St. Louis City With A Summer Revamp; Signing Marcel Hartel And Talent From MLS Next Pro
St. Louis City have entered a transformational summer for their club. After the departure of their former Manager Bradley Carnell, transferring out Aziel Jackson and Nikolas Dyhr, and the acquisition of Cedric Teuchert that has been previously written about on this website… St. Louis City continues to make moves to get back to the top of the Western Conference.
Let’s start with the moves from their MLS Next Pro side St. Louis City SC 2. The club has signed midfielder John Klein and centerback Michael Wentzel from their second team. John Klein is a 24 year old midfielder who we’ve already seen make an impact at the 1st team level. He can play out wide in the midfield and even more centrally as well. With St. Louis City SC 2, Klein had 5 goals and 2 assists in about 1,100 minutes played. He has gotten the call up and now in roughly 550 minutes with the 1st team, Klein has 1 goal and 1 assist, starting most games for the club since the end of June. Defender Michael Wentzel has also impressed heavily. The 22 year old centerback made 13 appearances for St. Louis City SC 2 in MLS Next Pro this season before getting this opportunity. Wentzel now has 4 appearances for the 1st team and is now giving this St. Louis City squad some much needed central defense depth.
It hasn’t only been internal development for St. Louis however. The club went out and signed a new Designated Player to their roster, attacking midfielder Marcel Hartel. The 28 year old midfielder joins St. Louis as a free agent after last playing for FC St. Pauli in the 2.Bundesliga. The former German youth international won the 2.Bundesliga with St. Pauli last season adding to his other 2.Bundesliga title that he’s won in his career (won it with Arminia Bielefeld during the 2019/2020 season). Last season in Germany he played almost 3,400 minutes across all competitions recording 21 goals and 15 assists. Those numbers are absolutely ridiculous… and he should translate well to MLS. In this man’s career, he has 233 career games played with a total of 33 goals and 51 assists.
Lastly, St. Louis City have also transferred away striker Samuel Adeniran to the Philadelphia Union during this window. I won’t be writing too much about that here, saving that for a Union focused transfer article on this site in the coming days. I expect to see the veteran combination of Klauss, Lowen, and these new signings to mix with the internal developed talent from MLS Next Pro and the SuperDraft mix well. But, is this mix going to be good enough for a push in 2024? I am not too sure about that . But with a revamped attacking core of now Joao Klauss, Marcel Hartel, and Cedric Teuchert, St. Louis are looking to come out with a strong 2nd half of 2024 and push back into the playoff picture.
