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St. Louis CITY: History, supporters & culture fuel bounceback year
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- St. Louis CITY: History, supporters & culture fuel bounceback year
St. Louis CITY: History, supporters & culture fuel bounceback year
By Charles Boehm
If you turn up to St. Louis CITY SC 's home clash with San Diego FC for Matchday 34's Walmart Saturday Showdown – or even if you're watching the broadcast – your eyes will probably be drawn to the teeming mass of bodies, flags and noise in Energizer Park's north end (3 pm ET | Apple TV ).
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That's the home of CITY SC's loud, proud supporters' groups, a safe-standing, general-admission section with a capacity just north of 3,000, home to the club's most dedicated fans.
It rocked with particular vigor at Wednesday night's match vs. Portland , as the 'Ravioli Boyz' – yes, those strange hats you might glimpse in the north end are a tribute to a cherished staple of the local food scene – celebrated the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup trophy they claimed in dramatic fashion in Columbus last week, unveiling their championship banner in the rafters.
It's the first title in club history, and perhaps its most memorable element was the spirit and dedication of the St. Louis faithful. More than 2,000 of them made the 400-plus mile journey across Illinois, Indiana and Ohio to witness it in person, bathing a sizable chunk of the Crew's ScottsMiracle-Gro Field in their trademark magenta-hued 'CITY Red.'
"Our fan base is very unique. You can feel it when we play home, and tonight, the way they showed up for the team was amazing," marveled first-year head coach Yoann Damet after his team's penalty-kick shootout victory. "The coaches came back from the [pregame] warm-up and told me, 'Hey, listen, you're going to see there is like a red wave of fans behind the goal.'
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"It gives you energy; so amazing. Massive respect and big thank you for them traveling all the way, and I hope they will have a nice memory for the rest of their life."
History in the making
This is only CITY SC's fourth season of play. But the sport's roots in St. Louis run as deep as anywhere in the United States, dating back to the 1800s. The area birthed the country's first fully professional soccer league in 1907. Half of the US men's national team side that sprung a shock 1-0 defeat of England in the 1950 FIFA World Cup , widely regarded as one of the greatest sporting upsets of all time, came from the city. Over the decades, St. Louis has produced roughly 30 National Soccer Hall of Famers and dozens of USMNT and USWNT standouts.
And the annals of Open Cup winners are littered with teams from The Lou, which makes it just about the perfect first piece of hardware for CITY SC and their backers.
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"It's so unique, I think, almost of anywhere in America, where you don't have just this history of the one club. You have the history of the sport in your city that you're able to celebrate in this regard," explained Matt Baker, a host of the Flyover Footy podcast and contributor to local radio station KTRS, to MLSsoccer.com this week.
"That's why you're seeing the phrase 'the 11th US Open Cup title coming home to St. Louis,' where we're comparing 11 World Series championships that the St. Louis Cardinals have in baseball to 11 Open Cup championships that St. Louis now has for soccer.
"It has really kind of united everybody."
Foundations of the fanbase
Amid the capo stands, drum platform, special rigging for tifo displays, and other details, another feature sits at the north end, much simpler. Yet its presence reveals a lot about how such a young organization so quickly became home to one of the most vibrant supporters' scenes in MLS.
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Cupholders.
We'll let Mitch Morice, one of the founding members of the Saint Louligans – a supporters' group which dates back to 2010, far before CITY SC was even a glimmer in the eye of CEO Carolyn Kindle and her fellow owner/investors – explain.
"It was nice that Carolyn had reached out early, and we established a relationship with her. So we had a lot of input into things like safe standing and cupholders in the supporters' section," Morice told MLSsoccer.com this week about the club's ramp-up to their 2023 MLS expansion debut. "They were like, 'Oh, yeah, we've heard about safe standing; they recommend it.'
"Well, we're going to need cupholders. 'Oh, we didn't think about cupholders.' We like our beer, we need that. We had a lot of good conversations."
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Those who stand, chant, cheer and clap for the full 90-plus minutes appreciate a safe place to stash their beverages, and if that sounds obvious, it has not always been the case for stadium designers and decision-makers.
Though she hails from a family with a reported net worth in the billions of dollars, Kindle and her staff listened to the city's soccer fanatics as she led CITY SC's conception and launch, mindful of the rich tapestry of history and culture in one of the ancestral cradles of the sport in North America – a tradition that starts with widespread grassroots participation in the beautiful game.
"I grew up here. Everyone played soccer," explained Stuart Hultgren, a longtime Saint Louligans member and co-host of Flyover Footy. "All my neighborhood friends played. Catholic leagues were huge here. It's a big Catholic city here, so that is the underlying foundation. Those parish teams have been around for a long time, so there's kind of a bedrock there."
A soccer city
Even with such a large soccer community in a metropolitan area of nearly three million people, there's a family feel. One of those "good conversations" Morice mentioned? It took place with Kindle sitting on a couch in his basement, as a guest on the podcast he and a few of his fellow Louligans hosted for many years.
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Morice fondly recalls the many other St. Louis soccer figures that basement welcomed for pod episodes, dating back to Saint Louis FC, who competed in USL PRO and the USL Championship from 2015-20. The Saint Louligans' origins trace back even further, to AC St. Louis and Saint Louis Athletica, short-lived clubs which briefly played in the North American Soccer League and Women's Professional Soccer, respectively, before folding after barely one full season of play.
While those teams did not survive past 2011, the Louligans did, uniting a disparate faction of smaller groups and pivoting to cheer on the highest level of soccer in the area at that time, the pro/am St. Louis Lions of what was then called the Premier Development League, today known as USL League Two, then eventually Saint Louis FC and now CITY SC. All the while, the group built both relationships and a strong community-service presence, becoming a 501c3 non-profit and holding fundraisers for area food banks and many other worthy causes. In all, Morice estimates the Louligans have raised close to a million dollars for charity over their 16 years.
Alas, on-field success generally did not come easily for those bygone St. Louis teams. But sturdy relationships and traditions were forming in the supporters' section.
"The one thing that we've said for a while: We're used to bad soccer," joked Morice, adding that he and other longtime members calculated that after the Open Cup final triumph, the Louligans' teams have an all-time record of 1W-20L-3D in away matches they travel to as a group.
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"So, yeah, we don't have the best luck on bus trips," he added. "So winning a trophy was that much more special."
No pain, no gain
It hasn't been all smooth sailing for CITY SC, either. Some of the club's early staffing hires had sports-industry experience but lacked fluency in the particularities of soccer culture. The composition of the north end evolved organically as new supporters' groups arose, like the musicians who spun off from the Louligans to become Fleur De Noise, or STL Santos, a Hispanic-centered group with a focus on Spanish-language songs and chants.
Results on the pitch have ebbed and flowed, to say the least. St. Louis defied expectations to finish first in the Western Conference in their euphoric 2023 debut campaign, only to crash and burn in the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs and struggle mightily thereafter, missing the postseason in 2024 and 2025. The cautious, defensive style under Damet's predecessor Olof Mellberg was a particular disappointment last year.
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All that soccer knowledge in the community makes for an educated and often demanding fanbase, as Damet and sporting director Corey Wray have experienced in their first year in charge. This spring's slow start raised concerns, and even as CITY SC embarked on the record-breaking 21-game unbeaten run across all competitions which started in May and ended earlier this month, many supporters were dismayed to see beloved stars Marcel Hartel and Eduard Löwen depart.
"Even as late as the World Cup break," said Baker, "you still had a lot of doubters and folks that said, 'OK, well, let's wait and see what happens.'"
Nothing earns trust like winning, though — and winning trophies most of all, particularly given the methodical, entertaining game model Damet has implemented, a style that blends expansive possession with ferocious pressing and defensive commitment. Ownership did their part, too, reportedly spending a combined $18 million on showcase summer reinforcements Carlo Holse and Rafael Navarro .
Hultgren has spotted one subtle but significant sign of renewed excitement.
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"That whole first season, in the lower bowl of the stadium, no one was sitting down. Everyone was standing all match, [even] outside of the north end," he said. "In 2024 and 2025, people started sitting down in some spots.
"This year everyone's, for the most part, standing again."
Certified contenders
St. Louis still have MLS Cup presented by Audi to chase and sit third in the West table, though a sudden three-game losing skid after the end of their unbeaten streak has raised concerns, making Saturday vs. San Diego a key litmus test. Still, the Open Cup euphoria is real, and the hardcores have increasingly bought into the technical staff's vision for sustainable competitiveness over the long term.
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"This team is riding high," said Morice. "If we don't go far in the playoffs, great. We were not supposed to be here after a rebuild year; we got a cup. Next year, everybody's on notice: We're coming. Maybe make a few player changes, but this is a team that is set up for success significantly. Wray and Damet have done an amazing job building it, and it's very surreal after being so jaded after so many years of bad soccer.
"You're like, OK, when's the other shoe going to drop? Oh no, it's not going to drop. We are actually that team now."
