Road-weary St. Louis City face stern test at Sounders

League: MLS


Posted on: 17 Jul, 2024 at 01:47 AM

Credit: Erich Schlegel-USA TODAY Sports

St. Louis City are just one of two Major League Soccer clubs who have yet to win on the road this season -- FC Dallas is the other.

That doesn't bode well for St. Louis on Wednesday when it visits Seattle, where the host Sounders have lost just once in 11 matches in 2024.

Seattle (9-7-7, 34 points) is riding a four-match MLS winning streak. Jordan Morris has tallied four times in that span and eight times over his past 10 appearances.

"For goal scorers, when you're playing with confidence, it obviously helps," said Morris, who came off the bench to score in a 1-0 victory on Saturday at Austin FC. "You can go through times where it feels like you're never going to score again, and then sometimes you're scoring every game ... a lot of it's up to the group that's playing well and gave me really good (passes). So obviously, I'm happy with the form."

St. Louis City (4-9-10, 22 points) have struggled in their second season after finishing atop the Western Conference as an expansion side last season. The club has gone 1-0-2 under interim coach John Hackworth since firing Bradley Carnell on July 1.

St. Louis won their first match under Hackworth, a 2-0 victory over the visiting San Jose Earthquakes on July 3, but have since dropped a pair of 4-1 decisions, including on Saturday against the visiting Vancouver Whitecaps.

"That performance (was) embarrassing," Hackworth said. "It's not acceptable to our club, not acceptable with the city, not acceptable to the fans who invest so much time, energy, money into us.

"So we're embarrassed and we have to own that."

Nokkvi Thorisson scored his second goal of the season for St. Louis in Saturday's setback. Joao Klauss leads the team with five goals.

The Sounders used an own goal and a strike from Morris in a three-minute span midway through the second half to notch a 2-1 win at St. Louis on May 25.

Seattle have won all three previous meetings between the clubs.

--Field Level Media