After a hard-to-believe, 6-1 victory over Cincinnati, the Revs will make their third attempt this season to get points away from home.
At first glance, St. Louis CITY FC would figure to be a great opponent to play to make this happen. St. Louis is winless in four games this season, including an opening day draw at home to Charlotte and a loss at home to the Seattle Sounders.
The Western Conference club hasn't found any success on the road either, going down 2-0 to both LAFC and San Diego FC. In all four games, they've scored just once, 60 minutes into the season opener. That puts them on a 300-minute goalless spell headed into Saturday night.
St. Louis – though having just a single point from a possible twelve – isn't too far from turning the corner and starting to pick up points three at a time. The first thing to jump out about its schedule is that its opponents' combined record so far in 2026 is 12 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. LAFC and San Diego have yet to lose in the league so far in 2026. That's some stiff competition to open a season under new head coach, Yoann Damet.
Both of St. Louis' home performances were tight affairs, a 1-1 draw and 1-0 defeat. In those two games, it had more shots, shots on target, touches in the opponent's penalty area, and more corners than its guests did. St. Louis CITY pressed high and well, created turnovers, and advanced the ball quickly at times; only the finishing touches have been missing.
The Revs will need to be prepared for St. Louis' press, which has caused trouble deep into its opponent's half in three of its four games this season. On average, its defensive actions have come more than 40 meters up the field from goal in three of its four games. Only against San Diego did that average distance drop under 40. As you can see below, the Revs will need a plan to break through this.
In the words of Jeremy Irons in Margin Call, now that we know the nature of the problem, what do we do about it? This is where Marko Mitrovic's positional guidance in early attacking phases comes in.
Last week, we saw the Revs utilize Alhassan Yusuf in a nominal wide midfield position out on the left. He often found space to drift into the left half space while Will Sands pushed high and wide from a left back position. On the opposite side, Ilay Feingold started attacking phases in a deeper position, just about alongside the center back pairing. This enabled the Revs to maintain a 3v2 at the back against Cincinnati's front two.
Keeping a spare man at the back, in addition to the keeper, is a key aspect of many attacking guidelines. St. Louis FC brings a 3-4-2-1 formation to face the Revs on Saturday. The line behind the center forward takes up more central positions, similar to the inside forwards found in days gone by when nearly the whole world played in the W-M (3-2-2-3).
These inside forwards can stifle attacks by screening central passes alongside the center forward, drop off a bit, and clog the middle or even mark deep lying center mids. They can also be sprung forward into an aggressive press when a trigger goes off. It creates the possibility of Feingold and the centerbacks being pressed 3v3 with St. Louis' two center mids stepping to press Raines and Polster.
The Revs could utilize Carles Gil dropping deep in the central area and Yusuf moving into the half space to create an overload and supply needed short passing options as shown below.
Even with the Revs holding Feingold deeper and bringing Yusuf into the half space, St. Louis' only two wide players, the wingbacks, are still required to deal with Sands and Luca Langoni out wide, limiting the ability to join an all-out press. However, if they do, the ball could be forced back to Matt Turner and St. Louis could challenge him to hit accurate long balls out to Sands and Langoni. This is not a strength of Turner's game.
Might the Revs try something different then? St. Louis would have spent time this week watching the Revs attacking play very closely. If it has spent time working against what we've shown above, maybe Mitrovic can spring a different look on them.
If they were to hold both Sands and Feingold in deeper positions, they could employ the plus one at the back tactic and try to draw out St. Louis' front three into a 4v3 situation. This would also create 2v1s in both wide areas and force difficult decisions from STL's wingbacks: do they press or do they drop? Either way creates options for the Revs to play out.
If St. Louis does go aggressive with their wingbacks, which they have done already this season at home, the Revs' exchanges of passes will need to be quick and accurate. A high level of decisiveness is required in these moments close to your own goal in tight spaces; the reward for it can be well worth the risk, a full-on break at speed towards STL's goal.
The Revs arrived in front of and penetrated Cincinnati's goal in a variety of different ways last week; they won't and don't need to hit for six every week. It did show a multi-faceted attack, which hasn't been seen around here in a while. In order to recreate one or two of those goal scoring moments, they will need to deal with tight situations in their own half first.
St. Louis will be prepared to slow the Revs down and force the Revs to play around the edges in an arch-shaped, toothless attack. Will the Revs find a way to go west and bring three points back home?
