St. Louis CITY vs. Bayer Leverkusen

Bought a ticket to an interesting friendly. The future St. Louis MLS team will host Bayer Leverkusen in mid November when the team breaks for the world cup. CITY don't have much of a pro roster. We got a few guys with European league experience, but other that it's largely semi pro players. We do have the league's most seasoned goalie in Roman Burki.

This will be the inaugural event at the new stadium. Should be a good time.

 

Bayer is sending a decent team over for the friendly per the Bayer Leverkusen website

"While several of the Werkself players have been selected for their national squads in the World Cup, the following players will travel to St. Louis:

The two goalkeepers Andrey Lunev and Niklas Lomb, the defenders Mitchel Bakker, Jonathan Tah and Timothy Fosu-Mensah are on board, Robert Andrich, Kerem Demirbay, Nadiem Amiri, Ayman Azhil, Joshua Eze, Zidan Sertdemir and Florian Wirtz are set to play midfield, with forwards Karim Bellarabi, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Moussa Diaby and Adam Hlozek also on the tour. In addition, the U19 player Madi Monamay completes the squad."

 

On the metro on the way home from the game. CITY held their own for about thirty minutes, but Leverkusen was too much. It finished 3 nothing. We had a few good moments, but couldn't find the back of the net. Joao Klaus for us looks promising. The stadium is beautiful inside but the concourse needs some work. Some food vendor stalls need to be removed. Dangerously crowded at points. All and all a good day despite the temps hovering around 30.

 

@stlouisbrad How big was the crowd for a cold
Nov evening?

 

I was told capacity was 22,500. I saw a handful of empty seats especially up high. So definitely more than 20,000 but probably a bit under capacity.

ESPN+ had the game if anyone is curious to see.