Roots and Relationship Are at the Heart of St. Louis City SC's First Coaching Hire

Bradley Carnell may not be a splashy choice, but he certainly fits the profile of what the club is seeking as it prepares to enter MLS in 2023.

Roots matter in a tradition-rich city that calls itself the soccer capital of the U.S. So if Lutz Pfannenstiel—who’s not from St. Louis—wasn’t going to hire a coach from the Gateway City, he was going to find someone with deep connections to the style of play he’s pursuing for its MLS expansion club. 

It’s an ultra-aggressive, high-pressing approach designed to produce goals in transition—a style the St. Louis City SC sporting director thinks will play well in a “hardworking” yet “modest” market that values teamwork, commitment and identity. Gegenpressing, as it's called in Pfannenstiel’s native Germany, was popularized by veteran coach Ralf Rangnick, who took over at Manchester United in November. But Rangnick previously managed TSG Hoffenheim, where Pfannenstiel worked for most of the 2010s, and VfB Stuttgart, where a young South African defender named Bradley Carnell played at the turn of the millennium.

Both Pfannenstiel and Carnell became disciples of gegenpressing. They crossed paths in Namibia, where Pfannenstiel, a renowned globetrotter and advocate, included Carnell in a 2015 charity match dedicated to fighting climate change. They then spent time together during a coaching license course in Germany.

Through Rangnick, who eventually moved on to RB Leipzig, Carnell landed an opportunity to coach with the New York Red Bulls. He was an assistant there for five seasons, minus a few months as interim boss in late 2020. And through Pfannenstiel, Carnell has landed a far more historic appointment—the first coach in St. Louis City’s MLS history. The club, whose first team will finally kick off in 2023, announced the appointment Wednesday morning.

St. Louis City SC

Carnell’s is not a high-profile name. The 44-year-old played for South Africa at the 2002 World Cup and spent most of his pro career with Stuttgart and Karlsruhe. He was coaching in Johannesburg before Rangnick helped usher Carnell through the Red Bull pipeline to New York. 

Recent MLS expansion teams that started from scratch have aimed for more coaching celebrity, whether they were recognizable Americans like Bob Bradley (Los Angeles FC), Jason Kreis (New York City FC) and Josh Wolff (Austin FC), or eye-opening foreign hires like Gerardo Martino (Atlanta United) and Diego Alonso (Inter Miami). But Pfannenstiel said he couldn’t care less about celebrity. He’s more interested in philosophical alignment and connection, and he’s hoping that will resonate in a city where neighborhoods, relationships and common bonds can be so significant.

“I don’t believe in signing marketing names to make us better. I believe in a structure—a way of playing—and a philosophy,” Pfannenstiel told Sports Illustrated. “I want to have a long-lasting success story. I want to have a club where we have a long-term plan in place. … We want to stand for an identity, for a style. Big names are not necessary for that.”

Part of that identity will revolve around mining the area’s legendary youth soccer riches and introducing youth players to the club’s tactics. St. Louis City’s academy teams are already in action, and its MLS Next Pro reserve side will begin play in 2022. Carnell won’t manage that team, but he’ll be heavily involved alongside Pfannenstiel and director of coaching John Hackworth (the former Philadelphia Union, Louisville City and U.S. U-17 manager) in scouting future pros and building out the technical staff. There already is a meeting of minds concerning what those players and coaches will offer, and it stems from years steeped in similar soccer traditions.

“Playing a certain way from a young age, and then having it instilled as a professional and then Ralf Rangnick coming [to Stuttgart] in 1999 and demanding and willing us to be a certain type of player, spoke to me and spoke to my character as a person from a physical standpoint and from a mental standpoint,” Carnell said. “It’s kind of come full circle now, where I was a player in this certain style and then coaching it [in New York] for the past five years.

“You cannot change who you are,” he added. “You have to portray this on a daily basis, and it is easier to portray a style of play as a coach because I lived it as a player and I believe in it as a person.”

It should come as little surprise that someone who believes in years of immersion in a system also appreciates stability and longevity. Carnell quickly rattles off the number of years he spent at Stuttgart (five), Karlsruhe (four) and the Red Bulls (five). There were brief stops at additional German and South African clubs along the way, but he said that his instinct is to put down roots, get comfortable and build. Conversations about joining Rangnick at Old Trafford happened but were brief, Carnell revealed, because talks with St. Louis were so advanced.

“I prefer a structure and the long-term,” he said. “When I was presented this opportunity to build this from the ground up, that speaks so closely to me as a person and as a coach, to me it was a no-brainer.”

St. Louis City SC

Pfannenstiel suggested that hiring Carnell also was a no-brainer. The new coach isn’t American or German and has no prior connection to the city. But he represents the ideal combination of gegenpressing devotee, MLS expert and big-project enthusiast, Pfannenstiel said, and he was the club’s top choice.

“I wanted to have a coach who knows the league like his own back pocket or his own backyard—somebody who knows the players, the clubs, the stadiums … and doesn’t come here and feel overwhelmed by something completely new,” Pfannenstiel said. “Knowledge of the league, plus completely being convinced and living and breathing, eating and drinking our playing philosophy—those two parts together led us to the No. 1 on our list.”

With a downtown stadium under construction and the non-existent MLS squad still a year away from competing, Pfannenstiel, Carnell, Hackworth and their colleagues will continue to lay the foundation for the soccer capital’s first top-tier pro club in more than four decades. It’s not about veneer, as Carnell’s hiring demonstrates. It’s about roots.

“Scouting and recruitment are going to be key, if not the most important pillars we have to play and grow early on … and then building out the academy steel of play and then the MLS Next Pro and obviously having a handle on that. We’ll be slowly coaching the coaches, getting everybody on the same page,” Carnell said. “If there’s a common identity and unity along all those structures, that puts us in good stead to start off in a good way.”