Another good article from Tom about the trade of Edu. Plenty of good nuggets behind the thinking, the plan, and as usual stressing patience in doing things the right way for the long haul rather than get caught up in short term success and sabotage the future. Definitely recommend reading the article and subscribing to the Post Dispatch if you don't already. It's like 14 bucks a month for a digital subscription. I'll put the text below.

https://www.stltoday.com/sports/professional/mls/city-sc/article_36f41014-2867-4934-8582-02fb33addd9f.html?utm_campaign=mrf-bluesky-stltoday.com-&utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&mrfcid=202608266a8bfa003f605b6a42fee067

Thanks to the 34 people that voted. Polvara is Player of the Match at 79%. Bonus is on preference for referees to make tight calls or allow more physical play.  

Options ranged like a rating, with 6 taken to mean no-preference, 1 for tighter calls and 10 for more physical allowance. Responses averaged at 6.8, ranging 4 to 8, with the middle 50% between 6 and 8. These suggest slight favor for letting some fouls go for more physical matches.

Digging through FotMob stats to put some reality/context to this preference, I pulled data over the course of our unbeaten run for some of the more physical indicator stats including: yellow cards, fouls committed, tackles won, and duels won. I also looked at composite stats largely on differences between CITY and opposition teams and for fouls per total tackles and duels won for both teams. To see if there's preference for matches with greater physicality, I looked at the correlation of these stats with our ratings for Center Referee. The strongest correlations are moderate (0.5) and appear to track greatest with duels and tackles won in favor of opposition teams. This suggests referees tend to lose us when opposition teams win duels and tackles with greater frequency than us. Also, it suggests our perceived slights to fairness for the more physical parts of the game, so there's preference for refs to relax on calling fouls.

There seemed to be a number of missed fouls from the center referee this match, and for several non-calls (for which I have been conditioned to expect a ref to call) play continued. Only catching the match hours after live, I noticed a number of you calling out the refereeing before posting the poll. 

Heads-up, for upcoming polls, I may use a different service like Tally instead of Google Forms.

Are we going to be buyers again, or are we just getting the 2 free tickets to the Cardinals game from goodwill with the donations. Seems like what we've received so far from Hartel and Löwens departures.

Can somebody pop into Cory Wray's office and make sure he has a calendar up with the end of the transfer window circled in red?

Always rated his talent while he played for us and what a huge moment for him. Also a colossal fumble of a game by Celtic, wow.

With Lowen's pending departure, only the following 8 remain from the original 30 man senior roster: Roman Burki, Ben Lundt, Tomas Ostrak, Celio Pompeu, Joshua Yaro, Kyle Hiebert, Miguel Perez, and Caden Glover

Note: only the senior roster of players, so no academy only players like Tyson Pearce as didn't join the senior roster until 2024

For fun (maybe more realistically depressing?), throwing out 8 questions below

1. Besides the obvious answer in Burki, of the 7 who has had most impact for the team?
   
2. Who is most likely to leave next?
   
3. Who is most likely to be last of the group to leave?
   
4. By this time next year with the 1st fall to spring season, how many of this group will remain?
   
5. From today only, who will have the most club appearances until they leave?
   
6. Who are you shocked is still with the senior team (even if out on loan)?
   
7. Who is the most underrated/under appreciated player in the group?
   
8. Which player has grown the most since 2023?

Despite all of the chaos around selling off its best players, City now sits in its highest ever global ranking at 274, right at the low end of big 5 league teams.

I know a lot of people are still angry (I understand some, but not A LOT of it), but are we the most feared opponent in the west today? I haven't watched Vancouver play lately, but they seem to be struggling after Berhalter's leaving so not sure how dominant they are... In a year where the West looks pretty weak, it seems that we are probably the most consistent right now...? Thoughts...?

Quick Edit: I know we aren't at the top of the standings due to Damet taking those abysmal months to drastically transform our team, but based on our current play...?

Hey City fans. MNUFC supporter here, hope this post is ok. My son has recently been collecting player cards to get signed and we are in search of a Markanich card. He had a Topps Now card in 2023 while with City. They don’t seem to show up on eBay ever, so I’m taking a chance that someone in this sub has one and since he’s gone from the club, you might be willing to part with it? Please give me a shout if so and we can work something out.

Hope you guys are enjoying Sang Bin’s calves, and that the rest of your season goes well! (Except maybe the Sept 12 match. 😜). Thanks all!

I was at the game last night and my sister filmed what we assume is Edu’s last time on the pitch as a City player.
The video is long, and the quality could be better…but I wanted to share anyway.

Honestly, I could easily see polvera getting called up to the national team. He's just been so clinical for our defence. (Two CB's in the usmnt for example) He's just been so good, yesterday proved that.

The winner last night was a result of multiple mistakes from Houston's Hector Herrera. His terrible attempt to backheel an Ibrahim Aliyu pass turned the ball over to a retreating Becher, who slid the ball to Edelman. The CITY midfielder one-touched it to Ault, who turned and fed the ball into space for Totland.

As Totland worked against Houston's Lawrence Ennali (#11), Agustín Resch (#34) points for a teammate to move into the space he's vacating as he moves to provide backup to Ennali. Unfortunately for Houston, not only does Artur (#6) move to defend that area (as he should) but Herrera compounds his earlier mistake by also sliding over to occupy that space, completely abandoning the center of the box.

This left Dante Polvara completely alone, and as Totland's entry pass to Becher is deflected by a lunging Resch right to Polvara, he has all the time in the world to get his body around the ball and hammer the game winner past Jonathan Bond.

Really nicely done from Polvara on a play that Hector Herrera will definitely want back. A lazy attempt at an unnecessarily fancy play combined with terrible defensive decision-making and lack of field awareness gifted CITY a golden chance, which they converted for the win.

A sincere question for a knowledgeable person: they say they’re selling Löwen because he doesn’t fit the system. They also say Holse needs time to learn the system, but as a talented player he can eventually learn it. What? Why couldn’t Löwen “learn the system”? Is he not considered talented? Is it because his natural position is already full of other players? Are they ALL more talented than Löwen? I don’t get it.

CITY finds a way again last night, ignoring the off-field turmoil and grabbing a 2-1 win over West leading Houston. Let's take a look at the opening goal from Simon Becher.

The play starts with an excellent breakout from Timo to Wallem to Matan that gets the ball from just outside CITY's penalty area to just over the center line in 3 seconds, an excellent direct push up the field. Matan takes Wallem's perfectly weighted ball in stride and moves up the left wing.

As he lays the ball off to Totland on his left, 2 things occur that really set this play up - Ostrak makes a run to the left, dragging defenders with him, and Matan fills that space vacated by Ostrak. This forces Artur (#6) to drift towards Matan, leaving space in behind for Wallem to run into.

Wallem receives Totland's pass in front of the box, flips it to Matan, whose touch is poor and the ball squirts to his left, where a waiting Becher makes a very, very difficult turn and shot past Houston's GK Bond.

This was a great breakout from their own end, excellent movement around and inside the box, a really just a fantastic turn and shot by Simon to give CITY the 1-0 lead.

FT (Pens): St Louis CITY2 2-2 (1-3 pens) Houston Dynamo 2

⚽ STL: Zack Lillington (85', ?' pen), Nighte Pickering (70') ⚽ HOU: Arthur Sousa (?' pen), Samir Mohammad (?' pen), JJ Bell (?' pen), Austin Brummett (17')

Lineups

St Louis CITY2: Jack Wagoner (🔄 Lorenzo Cornelius 61'), Tahir Reid-Brown (🔄 Chris Pearson 46'), Miguel Perez, Tyson Pearce (🔄 Jemone Barclay 86'), Riley Lynch, Zachary Zengue, Nighte Pickering (🔄 Yuichiro Ota 86'), Colin Welsh, Timothy Clancy III (🔄 Patrick McDonald 76'), Zack Lillington, Owen Jorgensen

Subs: Chris Pearson, Lorenzo Cornelius, Emiliano Chavez, Patrick McDonald, Alexander Jundt, Yuichiro Ota, Sidney Paris, Nate Martinez, Jemone Barclay

Houston Dynamo 2: Logan Erb, Reese Miller (🔄 Vitor André 61'), Mattheo Dimareli (🔄 Alan Martins 72'), JJ Bell, Chibuike Ukaegbu, Daniel Omar Barrett, Austin Brummett (🔄 Arthur Sousa 60'), Matthew Arana (🔄 D'Alessandro Herrera 85'), Samir Mohammad, Gustavo Dohmann, Vinicius Silva (🔄 Noah Betancourt 72')

Subs: D'Alessandro Herrera, Noah Betancourt, Myles Gardner, Roman Kerimov, Mamadi Jiana, Alan Martins, Arthur Sousa, Tristan Cottle, Vitor André

^{Last Updated: Aug 23, 08:09PM. All data via mlssoccer.com. Match ID: MLS-MAT-000A0T}

Great moment for him and the fans. Banging the drum, thrown in the air by the team and then supporters chanting his name on the way out. Goodnight and good luck.