St. Louis City SC: The busiest MLS franchise yet to play a game

St. Louis City SC steadily keeps putting pieces in place for their 2023 debut. Their latest move is naming Bradley Carnell as head coach.

South African soccer legend Bradley Carnell takes the helm in St. Louis City. He comes to the team with credits from Bundesliga and the South Africa Men’s National Team, plus coaching experience with New York Red Bulls.

But neither he nor Sporting Director Lutz Pfannennsteil are waiting for the 2023 debut season. The front office is getting busy now.

St. Louis is one of 20 MLS clubs fielding a team this year in the new MLS NEXT Pro league. The MLS entries join independent Rochester NY FC in the 21-team league. The organization integrates a path for MLS NEXT players to MLS first teams.

St. Louis City SC remains the busiest MLS club that hasn’t yet hit the pitch, starting play in 2023.

MLS Next Pro challenges players from youth and pro ranks to showcase their talents before coaches and scouts as they compete for the MLS NEXT Pro championship.

St. Louis City SC jumped at the chance to enter this inaugural season for the league. The organization wants to get its youth academy players working toward the championship. City’s U17s already started getting attention in 2021 for their high level of play. So the organization is confident their players have a shot.

So now Bradley Carnell joins the busy organization.

The organization burst onto the last MLS expansion wave out of its own ashes. The St. Louis MLS effort went silent after the 2017 referendum to build a soccer-specific stadium. It was a confusing referendum with two propositions.

The St. Louis sporting public outside the city limits wasn’t much interested in building the stadium anyway. Proposition 1 to raise the sales tax passed, but the other measure to use some of the money for the stadium lost by about 3,000 votes.

Knowing that any prospective MLS franchise has to come to the table with a stadium plan, everyone outside St. Louis closed the blinds on their proposition. That was a mistake.

By 2019, the MLS Board of Governors named Sacramento and St. Louis in the lead for expansion. In fact, the Missouri group came armed anew with a stadium plan that sidestepped public funding.

With the 22,000-seat stadium and all the required sponsors, owners, infrastructure details, and community groups, St. Louis won the bid.

MLS Commissioner Don Garber expressed enthusiasm over the St. Louis league entry. The area has a solid soccer culture with the sport played there since at least 1875. St. Louis teams have won 91 national championships, including the U.S. Open Cup. They’ve produced 31 members of soccer halls of fame and 61 U.S. National Team members.

We’ll have to wait another year. But it will be intriguing to see what sort of debut team St. Louis City SC will be.

It better be a strong one, too.