St. Louis City sacks Mellberg after poor start

St. Louis City SC announced the firing of manager Olof Mellberg connected Tuesday, pursuing a mediocre commencement to the play that saw the squad triumph conscionable 2 of its archetypal 15 matches.

David Critchley, who had been managing CITY2, the club's introduction successful MLS NEXT Pro, volition present instrumentality implicit connected an interim basis.

Mellberg departs with an wide grounds of 2-8-5 (W-L-D) aft lone six months successful St. Louis and with the squad successful 14th spot successful the 15-team Western Conference.

In summation to the team's spot successful the table, Critchley volition besides purpose to revive the team's moribund attack, which has seen it people conscionable 11 goals successful league play, the second-worst people successful MLS down CF Montreal's 10.

"The determination to portion ways with Olof goes beyond conscionable results. We've analyzed the team's show crossed a fig of factors, including the request to execute against a benignant of play that led to the team's archetypal occurrence and has been portion of our DNA for 4 years," said St. Louis sporting manager Lutz Pfannenstiel.

"As a club, we person definite standards we request to conscionable and judge a coaching alteration was indispensable to amended our wide show and instrumentality to a winning culture. Our fans merit a better-performing team, and we mean to springiness them one."

"We understood it would instrumentality clip for Olof to go acclimated to Major League Soccer and surely admit injuries made his occupation difficult, but we simply could not proceed down this path," added St. Louis City SC president and GM Diego Gigliani.

"We are disappointed that we were not capable to find occurrence nether Olof. He moved implicit present from Sweden and worked tirelessly connected behalf of the nine during his tenure. We privation him thing but occurrence successful his aboriginal endeavors."

Critchley has been with the nine since 2021, initially moving successful St. Louis' academy and coaching the organization's U-16 and U-17 teams. He was named manager of CITY2 past November. He led the squad to a 6-4-1 grounds truthful acold his season.

Baggio Husidic, 1 of Critchley's assistants from CITY2, volition present enactment with the archetypal team, portion the club's method director, John Hackworth, volition capable successful for Critchley arsenic the CITY2 caput coach.

Mellberg joined St. Louis past November aft his declaration with Swedish broadside IF Brommapojkarna had expired. Mellberg had antecedently managed Brommapojkarna from 2015-17, a play erstwhile helium led the nine to successive promotions into Sweden's apical tier. Mellberg besides managed Danish broadside Fremad Amager successful 2019 arsenic good arsenic Sweden nine Helsingborgs from 2019-20.

As a player, Mellberg enjoyed a distinguished vocation for some nine and country. After making his nonrecreational debut with Degerfors IF successful 1996, helium moved to AIK, winning a league title. Following a three-year spell with Racing Santander, helium moved to Aston Villa, wherever helium made implicit 260 league and cupful appearances. He aboriginal played for Juventus, Olympiacos, Villarreal and FC Copenhagen.

At the planetary level, Mellberg made 117 appearances for Sweden, a tally that included a spell arsenic the team's captain, scoring 8 goals. Mellberg was portion of 2 World Cup sides successful 2006 and 2010, arsenic good arsenic 4 teams that took portion astatine the European Championships from 2000-12.