CHESTER — For the first four weeks of the MLS season, Bradley Carnell has trotted out the same 11 players in the same shape for the Union. With the league playing through the March international window, that must change Saturday night in the Union’s first meeting with 2023 expansion club St. Lou is City FC. The Union (3-1-0, 9 points) are down eight players this window, including starters Andre Blake (Jamaica), Daniel Gazdag (Hungary), Tai Baribo (Israel), Danley Jean-Jacques (Haiti) and Frankie Westfield (U.S. Under-20s). Add in the suspension of Olwethu Makhanya for a red card and the team will look very different. Some of the changes are easy. Nathan Harriel or Olivier Mbaizo will step in at right back for Westfield. Bruno Damiani should get his first start next to Mikael Uhre. Andrew Rick seems the option between the posts. The center back conundrum leaves the Union with just two available. Ian Glavinovich, who played in the opener in Orlando but has been rounding into full fitness from a preseason hamstring injury, is ready to go and will likely join Jakob Glesnes. “I’m very good,” Glavinovich said Thursday. “I feel good, so I want to play. I can play.” The midfield configurations are trickier. If Carnell wants to keep the 4-2-2-2, he could sub Jesus Bueno as the other No. 6 next to Jovan Lukic. He lacks such an obvious analog for Gazdag, unless he pairs Cavan Sullivan with Quinn Sullivan. Inserting Alejandro Bedoya, a consummate No. 8, may lead to a one-week reversion to the diamond midfield. Carnell wasn’t concerned this week with Makhanya’s transgression, throwing the ball at the face of Nashville forward Jacob Shaffelburg in second-half stoppage time in last Sunday’s 3-1 loss. “It’s a journey,” Carnell said. “It’s a learning moment. We’ve expected so much of Olwethu over the last couple of games, through preseason. We’ve thrown challenges, curveballs, and he’s been in the deep end, and he’s learned to swim really quickly. So I think we’ve gained more than we ever thought we could have, and that’s what happens when you stick to the principles and stick to the philosophy. Oftentimes you get rewarded. That you might have a setback and a learning moment, a growing moment, I think it’s a totally natural course for him to go through.” Carnell was similarly dismissive of a bounce-back from the Union’s first loss and first bad performance of the season. They were wasteful against Nashville, struggling to defend in transition and were done in by a dose of their own medicine, former Union assistant BJ Callaghan drawing up a game plan of strategic high pressure and direct soccer paired with a solid defensive base. “I thought we played exactly how we wanted to play,” Carnell said. “We created numerous chances. We don’t get certain things that go our way on the day, but take nothing away from the performance. I knew exactly the type of game against Nashville, what it was going to be, and I think we prepped and planned for it in the right way. Disappointing not to get points at home and not the result, but at the end of the day, we had it in our own hands. And unfortunately, moments or momentum (didn’t) go our way.” Carnell’s response to any sentimentality this week is also muted. The South African was the first coach in St. Louis City history, leading the expansion side to first place in the Western Conference in 2023. The club won its first five games and continued to collect points at a steady rate, but it struggled down the stretch before being routed by Sporting Kansas City in the playoffs. Carnell was fired on July 1 after a 3-7-10 start to the 2024 season, replaced by former Union boss John Hackworth. Carnell bristled at the notion that this year’s St. Louis team and the Union share any competitive DNA – both sporting directors, Lutz Pfannenstiel and Ernst Tanner, worked together in Germany at Hoffenheim – and he downplayed any emotional content this week for him. “At the end of the day, it’s just another game,” he said. “A cross-conference opponent. But sure, there’s special people there still that I connect with and keep in touch with. So it’s a nice atmosphere. It’s a good experience.” St. Louis (2-0-2, 8 points), under former Swedish international Olof Mellberg, sits third in the East. It’s the only team in MLS that hasn’t allowed a goal this season. ...read more read less