MLS
St. Louis City SC begin Kansas City rivalry with resounding win
One of the most hotly-anticipated fixtures of MLS Rivalry Week ended in a historic victory for the Western Conference expansion side.
St. Louis City SC have been one of the surprise packages of MLS this season, starting life in the league with a historic five straight wins.
On Saturday evening the Western Conference expansion side faced neighbours Sporting Kansas City in their first MLS derby and St. Louis ran out 4-0 winners.
Two goals either side of half time ensured a comfortable win for City SC. Eduard Lowen opened the scoring with a penalty and Indiana Vassilev doubled their lead before the break. In the second half Niko Gioacchini made it three and Vassilev added another with 15 minutes remaining.
“We needed this, we needed a clean sheet” St. Louis head coach Bradley Carnell said after the game. “We’ve done a lot of individual stuff [in training], credit to the coaching staff for the individual development of these players.”
“We had a few results not go our way, but we’re still comfortable in the table. We wanted a response, the players were brutally honest with each other, and we have competition burning within,” he added.
Historic derby day victory for St. Louis
St. Louis and Kansas City have a fierce sporting rivalry that spans a numbers of sports. Until this season, however, that had not really manifested itself in soccer. Kansas City were home to one of the original MLS founder clubs, while St. Louis had never had a top tier franchise.
That all changed this season when St. Louis City SC became MLS’ 29th team. St. Louis sports fans often claim that their city is the “soccer capital of America” and the CITYPARK stadium was a sell-out for the first MLS game against local rivals.
Jake Koenig, host of St. Louis City SC fan podcast Ball Watching, believes that the cities’ sporting rivalry is partly a consequence of the similarities between the two.
“They’re actually cities that I think are pretty similar, they value a lot of the same things,” he told AS ahead of the game. “It’s a pretty friendly rivalry but when you put it on the pitch you’re going to get some pretty fun games.”
“We had a big history with the game but were never able to have that top level team.”
Saturday’s 4-0 win over Kansas City keep St. Louis third in the Western Conference after 12 games. More importantly, perhaps, it allowed them to strike the first blow in the MLS’ newest rivalry.