St. Louis CITY SC travels to Ohio to take on Columbus Crew at Lower.com Field in their first match of the inaugural Leagues Cup tournament. The match will kick off at 6:30 p.m. CST on Sunday, July 23 and will be streamed on MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app and can be heard by our radio partners on KYKY Y98.1 FM (English) and KXOK 102.9 FM (Spanish).
Major League Soccer and LIGA MX paused their respective league seasons to compete in Leagues Cup, an official Concacaf competition to be played across the U.S. and Canada. The inaugural edition will see all 47 clubs (18 from LIGA MX, 29 from MLS) compete in a World Cup-style tournament. The champion as well as the second and third-place finishers will qualify for the Concacaf Champions League and have an opportunity to earn a spot in the FIFA Club World Cup.
Along with Columbus Crew, St. Louis CITY SC will play in Group 3 of the Central Region with Club América of LIGA MX. The top two teams from each group, as determined by points, will advance to the Round of 32. If a match in the Leagues Cup Group Stage ends in a tie in regulation time, both teams will receive a point. The winner of the subsequent penalty shootout will earn an additional point.
In their last MLS match, St. Louis blanked Inter Miami 3-0 to record their 13th win of the season. Sam Adeniran, Tim Parker and Eduard Löwen all scored from a set-piece situation. Adeniran got the scoring started by heading in a cross off a corner kick from Indiana Vassilev, and then Tim Parker headed one home off a corner kick from Aziel Jackson. Löwen pushed the lead to three with a beautiful strike off a free kick in the 80th minute.
Vassilev recorded his sixth goal contribution of the season (two goals, four assists). Aziel Jackson recorded his second assist of the season, giving him a goal contribution in three of CITY SC's last four contests. Adeniran has four goal contributions (three goals, one assist) across CITY SC’s last five contests. With his goal, Löwen has 12 goal contributions this season (six goals, six assists). Roman Bürki recorded his seventh clean sheet of the season. His seven clean sheets are tied for fifth in the league.
With his third goal of the season, Parker joined Jeremy Ebobisse, Giorgos Giakoumakis and Kei Kamara for the second-most headed goals in MLS this season. Parker surpassed his career total of two goals through his first eight seasons with three goals in 20 games this season.
St. Louis CITY SC sits in first place in the MLS Western Conference standings with 41 points, four points ahead of its closest rival, last season’s MLS Cup champions LAFC. CITY SC has scored 43 goals in MLS, second behind Columbus who has 45. St. Louis has the best goal differential in MLS (+16) and is one of two teams in the league (Orlando) that has recorded at least five home and five away wins this season.
Of CITY SC’s 49 goals across all competitions, 19 have come from set piece situations. CITY SC leads MLS in set piece goals (18), five ahead of Atlanta United. Löwen has five goals off set-pieces this season, tying him with Alan Pulido, Amine Bassi and Cristian Espinoza for the fourth-most set-piece goals in MLS this season.
CITY SC has seen 13 different players score in MLS action and 14 different players score across all competitions. St. Louis owns a 5-6-1 record in road matches across all competitions and has scored 14 goals and seen nine different goal scorers on the road this season, with Jackson being the latest to record an away goal.
Columbus enters the match on a three-match winless streak, losing its last match 3-2 against Portland Timbers. Columbus has a 12-8-6 record across all competitions, scoring 51 goals in the process. The Crew owns a 9-1-3 record at home this season across all competitions, with their only defeat coming against Inter Miami on April 29. Columbus has scored a MLS-high 30 goals at home this season and has conceded just 12 goals in that span.
