City Grabs A Point On The Road In 1-1 Draw At FC Dallas

FRISCO, Texas - St. Louis City SC traveled to the Lone Star State to take on FC Dallas last Saturday night. In three prior trips to Toyota Stadium in suburban Dallas, City has lost three times and hasn’t managed to score a goal.

In Saturday’s meeting, City found their first-ever goal in Frisco. The first-ever goal was enough for City to earn their first-ever Toyota Stadium point in a 1-1 draw.

St. Louis City head coach Yoann Damet picked the same starting eleven that he ran out in New York one week ago. Damet is nothing if not consistent with his team selection.

That familiar lineup starts with the center back trio of Dante Polvara, Timo Baumgartl, and Jaziel Orozco. Chris Durkin and Daniel Edelman manned the engine room in midfield, with wingbacks Conrad Wallem and Rafael Santos flanking them to their right and left. For the second straight week, Marcel Hartel, Simon Becher, and Sergio Cordova started in attack.

While it was the same squad on paper, in attack, loan striker Sergio Cordova often played more centrally, which added to his effectiveness off the ball. From the middle of the field, Cordova could use his strength to hold up play and feed passes to his teammates making runs in behind the Dallas defense.

St. Louis City were able to dictate the play for the first half hour of the game, but only threatened the Dallas goal once, when Marcel Hartel and Sergio Cordova made their way into the box in the 21st minute. Hartel chose a tight angle shot on the left side of goal instead of trying to play a pass to Cordova, and Hartel’s close-range attempt was parried by FC Dallas keeper Michael Collodi.

City had nearly two-thirds of possession in the first half, and completed 119 more passes than Dallas in the first 45. But the few chances the hosts had proved to be more dangerous than anything City generated.

The biggest chance for a goal came in the fourth minute of first-half stoppage time, when Dallas star striker Petar Musa was played in on goal. Musa made a sprint into the St. Louis 18-yard box just to the right of goal. He made a cutback move, froze chasing City center back Dante Polvara, turned back toward the byline and fired a low shot that Roman Bürki stopped with his left leg.

City’s first half momentum had gone, and FC Dallas finished the half looking more likely to score. Less than three minutes into the second half, Dallas scored the first goal of the game.

Petar Musa, who was denied by Roman Bürki before the halftime break, created but didn’t score the goal for the hosts in the 48th minute. Musa spotted Louicius Deedson in acres of space running into the City 18-yard box. Roman Bürki took most of the sting out of Deedson’s shot, but couldn’t prevent the ball from trickling across the goal line.

Dallas had seized control of the game on the scoreboard, but St. Louis City reacted well to going behind. 13 minutes after conceding, City equalized from an unlikely source.

Sergio Cordova won a corner kick in the 60th minute by playing the ball off of FC Dallas’s Christian Cappis. The initial corner kick was harmless, but Daniel Edelman picked up the scraps on the left wing, curled in a cross into a still-crowded six-yard box, and found center back Timo Baumgartl at the far post who side-footed a volley into the Dallas goal.

Timo Baumgartl’s goal was a goal of firsts. It was not only his first MLS and City goal, but his first goal of any kind since scoring in the German Bundesliga for Union Berlin against Red Bull Leipzig back in December of 2021.

Baumgartl joked about his goalscoring tally after the game. “It’s about damn time.”

It was the very first goal scored by any St. Louis City player at Toyota Stadium. City had been shutout and defeated in every game (2-0 in 2023, 2-0 in 2024, 3-0 in 2025) in Frisco before Saturday’s meeting. They had 30 more minutes, plus allotted stoppage time, to earn a first-ever point at FC Dallas.

Yoann Damet praised his team for sticking to the plan and reacting well to going behind.

“I think we have shown a lot of strength in sticking to the plan, sticking to the principle we're trying to apply, and we did it again today,” Damet explained. “There was no panic after that goal. It was just about momentum, regaining momentum, and making the most out of the opportunities we created. And the guys did a great job of that. I’m happy with the response.”

Chances were at a premium in the final half hour of the contest. With the game in the balance, City head coach Yoann Damet chose to be quite conservative with his substitutes, making his first changes in the 76th minute, bringing on attacker Cedric Teuchert for Sergio Cordova and center back Lukas MacNaughton for Jaziel Orozco.

The latter of those subs was a concussion protocol substitution, as Orozco had suffered a clash of heads in the moments prior, tried to play on, but was still showing signs of being dazed. This means that City retained an extra substitution, if they so wanted to use it.

The next wave of City reinforcements came in the 89th minute, and both were defensive substitutions with the aim of securing a point on the road, instead of bringing on attacking or creative players to chase a victory.

An attacking replacement was made, in the 95th minute, as Brendan McSorley came on for an exhausted Simon Becher, who had done a lot of running but never once fired a shot to threaten Christian Collodi in the Dallas net.

Late sub Cedric Teuchert had a great chance to steal all three points in stoppage time, as he had latched onto a through ball behind the FC Dallas defense, but his shot on goal was directly at Collodi.

On a night of few clear-cut chances, City would rue their missed opportunities. Both teams settled for a 1-1 draw when referee Filip Dujic blew his whistle for full-time.

Over the past few years, these were the games that City would lose more often than not. On Saturday, City felt disappointed to not claim all three points on the road, a sign that things are changing around the club, on the field and in the minds of the players alike.

“I'm happy to score a goal, but when you look back at the game, I think we would have deserved a win here,” said goalscorer Timo Baumgartl following the draw. “I'm a little bit disappointed about the result, but we will keep going. It's now three games in a row unbeaten. We're building something special here, but we need to be more clinical at the end to win this game.”

“I think the mindset is very important,” Damet elaborated postgame. “We knew we were going to have to work really hard to be resilient in that game to get the results, and the guys did a great job at it. In those moments your mind is more important than your legs, so you have to put your body on the line.

“Those guys, they've shown week in week out, that they're willing to do it for their teammates and for the team and for the club. I enjoy seeing those behaviors for sure. There's a ton of things that we could have done a little bit better from a collective standpoint, but individually, with a mindset like that, I think we can; we can go a long way.”

It’s a short turnaround for Damet and St. Louis City, who are back in action at Energizer Park in Downtown St. Louis Wednesday night, as they start their US Open Cup journey against USL Championship side FC Tulsa. Kickoff for that game will be at 7 p.m.

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