ST. LOUIS - St. Louis City SC returned to MLS play on Sunday with an emphatic victory over Austin FC at CITY PARK. They’ll face tough opposition when they hit the road on Saturday to take on Orlando City SC.
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City, clear atop Major League Soccer’s Western Conference with 44 points, are just four points ahead of Orlando City’s 40. Orlando currently sits fourth in the Eastern Conference, which is a little more top-loaded than the west.
Orlando boasts a solid home record, unbeaten since April 22nd at Exploria Stadium. Their home form has been a key to them being firmly in the Eastern Conference playoff picture and one of the teams in the hunt for the MLS Supporters’ Shield.
City, as mentioned, sits four points ahead of Orlando in that Supporters’ Shield race, the award for the team that finishes with the highest point total over the course of the regular MLS season. The Supporters Shield is more analogous to the league title in other major soccer leagues around the world, where playoffs are less common than they are in U.S. sports.
Asked if thoughts about the race for the Supporters’ Shield and playoffs has crept into his or City’s mind, head coach Bradley Carnell was dismissive as you may expect. It may be a sports cliche, but Carnell and crew really live by the “one day at a time” mantra so many coaches preach.
“We’re only 24 matchdays in,” said Carnell. “We’re still where we are, and that’s what we’re focused on. We focus on our ‘internal table’, we focus on our internal stuff. You guys see where we are, 44 points, but there’s a lot more than that.”
“So far, we’re still overachieving. Even if we lost every game until the end of the season, it would be considered an overachievement.”
City’s week-by-week, game-by-game goal is to continue to exceed those expectations. It’s fair to say that the expectations of supposed MLS “experts” who predicted this group would win a small handful of games all season definitely created a chip on the shoulder of St. Louis City, one they’ve used to motivate them throughout the campaign.
If there’s any player with a chip on their shoulder heading into Saturday’s match with Orlando City, it’s City attacker Niko Gioacchini. Gioacchini played (out of position) for Orlando in 2022, and he spoke a lot about the opportunity to show what his former team is missing.
Orlando left Niko Gioacchini unprotected in the 2022 MLS Expansion Draft, where St. Louis City picked him up for free. After not getting much of a look in Orlando’s system last season, Niko now leads an MLS side in scoring and is a bonafide double-digit goalscorer in MLS with potential for more, something Orlando’s supporters have been able to see from afar.
“I’ve been looking forward to this game for eight months,” said Gioacchini on Thursday at City’s pre-match presser. “Let’s say (his time in Orlando) was not as it was explained to me, and I took it personally. These moments always make you stronger, smarter, wiser.”
Gioacchini explained that he signed with Orlando under the pretense that he would be a striker/attacking option for the Lions. What actually transpired was him playing less than 150 total minutes of game action, primarily as a right winger/midfielder.
“I was playing on the right side, right midfielder, right wing, which is not at all my position,” said Gioacchini. “I had played there in the past, so I tried my best. (Orlando’s) style of play is a lot different from what I was accustomed to.”
“I came to a place (Orlando) where I was hoping for a lot more, expecting a lot more that I didn’t get. That all builds up in the mind and makes it more difficult. It was very tough.”
Orlando didn’t see a need to keep Gioacchini around after his quiet 2022. They left him unprotected in the MLS Expansion Draft, and that’s when he got a phone call from City sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel and Bradley Carnell.
“I was shopping in Paris, I remember every second of it,” Gioacchini recalled. “I got the call from Lutz and Bradley and they said ‘Welcome to St. Louis’. I knew I was unprotected, which was good news to me. Definitely more than happy that call arrived.”
Asked on if any of his City teammates have picked him up or encouraged him differently heading into a matchup against his former team, Gioacchini was succinct. “I want (the team) to give it their all just like every other game.”
“For me personally, it’s different,” Gioacchini admitted. “But for them, it’s the same game they always play. They will all understand my personal connection to this game, but what’s most important is to get to the playoffs, winning every game we can.”
And as City makes their final regular season push towards those playoffs, they do so in the best shape they’ve been in all year. For the first time perhaps all season, they have a full squad, well, minus Njabulo Blom, who sits out Saturday’s contest after picking up his fifth yellow card of the season on Sunday against Austin.
Yes, that means striker Joao Klauss is healthy and good to go, by all Bradley Carnell accounts. But, especially with the significance of the game to Niko GIoacchini detailed here, one would imagine Klauss starts Saturday’s match on the bench.
The roster is so full of fit and healthy players that some are squeezed out of the first-team fold. Homegrown midfielder Miguel Perez and City’s first-ever signing Selmir Pidro have been training with reserve side CITY2, and will likely start or at least feature in CITY2’s MLS NEXT Pro match on Sunday evening against San Jose Earthquakes II.
Orlando’s roster has been bolstered by the return of their midfield stalwart Junior Urso. While his offensive stats don’t jump off the page, the veteran holding midfielder Urso has been a prominent figure in the Orlando City midfield since 2020.
Urso left the club after 2022, citing “personal reasons”. He didn’t want to leave.
“The time I spent away was a difficult time for me,” Urso said after rejoining Orlando City. “I left the club, but I didn’t want to leave, I needed to leave, but today I am happy to be back. I’m so thankful to the club for welcoming me back and for giving me this new opportunity.”
It’s an opportunity for Orlando to move up in the Eastern Conference, and an opportunity for St. Louis City to increase their lead atop the West.
Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Saturday night, televised/streamed on Apple TV, with local radio broadcasts available on KYKY 98.1 FM in English and KXOK 102.9 in Spanish.
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