Bradley Carnell guided St. Louis SC through its first two seasons as an expansion team but he was dismissed in July when he was unable to follow up a surprising inaugural season.
Six months after his firing, Carnell was hired by the Philadelphia Union, and his new team is off to a strong start heading into Saturday’s visit from St. Louis in Chester, Pa.
“I’m going to welcome a lot of the faces and people I keep in contact with all the time,” Carnell said. “It’s special memories for sure, but at the end of the day it’s three points on the line and another game.”
Philadelphia (3-1-0, 9 points) tapped Carnell to succeed Jim Curtin following 11 seasons after it won nine games last season and missed the postseason for the first time in 2017. Carnell is overseeing the most prolific offense in the MLS as the Union scored a league-best 11 goals through the first four weeks.
The Union scored 10 goals in the first three weeks when they earned wins over Orlando, FC Cincinnati and the New England Revolution. Last week, they gave up two first-half goals and a penalty-kick goal in a 3-1 home loss to Nashville. Jovan Lukic scored but Tai Baribo was kept scoreless for the first time this season, keeping his league-leading goal total at six.
Baribo will be amongst seven players missing for the Union due to participating with the Israeli National Team as part of FIFA’s international window. Also missing for Philadelphia will be Jesus Bueno, Daniel Gazdag, Danley Jean Jacques, Neil Pierre, Frankie Westfield and goalkeeper Andre Blake.
St. Louis (2-0-2, 8 points) is unbeaten despite scoring four goals so far due to a defense who tied the 2007 New York Red Bulls and 2012 Vancouver Whitecaps for the longest shutout streak to start a season. If it holds Philadelphia scoreless for 68 minutes, St. Louis will surpass the 2012 Whitecaps mark of 427 minutes for the longest shutout streak to open a season.
“We’re really focused on us,” St. Louis defender Kyle Hiebert said. “I think there’s a sense of familiarity between what we’re going to do, and we know what he’s going to try to do, too.”
After opening with scoreless draws against Colorado and San Diego, St Louis earned a 3-0 road win over the Los Angeles Galaxy and followed it up with last week’s 1-0 win over the visiting Seattle Sounders. Eduard Lowen scored in the 15th minute and Ben Lundt only had to make one save after starting goalie Roman Burki injured his hand ahead of the match.
-Field Level Media
