St. Louis vs LAFC: How a Midwest Expansion Derby Became the World’s Most Expensive Distraction
ST. LOUIS VS LAFC: A MICROCOSM OF THE WORLD’S ENDLESS CAPACITY FOR SELF-CONGRATULATION
By the time you read this, the final whistle will have blown on the latest episode of America’s newest prime-time soap opera, “MLS Cup Playoffs: Heartland Edition.” Somewhere between the Gateway Arch and the Hollywood sign, two cities that have never agreed on anything—save the correct number of syllables in “caramel”—will have decided which fan base gets to parade its civic insecurities around on social media for another week. The result will be greeted in Lagos, Lahore, and Lima with the same indifference normally reserved for a municipal bond election in Saskatchewan. And yet, for reasons best explained by late-stage capitalism and our species’ tragic addiction to tribal headgear, the whole planet is invited to watch.
St. Louis, a former French fur-trading post that now survives on toasted ravioli and existential dread, has spent 200 years pretending it isn’t the Midwest. Los Angeles FC, meanwhile, represents a city that solved its water crisis by putting it on Instagram. One side wears an arch on its badge; the other displays a wing—both symbols of upward mobility that neither city’s housing market can currently deliver. The match is billed as a clash of cultures, which is shorthand for “people who say ‘ope’ versus people who say ‘I’m literally dead.’”
Globally speaking, this is the soccer equivalent of a regional trade dispute between Liechtenstein and a moderately successful alpaca collective. The English Premier League, having long ago monetized every possible human emotion, now sells NFTs of players yawning. La Liga is busy turning El Clásico into a quarterly earnings call. Meanwhile, MLS gamely trots out two expansion teams and asks the world to believe that one of them might be the 37th best club on Earth. FIFA—an organization that could lose a rigged election to a houseplant—ranks the league somewhere between the Estonian third tier and the Mongolian indoor futsal championship. Still, the broadcast rights are bundled with Disney+, so your cousin in Jakarta can stream it between episodes of The Mandalorian and still feel cosmopolitan.
The real intrigue lies in what this fixture says about soft power. Qatar just wrapped a World Cup that cost more than the GDP of several continents, and all anyone remembers is a disgruntled camel in the hospitality tent. The United States, unwilling to be outdone, is preparing to host 2026 with the subtlety of a Super Bowl halftime show performed entirely by fighter jets. St. Louis vs LAFC is therefore a dress rehearsal for the geopolitical theater of the next decade: cities rebranding themselves as “destinations,” nations selling nationalism by the ounce, and everyone pretending the carbon footprint is someone else’s problem.
On the pitch, the tactical narrative is deliciously ironic. St. Louis, historically a baseball town, has adopted the high-press ethos of 1970s Dutch total football—the same Dutch who once tried to colonize St. Louis and left behind only a windmill-themed mini-golf course. LAFC, conversely, plays with the improvisational flair of a team that knows its stadium lease expires before the polar ice caps. Both managers, imported from Europe like artisanal cheese, have spent the season fielding questions about jet lag and whether “St. Louis” is pronounced with or without the “s.” Their post-match interviews will be translated into seventeen languages, twelve of which have no word for “soccer.”
Off the field, the economics are equally farcical. St. Louis’ ownership group includes a member of the Walton family, whose fortune could purchase every avocado toast in California and still have enough left over to bribe a small parliament. LAFC’s roster features a Designated Player whose weekly wage equals the annual budget of three UN peacekeeping missions. Somewhere in Geneva, a bureaucrat sighs and re-allocates funds from malaria prevention to goal-line technology.
And yet, for 90 minutes plus stoppage, the planet will pretend this matters. Bars in Nairobi will switch from Premier League reruns to witness the spectacle of Americans discovering the concept of “away goals.” Bookmakers in Macau will take bets on whether the referee remembers how to use VAR. Children in refugee camps will huddle around cracked phones to watch grown men argue about handballs, because hope, like bandwidth, finds a way.
When the final whistle goes, one city will celebrate as though it has solved structural inequality; the other will drown its sorrows in craft beer and artisanal grief. The rest of the world will move on to whatever fresh absurdity tomorrow offers—probably a cryptocurrency themed after a raccoon. But somewhere in the cosmic ledger, an entry will note that Homo sapiens briefly paused the collapse of civilization to watch 22 strangers chase a ball across a rectangle of grass. And that, dear reader, is the beautiful game.
