CARSON, Calif. – The floodgates are open.
St. Louis CITY SC finally found their shooting boots on Matchday 3 with goals from Cedric Teuchert, Marcel Hartel and Simon Becher powering a 3-0 win at reigning MLS Cup champions LA Galaxy – their first victory of the season under new head coach Olof Mellberg.
“[It is] really, really nice obviously, the first goals as well. I thought we deserved the win today,” Mellberg said after the Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire clash.
Brick wall
The biggest reason for CITY’s early success has been their defense, led by back-to-back MLS All-Star starting goalkeeper Roman Bürki. Through three matches this season, St. Louis are the only team in MLS yet to concede a goal.
“It was so nice to see and I think the first two games have built confidence,” Mellberg said. “Thanks to some good individual defending and especially to Roman, we were able to get another clean sheet. But I think it's a lot to do also with the first couple of games that they feel confident defending.”
For the attacking players, knowing Bürki is likely to keep a clean sheet makes every goal on the offensive end feel more valuable.
“He’s very important for us. I think [he made] three or four really good saves to keep us in the game and that's why he's the best goalkeeper in the league,” Teuchert said.
“When we stay good in the defense, we are always good to score goals because we have big players in the offense… I think when we [keep] clean sheets, we win a lot of games.”
Off the schneid
Teuchert himself exemplified that message, producing a goal and assist on either side of halftime for CITY’s first goals of the year.
“I think it was one of my easiest goals in my career, but I think for us as a team, we need sometimes goals like this,” Teuchert said. “I'm very happy to score the first goal of the season for our team and I think it was a very deserved win.”
It took St. Louis 224 minutes to score this season, punishing a Galaxy backline that struggled in transition moments.
“I liked our positioning. I thought we looked really dangerous,” Mellberg said. “We had one-v-one situations, two-v-one, two-v-two, so really happy with the way we looked formation-wise. [We] added a little bit more quality today, especially in the final third, some great finishing for the goals.”
Last season, St. Louis struggled on the road with only one away win, but began to play like a more complete team after the midseason arrivals of Teuchert and Hartel. On Sunday, those same two players led CITY to their first road win of the Mellberg era.
St. Louis hope to continue their momentum next Saturday back at Energizer Park in a major Western Conference clash against Seattle Sounders FC (8:30 pm ET | MLS Season Pass).
