“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; St. Louis CITY SC are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Roman Bürki and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
At 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Rafael Navarro is on it.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at St. Louis CITY SC pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
9 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
$1.3M on the table at San Diego Football Club. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Eric Miller was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
FC Cincinnati have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
7.39, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. St. Louis CITY SC had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout10 Jul 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Tyler Dempsey was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the St. Louis CITY SC dressing room was either.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Roman Bürki was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation St. Louis CITY SC are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at St. Louis CITY SC, another week without a signature from Kaick.
In brief
The dugoutEric Miller has become a man the manager trusts
The dugoutSimon Becher knocks on the manager's door
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at St. Louis CITY SC has to find a result from somewhere.
Roman Bürki and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Half the programme played, position 15, 10 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody at St. Louis CITY SC will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Louis CITY SC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Brenden Morris and St. Louis CITY SC agree another 4 years.
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout15 May 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Tyler Dempsey chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
Austin FC next, and one man in the St. Louis CITY SC dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Position 14 and 27 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; St. Louis CITY SC are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Célio Pompeu and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Daniel Edelman trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. St. Louis CITY SC know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“He needs to be playing at a level that matches him, and we are open to conversations.” Nobody says that by accident, and nobody at St. Louis CITY SC misheard it.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Timo Baumgartl plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at St. Louis CITY SC. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
The dugoutKyle Hiebert knocks on the manager's door