ST. LOUIS–After years of preparation and anticipation, expectations may have been exceeded both on and off the pitch at CityPark over the weekend, as St. Louis City SC won its inaugural MLS home opener 3-1 over Charlotte FC before a sellout crowd of 22,423 Saturday night.
Here are five takeaways:
Parking
It was scarce this weekend. The Missouri Valley Conference basketball tournament at Enterprise Center and a Trevor Noah concert at Stifel Theatre added to the demand in the immediate vicinity. After arriving in the district around roughly 4:30 Saturday afternoon (the block party at the stadium started at 4), this reporter found lots charging $45-50 nearby, and a full lot at Union Station, before nabbing street parking down Market Street near Tucker in front of City Hall.
With the Blues likely missing the NHL postseason, only two Enterprise Center events–an April 1 Bryan Adams concert and a May 20 Thomas Rhett concert currently overlap with City match days (Minnesota and Kansas City, respectively).
The area offers a combination of street parking, nearby surface lots, MetroLink and even bike paths, which were all put to use Saturday. “We think the options and the variety for transportation into our district is really immense, it’s just going to take some getting used to,” City SC Chief Experience Officer Matt Sebek told Spectrum News ahead of the match.
Business reaction
The stadium development project lured several businesses to the area. Saturday was the grand opening for Viola, the Larry Hughes-backed marijuana dispensary that opened on Olive across the street for the stadium and had lines out the door late into the afternoon.
CityPark was one of the reasons Maggie O’Briens spent last fall on a major renovation. The early returns are encouraging.
“It was a great day all around. No issues. Crowds were fantastic and plentiful. All I can compare it to is the St. Patrick’s Day parades of a decade ago. So many people all united as fans. It was a great day,” General Manager Aaron Snively told Spectrum News.
“10/10! The vibes were immaculate!” was the reaction to the night from The Pitch Athletic Club and Tavern, which just opened at Union Station.
As of Monday morning, St. Louis police reported no car break-ins in the area and that from their perspective it was a “relatively quiet” night.
The home office is impressed
MLS Commissioner Don Garber was on hand for the festivities and talked to reporters at halftime. He described CityPark as a “world class” facility. He told Spectrum News that CityPark will host an All-Star game, it’s just a matter of when. League policy is to award them to new teams and teams with new facilities. The league has now added seven teams in the past seven years, so there’s a bit of a backlog.
But based on what he’s seen already in St. Louis and from St. Louis fans, Garber says the example here sets a high bar for stadium projects under development in New York City and Miami.
“This is a community with soccer in its heart. And that doesn’t happen everywhere in MLS. One of the things I said to the ownership group is you know, we’ve built a fan following and a supporter culture in many cities in this country that had to learn about the game. And in this city we delivered the game, the next generation of what MLS is and what it can be,” Garber said.
That tie to soccer includes many of the elected officials Garber met with throughout the expansion process.
“We didn’t have to tell them about the sport. In many ways they were telling us what took you so long. We’re glad you’re here.”
Heroes and Villains
Charlotte FC’s Enzo Copetti will go down in the history books as the author of the first goal in CityPark history, but he’ll also be remembered as the first opposing player to be lustily booed by the home fans whenever he touched the ball thereafter. Copetti got into it with SC goalie and Team Captain Roman Bürki, who was unafraid to show a flare for the dramatic, even if it meant a little trash talking.
Bürki described it afterward as just part of the game, and talked about the importance of channeling the emotion to power the team’s game.
“Roman plays with an edge. He's a proud character and he's a proud person. They challenged us early on in a couple of set pieces. You could see them dropping down in the small box and making life difficult for Roman. But he's as calm as a cucumber, cool as a cucumber,” Head Coach Bradley Carnell said. “I think we are very fortunate to have Roman in our ranks and here in the City of St. Louis, we can all benefit from him and his standards every single day.”
“He gets us all fired up, it’s normal. That’s his job, he did it….We’re happy he did because those are moments where it can change a game just an extra yell, an extra boost in energy,” City SC forward Nicholas Gioacchini said.
Changing expectations?
As has been much discussed, City SC is not your traditional expansion team. Roughly half of the roster has been in St. Louis since last summer and played as part of the City2 club in MLS Next Pro which won the Western Conference Championship, and later played in the friendly against Bayer Leverkusen.
But that didn’t stop preseason prognosticators from suggesting City’s inaugural campaign would be a rough slog. Of the 13 predictions found on the league’s own website, none has the team finishing higher than 13th in the 14-team Western Conference.
During the preseason, Sporting Director Lutz Pfannenstiel talked about how “nobody fancies us” and how that could provide some extra motivation. Carnell spoke of wanting to be “competitive on day one” but how that also meant things like player development, in what could be deemed as considering small victories that don’t always translate in the near-term.
But then they started playing the games that count. 2 wins. 6 goals. Tied for first in the Western Conference.
“Last week was very emotional. This week was almost a joy, a celebration, right, so I think to go through the way we did and its funny how three days after a game where you know expectations were one way and now expectations are totally opposite,” Carnell said Saturday night. “I think that’s the beauty of success and we need to take that on our shoulders and embrace it, challenge ourselves to step up again because the road doesn’t get easier from here.
“You just think about putting the best effort you can, best performance and efficiency on the field. Other than that you know the outcome is the outcome our job is just to do the best we can on the field to perform and to win points, and you know if we end up being one of the best expansion teams ever…so be it. But our main focus is to win game after game after game,” Gioacchini said.
“We’re at six points and, you know, top of the league right now. We want to keep it that way. Because I know a lot of people have said we're going to finish last. So, it's a good start for us,” right back Jake Nerwinski said.