St. Louis CITY SC is back at Energizer Park on Saturday, July 25, and Colorado is the next test. The home match kicks off at 7:30 p.m. CT and will stream on Apple TV, with CITY trying to stretch a six-match unbeaten run in the regular season after a 3-1 road win over LA Galaxy on Wednesday.
The quick turnaround matters because Wednesday changed the shape of CITY’s recent run. Lukas MacNaughton scored his first goal for the club in the 42nd minute, Marcel Hartel doubled the lead before halftime and Simon Becher made it 3-0 in the 68th minute, giving CITY a third consecutive win and a third straight match with three goals. It was also the second time in club history that St. Louis had scored three or more goals in three straight matches across all competitions, a burst that came with Hartel at the center of it.
Hartel scored his fifth goal of the season in Los Angeles and reached eight goals across all competitions. Over his last five matches for CITY SC, he has seven goal contributions, including his first MLS match with three goal contributions. That made him the fifth St. Louis player to record three goal contributions in an MLS match, and it helped CITY remain unbeaten against LA Galaxy in seven straight meetings while winning back-to-back matches at Dignity Health Sports Park.
Colorado, though, arrives with reasons to believe this will not be a clean follow-up. The Rapids beat San Diego 1-0 on Wednesday, and that win gave them shutout victories in three of their last five matches. In the Western Conference, they sit in 11th place with 19 points and a 6-9-1 record, which leaves them needing points but also shows a team that has made games difficult to open.
That is the friction inside Saturday’s matchup: St. Louis has not lost in six regular-season matches, but the Rapids have also been hard to break down, and the teams’ recent history has been tight enough to support that. St. Louis has a 2-3-2 record against Colorado dating back to its inaugural season in 2023, the clubs have split seven all-time meetings with three clean sheets each, and there have been two total goals in the last three meetings. Each side has won 1-0 in that stretch, with one scoreless draw in the middle, and St. Louis first beat Colorado on the road in May when Sangbin Jeong scored the lone goal.
The stakes do not stop on Saturday. The two clubs will meet again in September when St. Louis travels to Colorado for the U.S. Open Cup semifinals, which gives this Western Conference game a second life beyond the standings. For now, CITY gets the home crowd, Youth Soccer Night and a chance to see whether the same attack that rolled through Wednesday can keep pushing against a team that has lately made a habit of keeping opponents out.
