short of wingbacks, and 3) young wingbacks like Tyson Pearce, Joseph Zalinsky and especially Mykhi Joyner are… I mean, they’re right there, man. Why sign them to first-team contracts if you’re not going to use them at a time like this? Why stick with the 3-4-2-1 if you’re not going to use the guys who are actually wingbacks?

All of this – the defensive improvement, the counterintuitive formation given the personnel Mellberg’s willing to use, and the reluctance to elevate the young players on the roster – has come at the expense of attacking coherence. St. Louis were genuinely fun over the final third of last season, usually playing a pretty standard 4-2-3-1 under interim head coach John Hackworth. They got Marcel Hartel on the ball in that left half-space a ton, got Cedric Teuchert (who, to be fair, has been carrying a knock for most of this season) running off a center forward, and got a baseline level of solidity behind all of them.

They’re getting almost none of that this year. Instead, they’re just trotting out as many d-mids and center backs as possible. And look, that doesn’t always make you a better defensive team:

There’s a lot of confusion through midfield about where and how to get pressure on the ball, and some real trouble keeping Sporting’s attackers in cover shadows. And then once Kyle Hiebert gets himself lost between the lines, you can actually see Dejan Joveljić point to Manu García for the pass (it’s the 56-second mark), knowing exactly how the chess pieces would move once Sporting’s No. 10 got on the ball in that spot. Joveljić would add his second a few minutes later when St. Louis again couldn’t scramble effectively.

And so Mellberg’s really getting into the testing period now. He got the defense to play better over the first six weeks of the season by getting numbers behind the ball and mostly keeping them there, but we’ve reached the point in the year where that’s not enough. Teams are better, cleaner and more dangerous in possession, and part of being good defensively is using your defensive shape to scare the bejesus out of the opponents by giving you the chance to transition into an attacking phase of play.

With low and slow wingbacks and mismatched attacking pieces, I’m not sure how St. Louis accomplish that. And against one of the best attacking teams in the league next week, when Columbus come to town for Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire, they’ll need to do more than just absorb.

For Sporting, I wrote at length last week what departed manager Peter Vermes meant to that club and the league as a whole. I meant every word – Vermes is a legend.

But yeah, that new coach bounce was real and spectacular, and I kind of wonder if moving Vermes’ larger-than-life presence out of the locker room made room for other guys (staff, but especially players) to find their voices and become leaders in a way that this current group just haven’t.

“The spirit of the guys… they were not going to give in,” interim head coach Kerry Zavagnin said to the press. “First time in a while that I heard at halftime, ‘We are not losing tonight.’ With that mentality, that spirit, you can overcome a lot of things.”

This was the best game in Sporting colors for both Joveljić and García, the new DPs brought in this summer, while the academy duo of Jake Davis and Jacob Bartlett were very good in central midfield.

Time will tell if this was a sign of what’s to come or something of a dead cat bounce. But I don’t think it’s wrong for Sporting fans to feel good for a week.

The Promotion

Nashville SC were balling so hard that I felt confident enough to make this video about their dominance while the game was happening. They are, right now, one of the most beautiful teams in the league to watch:

I got out over my skis a bit, though, didn’t I? Things fell apart for the ‘Yotes in the second half as Charlotte pulled themselves into the game and, eventually, won it 2-1. So much for beauty.

Credit to Charlotte head coach Dean Smith, who made a good, aggressive sub – he brought in winger Kerwin Vargas for central midfielder Djibril Diani, moved Pep Biel inside as a 10, and switched from a 4-3-3 to a double pivot. This is the type of thing (not just subbing but doing so early, and literally changing the team’s shape, both in build-out and attack) I want to see more of from managers who are watching their side underperform.

“We changed the build-up. We worked [out] that we'd build with a [back] two and four [across midfield],” is how Smith explained it in the postgame presser. “And we just didn't move the ball quick enough to get it to our fullbacks.

“So we decided to go back to our three and two. And that allowed us to create a box in midfield with Kerwin coming inside.”

That was one turning point, in that it stopped the flood of Nashville chances. Charlotte looked more comfortable once they changed their shape.

The other was, unfortunately, Walker Zimmerman getting kicked in the face (by Vargas, and no, it wasn’t a dirty play; and, according to reports, Zimmerman is ok) in the 71st minute. Nashville spent the final 20 minutes of the game, after watching their backline leader stretchered off, in something of a daze. The Crown took advantage of it, first with a clever play from Wilfried Zaha to earn a penalty, and then with Pep Biel hitting what has officially become The Pep Biel Pass:

That is a sick touch from Idan Toklomati for his first MLS goal.

Biel has been promoted into the central role – both literally and metaphorically – for the Crown this year. He leads the league in assists and is among the league leaders in most relevant chance-creation stats, including expected assists and pass-before-the-pass stuff. And honestly, I think a big part of Charlotte’s issues to start this one was that Smith had shunted him to the wing.

“I just felt that the way we wanted to play with Pep coming on the side,” Smith said, “we wanted to press from out to in with Pep and Wilf, but we never got close enough to their sixes at times.”

That was part of it. The other part was getting Biel into spots to immediately open the game with that pass, which means moving him deeper and more towards the middle. He’s a weapon there, even if Charlotte haven’t quite figured out their defensive balance with him in that spot.

I remain bullish on both these teams.

A few more things to ponder…

13. As pointed out by The Post Cincy on BlueSky, FC Cincinnati were without Evander, Obinna Nwobodo, Yuya Kubo, and their entire starting backline of Matt Miazga, Miles Robinson and Teenage Hadebe… and it was fine. Sergio Santos got his first goal of the year off some nice interplay around the box for the 1-0 win over visiting New England.

Nothing about this year has been easy so far for Cincy, but they’re starting to stack results.

Nothing about this year has been easy so far for the Revs, and they're not stacking results. They’re on four points through six games and, just eyeballing it, I feel like they’ve got the toughest remaining schedule in the league. Urp.

I will say their attack has looked a little more lively over the past two games. With Tomás Chancalay and Leo Campana both expected back in the next few weeks, there is still a glimmer of hope.

12. Jacen Russell-Rowe had himself a goal and assist as Columbus stayed unbeaten with a 2-1 home win over CF Montréal. Head coach Wilfried Nancy was both pleased – he praised the hell out of his team’s defense, and the way they defended from the front – and not.

“We had many chances. Because we don't score [a third, it became] 2-1, and this is the worst result to deal with during the game,” Nancy said about taking a 2-0 lead but failing to put the game away before halftime. “Well done, Montréal, because they kept going.

“After that, we had the possibility because we broke the opposition at certain moments. It was a 5v3 or 3v2, but we didn't have the good pass to finish. That's why we struggled a bit in the second half.”

Russell-Rowe’s been very good, as has Max Arfsten. Diego Rossi’s been great. AZ Jackson scored his first goal of the year, and Dylan Chambost has proven useful in a variety of spots.

But I’ll write the same thing I write every week: Columbus sold an MVP-caliber player, then traded his sidekick, and they need to replace one (really both) of those guys if they’re going to stay in the top tier this season. They could certainly use the extra punch ahead of next week’s trip to St. Louis for Sunday Night Soccer, but I haven’t heard a peep about potential signings before the Primary Transfer Window closes on April 23.

Montréal played pretty well in the game’s final hour, by the way. But there’s a clear gap.

Anyway, they’re finally home next week, and mostly stay there for the next three months. If they’re going to make up points, it has to start now.

11. It was finally back to the 4-2-2-2 for the Red Bulls, who came from 1-0 down to notch a 2-1 home win over Chicago on Saturday night. You can see the formation change in the network passing graphic:

To be honest, it wasn’t a super-convincing win – they were excellent for the final 10 minutes of the first half and that’s about it. But Serge Ngoma (No. 81 above) was clever about his attacking movement (especially on the goal, but there was some other nice stuff as well), Carlos Coronel played himself a blinder, and sometimes that’s enough.

Chicago manager Gregg Berhalter had to channel his inner Zen (his words, not mine) in the postgame presser.

“We had some good chances, right? To me, there were some good moves, good moves behind the [RBNY] back line, maybe the final pass could have been a little bit more accurate,” Berhalter said. “But there were a lot of good attacks, and normally when you get that many good attacks, you score a goal. And in this case, we just didn't. So that's a little frustrating.”

That’s the sport, though. “Sometimes ball go in” is not a satisfying narrative, but honestly, it’s what about 80% of these games come down to.

10. Or, in the case of Philly’s scoreless home draw with Orlando, “sometimes ball not go in.”

The Union did everything you’d expect of them: they won second balls, they played direct, they were dangerous as hell on set pieces, they outshot the Lions 20-6, and they more than doubled Orlando’s xG. Yet sometimes ball not go in. And now Philly, who were red-hot to start, have won just once in their past four.

This was a much better performance from Orlando than the 4-2 home beating they took from this same Union side on opening weekend, and they had their chances to smash and grab a win in the final 15 minutes. A road point is more than acceptable, though. Obviously.

“A good result for us,” head coach Oscar Pareja said in the postgame. “I think we take this point from a difficult place in Philadelphia with a lot of intensity. We had a lot of space with the ball, more than we thought we could get. At the same time, we knew that our options would be behind their backs, and we had two or three options that could have gotten us the three points. In the end, I think it was very level.”

9. It was also very level in Austin, where the Timbers spun up a point of their own via a scoreless draw. It’s their second shutout in three games, and their unbeaten run is now four.

This one was different, though, as in the other three, Portland were facing teams that generally wanted to get on the ball and dictate play. Austin are absolutely running away from that this year.

“We thought that their strengths were obviously on set plays and in transition, counterattacks – probably similar to ours, if they would have been scouting us,” is how head coach Phil Neville put it. “So I think we wanted to enjoy the ball, not get bored of the ball.”

And to their credit, Portland didn’t get bored of it, I don’t think. Though their lack of reps in building chances via possession did show, and Neville said as much.

“They defend crosses really well, so I thought it was probably the poorest part of our game, in terms of the quality of crosses, but the decisions that we made and the choices that we made to cross,” he explained. “Maybe we needed an extra pass, maybe we could have committed somebody one-on-one. But at the end of the day, they defended the box really well.”

Nico Estévez’s presser was basically the same in reverse. Both teams are establishing a nice baseline competence, but need to layer on some facility with chance creation out of midfield to become high-level threats.

8. There is a good case to give this both Pass of the Week and Face of the Week, but I’m only awarding it the latter:

Diego Luna would just do it himself a few minutes later, getting both goals in the 2-0 final for RSL. He looks a natural now that he’s playing full-time in the No. 10 role.

The Galaxy offered little resistance over the first half-hour – Zanka struggled again in central defense – and little threat despite chasing for the rest of the game.

"We had a lot of attacks that looked like they could be promising," is what head coach Greg Vanney said, and the implication there, about the execution of his team’s midfield and attackers, is just chef’s kiss.

7. Atlanta are still stuck in second gear, and stayed there even after going up 1-0 inside of 20 minutes at home against a Dallas side that’s still trying to find their way. Instead of pouring it on and using the game state to their advantage, the Five Stripes struggled to connect in the final third, left the door open and got punished when Petar Musa found a late equalizer for the 1-1 final.

Head coach Ronny Deila chalked it up to a lack of final-third execution and chemistry – really is a running theme this week, isn’t it? – and he’s not wrong.

“We had so many chances where the second pass was right at the goalkeeper, or the cross was not accurate enough, and these are the areas that we have to be sharper,” Deila said afterward. “Again, I see improvement in a lot of things, but this is very frustrating not to win this match.”

Another note I want to make: right back Brooks Lennon is leading this team in touches week after week. Lennon’s a useful player in many ways – he plays with energy, hits a hell of a cross, and can even do a little something in the half-spaces – but man, I don’t think he’s the guy you want keying your build-out patterns. It’s not all on him, mind you, but if there’s going to be a back-to-front, holistic fix of a team that perpetually plays like they’ve just met each other, starting with an assessment of how they actually want to progress the ball upfield seems like it’d be fruitful.

Good point from Dallas, who’ve quietly gone three unbeaten. A lot of that is their big DP attackers, Musa and Lucho Acosta, rescuing points while Eric Quill tries to figure out the rest of it. But that’s what you go out and get big DP attackers for, right?

6. Our actual Pass of the Week goes to Griffin Dorsey for this clever backheel to unleash Jack McGlynn for the game’s only goal in a 1-0 Dynamo win over LAFC:

McGlynn’s usually been used as a deep-lying playmaker in a double-pivot this year, and this game was really the first time Ben Olsen’s gone away from that. Instead, it was the usual hybrid 4-2-3-1 that morphed into a 3-4-2-1, but with McGlynn in the right attacking half-space – basically, he was the modern version of a No. 10. And man, do I want to see him get a run of games in that role because it emphasizes his strengths (he really is a weapon in the final third; dude’s among the league leaders in xA) while hiding his weaknesses (he’s, uh, not a great defensive presence deeper in midfield).

LAFC have lost four of five in league play and are struggling badly. At the start of the year, I tweeted: “It’s rare to see a team’s philosophy and personnel aligned so perfect, but LAFC have done it. They’ve spent the past three years slowly getting rid of all their creative midfielders, and now they play like a team that doesn’t have any creative midfielders.”

Obviously it was tongue-in-cheek, except not really. They’ve been denuded of their creative types, and as a result are struggling to get out into the open field like they used to, while still being uncomfortable carrying the ball and using possession to break teams down.

Related: Denis Bouanga is on zero goals for the season.

5. Vancouver are awesome, man. Colorado started brightly but within five minutes, the ‘Caps had figured out how to engage opposing fullbacks in the build-up to create space either in the channels or out wide, and sure enough, that’s exactly how they created both goals in their 2-0 win.

They do it with a lot of diagonals – they’re third in the league in successful switches of play – which are basically the only long-balls they hit (they’re 27th in MLS in long-ball frequency). And they are Crew-like in their willingness to ride out pressure and wait until the right moment unfolds.

“I think we were up against a team that press up high, and also did that today, but I think we kept cool, and played out of that pressure well,” Vancouver head coach Jesper Sørensen said. “And maybe it was a little bit more of a counterattacking play, a little more direct play today, but we also showed that we could manage that type of game. And I was quite happy with the performance overall. I think we created a lot of opportunities and chances.”

The Rapids have been wildly up and down. The only good news from this one was left back Sam Vines returned from injury, getting on the field for 35 minutes in the second half.

4. Whew. San Diego beat the absolute brakes off of Seattle late Saturday night at Snapdragon Stadium, getting an early goal off a set piece and then strangling the life out of the visitors over the final five minutes of the first half for the 3-0 final.

They scored on a set piece within 90 seconds, then utterly destroyed the Sounders off of turnovers as the clock ticked towards halftime:

The tweet says the thing: San Diego are a good and adaptable team (especially now with Chucky Lozano back healthy; that’s him scoring the second goal in that tweet), while the Sounders are a sleepy, sloppy and bad team at the moment. Jesús Ferreira is very much a man without a home in this lineup, and nobody on the backline has even been decent, let alone good.

I didn’t expect them to repeat last year’s brutal start, but they have.

3. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two years explaining the correlation between possession and points per game is back, and Minnesota United are just RUINING IT for me and I HATE THEM!! They need to stop winning games or start having the ball! Or at least more than just 33.9% of it, which is their possession mark on the season. That would be – by miles – the lowest mark in MLS history.

Ok, phew. That's out of my system following their 2-1 win in the Battle of the Birds in the Bronx. The Loons are a brilliant counterattacking team, very good on set pieces, and are really pragmatic about using long throws to generate what are essentially more set pieces. If you do that and you have a good goalkeeper (who becomes a God goalkeeper when facing PKs), you’re going to win a lot of games.

And if the recent version of Joaquín Pereyra is the real version, they might win their first trophy as an MLS team:

This, by the way, is a perfect example of the utility of a two-forward system. Kelvin Yeboah’s hold-up play occupies multiple New York City FC defenders and creates the channel for Pereyra to push forward. That shifts the entire backline towards the ball, which leaves Tani Oluwaseyi all alone for the one-time finish.

The Pigeons dug themselves that 2-0 hole and full credit to head coach Pascal Jansen: he made two subs in the 40th minute and his side controlled the rest of the game. They had more than enough chances to dig themselves all the way out, but were ultimately killed by Alonso Martínez’s penalty miss just before the break.

I think he probably learned something about which guys he trusts, and which he doesn’t.

2. San Jose beat the hell out of D.C. United for a half hour, then took a half-hour nap, then woke up to apply another beating or three over the game’s final half-hour in a 6-1 laugher that was absolutely nothing like the inaugural MLS game 29 years ago.

I really like a lot about the Quakes, and specifically when they play a 3-5-2, and especially with another playmaker – 19-year-old homegrown No. 10 Niko Tsakiris – in the XI. They spent the entire game basically one touch from cracking D.C. wide open.

I do, however, think this result (and basically everything else about the game) says more about D.C.’s current situation than it does about the Quakes. The Black-and-Red have shipped 87 goals since the start of last season and are worse basically across the board. That pillowy soft schedule to start the year was pretty misleading, and now that they’ve driven into the teeth of the thing, they’re up against it every week.

Three straight losses by a combined 12-3. Very little reason to think things are going to change.

1. Here’s what I wrote in my preview of Toronto’s trip to Fort Lauderdale for this week’s installment of Sunday Night Soccer.

I’m just gonna list off some thoughts I had while watching this absolutely insane 1-1 draw:

I kind of suspect the Herons will regret pouring so much into this one when it comes time for the Concacaf Champions Cup second leg vs. LAFC. As for the Reds, maybe this will be something to build on. Certainly, if Insigne and Bernardeschi keep showing up like this, it will be. But that’s been a mountain of an “if” for the past two years.

So we’ll see.