Soccer <\/p>\n
Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire returns to LA, this time heading to South Central, where an LAFC<\/a> side in the midst of a sort of reboot will host a St. Louis CITY SC<\/a> side that\u2019s still looking for some goalscoring punch (7 pm ET | MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n That reboot for LAFC comes via their recent elimination from the Concacaf Champions Cup<\/a> \u2013 they can just focus on the league now \u2013 and the shocking news that head coach Steve Cherundolo will step down<\/a> at the end of the season. I\u2019m expecting them to play like a team that has something to prove, which makes sense since they\u2019ve now got a lot to prove.<\/p>\n With St. Louis, it\u2019s less \u201csomething to prove\u201d and more \u201cproof of concept.\u201d The defense is better, yes. But the overall structure of the system and the talent within it? There are doubts.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n LAFC<\/strong><\/p>\n St. Louis CITY SC<\/strong><\/p>\n LAFC have set a high standard of success from Day 1, first under Bob Bradley and then under Cherundolo.<\/p>\n Since the latter became head coach in 2022, they\u2019ve been to two MLS Cup finals (winning one), won the 2022 Supporters\u2019 Shield, won last year\u2019s US Open Cup<\/a> and made it to the final of the 2023 Concacaf Champions Cup (n\u00e9e League) and the 2024 Leagues Cup<\/a>. Oh, and they also played in (and lost) the 2023 Campeones Cup<\/a> and topped last year\u2019s Western Conference regular-season standings.<\/p>\n That is an insane amount of success, though at times it feels like we shine more of a light on their shortcomings in those finals, and on their less-than-artful style of play (it\u2019s me, hi, I\u2019m the problem, it\u2019s me).<\/p>\n Well, we now know Cherundolo is stepping down at the end of the year. With that news should come a new urgency to give a very successful coach a proper farewell, and for a team with this track record, that means just one thing: more silverware.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t win anything in April but they are, at this moment, just seven points off the Shield pace. Which is to say they are very much in it if they start winning the games they should.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n New head coach Olof Mellberg has come in and done what he could to right the defensive wrongs of the past few years. Very clearly that was his top priority, and even with B\u00fcrki injured \u2013 he spent most of the past two years being superhuman \u2013 there has been legitimate, measurable defensive improvement.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s come at the cost of attacking productivity. Hartel, Cedric Teuchert<\/a> and Simon Becher<\/a> took the league by storm when they arrived in the middle of last season; this year they\u2019ve hardly made a dent. In part, that\u2019s because of injuries (Teuchert\u2019s been carrying a knock all year) and absences (Hartel having to play deeper as an orchestrator instead of a playmaker hasn\u2019t helped), but another and arguably bigger part has been Mellberg\u2019s risk-averse approach to both game model and team selection.<\/p>\n Add in a reluctance to play young players (no one under the age of 24 got on the field for St. Louis until Matchday 8, and we\u2019re talking about a market here that produces as much local talent as anyone), and it didn\u2019t take long for the fans to start grumbling.<\/p>\n Honestly, I don’t blame them.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n LAFC: Good on you, Steve Cherundolo!<\/strong><\/p>\n Surely, you saw the news<\/a> last week. Cherundolo is stepping down at the end of the 2025 season to return to Germany. A couple thoughts\u2026<\/p>\n St. Louis CITY: Can Xande Silva add some pace and punch to the attack?<\/strong><\/p>\n St. Louis CITY snuck a trade<\/a> in just before the Primary Transfer Window deadline in MLS this week, picking up forward Xande Silva<\/a> from Atlanta United<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n On paper, the relatively low price tag (up to $250k in GAM, though that comes with eating the pro-rated cap hit) plus Silva\u2019s profile \u2013 speed to burn, a desire to run at defenders and positional versatility \u2013 makes complete sense for a team in need of another attacking weapon.<\/p>\n The issue is Silva mostly hasn\u2019t turned his promise into MLS on-paper production and put goals and assists up consistently. We\u2019re talking 40 games (27 starts) and just four goals and four assists, though that doesn\u2019t include three goals in seven Audi MLS Cup Playoffs appearances.<\/p>\n Still, it was well worth the swing at that price tag for sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel. Olof Mellberg can use Silva up top to threaten the space behind opposing backlines or on the left running off Jo\u00e3o Klauss<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Under Bradley, LAFC were the preeminent possession team in MLS, using the ball to create long periods of dominance that were as effective as they were aesthetically pleasing.<\/p>\n Under Cherundolo, they have become a more direct and pragmatic team, one that has sacrificed a ton of the ball and a ton of midfield creativity for space to counter into. Meaning if you let them become a low-block-and-counter team, they will happily take that offer \u2013 and probably beat you to death with it, since Bouanga is one of the most effective open-field attackers this league\u2019s ever had.<\/p>\n But teams really have caught onto that over the past 18 months, which has forced LAFC to rediscover some of their comfort in possession. And that\u2019s been a work in progress since neither Jesus, nor the two veterans in front of him \u2013 Mark Delgado<\/a> and Timothy Tillman<\/a> \u2013 are chance creators. That\u2019s made the default 4-3-3 for this season (they still have last year\u2019s preferred 5-2-3 club in the bag when they need it) somewhat sterile and bereft of ideas unless they can draw the opponents forward with patient possession play from the back:<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Steve Cherundolo made a simple but very effective halftime adjustment, and with it came something LAFC had been missing the first three halves of their season: midfield balance.<\/p>\n Oh and a banger of a goal from Jeremy Ebobisse. pic.twitter.com\/N8sPgaW4Gy<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2014 Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) February 23, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n The defense is still good \u2013 though so far not quite as good as they were last year \u2013 and they mostly don\u2019t beat themselves (please ignore last weekend\u2019s highlights and just accept that assertion as true).<\/p>\n So truly, the question is whether or not Giroud can start doing for LAFC what he\u2019s done for France forever. Which is become the team\u2019s attacking organizer and secondary playmaker while occupying center backs as a true No. 9. His worth has never really been measured in goals (though it\u2019d help if he scored more than once every 10 games), but in the way he creates space and patterns of play for his attacking companions.<\/p>\n And I remain just shocked that it hasn\u2019t happened yet here. I thought he\u2019d have instant chemistry with Bouanga and, to a lesser extent, livewire young attacker David Mart\u00ednez<\/a>. But there\u2019s just been none of that.<\/p>\n Last weekend\u2019s attacking performance, though, gave LAFC a double serving of hope. I assume they\u2019ll try to build on that.<\/p>\n According to folks who follow the team closely and Mellberg himself, the new coach spent a ton of time this winter rebuilding the defensive structure, which makes sense for a team that relied waaaaaay too much on B\u00fcrki through two years. As such, they\u2019ve transitioned away from the Energy Drink Soccer-inflected 4-2-2-2 that became a 4-2-3-1 once Hartel and Teuchert arrived last summer (which coincided with John Hackworth taking over as interim head coach), and now play out of a 3-4-2-1.<\/p>\n That has resulted in one of the best defenses in the league, both by boxscore numbers (no one\u2019s conceded fewer than St. Louis\u2019s six goals allowed) and underlying numbers (they are tied for sixth in expected goals allowed as per FBRef).<\/p>\n The sacrifice has been attacking initiative. Lotta this happening for CITY:<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n I thought it was a weirdly timid performance from St. Louis in San Diego. And then when they did take risks, they really weren’t well-measured. pic.twitter.com\/GTrUK9wasp<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Matthew Doyle (@MattDoyle76) March 2, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n The issue: Mellberg\u2019s game model requires aggressive and immediate verticality when the opportunity presents itself, and doing that requires L\u00f6wen (or, with him out, Hartel) to get on the ball and open the game up in those moments.<\/p>\n Hartel has started to find the ball more in recent weeks, which is good. But the wingbacks have not held up their end of the bargain, which is bad.<\/p>\n St. Louis are generating just 13 take-ons (1v1s) per game, which is tied for 28th in the league, and they\u2019re 27th in success rate at just 36.9%. Those are VERY low numbers for a team that plays with wingbacks, because a huge point of the 3-4-2-1 is to get the ball to the wingbacks in stride against a rotating, back-pedaling defense. It is, after all, easier to beat a rotating, back-pedaling defender than one who\u2019s comfortably in his banks of four.<\/p>\n Mellberg, however, has been overly cautious with his squad selection (he\u2019s played center backs at wingback more often than I\u2019d like to count), and that\u2019s robbed this team of any consistent threat from out wide, either on or off the ball.<\/p>\n The good news is there has been progress in recent outings, starting with the final half-hour of a 2-1 loss<\/a> to the Crew<\/a> two weeks back. That was followed up by a balanced, two-way performance in last weekend\u2019s credible scoreless draw<\/a> against Vancouver<\/a>, currently the top team in the league.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n I\u2019m expecting only one change from last weekend\u2019s XI, and this is no slight against Nathan Ordaz<\/a> (who I really, really rate). But Mart\u00ednez is something special, man, and it\u2019s puzzling he\u2019s not out there from the whistle every week.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n No changes to the XI I\u2019m expecting to see, though I\u2019m wondering, after I talked a season debut for Mykhi Joyner<\/a> into existence two weeks ago, if I can talk a start for the kid into existence this week? Joyner, an 18-year-old homegrown, is a natural wide attacker \u2013 basically the perfect fit for one of the wingback roles, and a guy who could fix a lot of the structural issues this team\u2019s been dealing with.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
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LAFC<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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St. Louis CITY SC<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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