The Sporting Director of the St. Louis City football club which recently signed Selmir Pidro who played for FK Sarajevo in Bosnia, Lutz Pfannenstiel, told N1 that he has been following the young player’s career for some time and that he is “the best man for the job”, as well as that the club wants to include the large Bosnian community in St. Louis as much as possible in its projects.

Pfannenstiel spoke about the new MLS club St. Louis City, saying “we are definitely ready for 2023.”

“We started an academy which goes really well, which is already I would say among the top programmes after six to eight months in the United States and we are now just about to kick off our under 23 team. Our pro team as well, which plays in a brand new league over here. We are definitely excited that it's another year to go and we will finally be able to go this summer into our stadium and into our training centre, so we are moving forward with very big steps. We signed our head coach just in January so step by step we can set the milestones and right now we are very busy signing players for the upcoming season,” Pfannenstiel said.

“Timing is everything as an expansion team,” he said, explaining that a lot of expansion teams came in and started pretty late but that in such a situation “it is impossible to have a successful first season because a lot of things would have to fall together.”

“So we had, I would say, a very unique situation – to build everything brand new, to build everything from scratch, which gives us an opportunity. And I would say it’s a great coincidence and a great opportunity for us not to use the ‘MLS Next Pro’, so basically, our under 23 team, to bring players from the European market six months before the season starts,” he said, adding that this gives the team lot of time to grow together and avoid issues other teams have – “in January 2023, 25 new faces, and they need to basically be able to start playing within six weeks.”

“We have a very committed ownership group which doesn’t just look at the success on the field. For us, as a club, we want to be considered to be a family club, a community club,” the SD said.

He noted that the youth academy is a really important part of the club’s structure.

“We want to create our own talents, we want to get talents from the academy into the pro team as soon as possible. We want to be a team that works a lot in the community and of course, bringing players from the European market or from bigger leagues in South America, there is no question that we want to be immediately competitive. So when we come in in 2023 we don’t want to be the typical expansion team who gets beaten up every weekend, we want to be there, we want to be present and we want to try to be, as quickly as possible, a team which can compete.”

When asked whether his job as a SD is any easier considering that MLS clubs do not go down to lower tiers of national football, he explained that it’s a different setup.

“It’s a league where you stay in the league, but again, you do have pressure to be successful, you do have the pressure to make the playoffs. So at the end of the day, it’s just a different way of valuing your success. At the end of the day, it’s all about winning or losing when it comes to the first team. But we have bigger goals as a club,” he said.

“As we are new, we want to have a big impact in the community of St. Louis,” he said, noting that there is a lot of Bosnians living there.

“We have a big Bosnian community. This is also one of my big goals – to really include the Bosnian community as much as possible in our project, to be present, to be in the stadium with young players in the academy,” he said. “It’s not all about short-term success, we want to build something stable (…) something sustainable.”
“And if we win something before that very quickly, that’s the cherry on the top, that’s a great thing. But we need to build a foundation, we need to go step by step,” he said, adding that this goal is also shared by the owners.

Pfannenstiel explained that he noticed Pidro because he was always interested in the leagues in the Balkans and that the Bosnian league it not new to him, adding that he worked together with Bosnian players Vedad Ibisevic and Sejad Salihovic at Hoffenheim.

“I followed Pidro for a long time so I always had him on the radar. When he played here in December for Bosnia against the US I think he just proved how good he can be, what a talented player he is,” he said, adding that the Bosnian played has big potential but also some experience playing for FK Sarajevo.

“It was a no-brainer for me to bring him in, I think he has everything that we are looking for.”

The SD noted that Bosnians are excited that a Bosnian national joined the team, but also that “Bosnians really love football” in general.
“I think the Bosnian community was just waiting for an MLS team to be here. I think Pidro coming here will definitely have an impact for other Bosnians living in the US to maybe support St. Louis.”

However, he stressed, “we didn’t sign Pidro because he is a Bosnian.”

“He was signed because he is the best man for the job. His quality on the field was the reason why he is here,” he said, adding that it is just a great coincidence that Pidro happened to be a Bosnian national.

Pfannenstiel said that the way the club dealt with FK Sarajevo was “very professional” regarding the matter and that the Bosnian club was very helpful.

“A big thank you from here in the US to Bosnia and to FK Sarajevo for being that supportive in Pidro’s transfer. Definitely, it showed us that we already established a good relationship. That relationship will continue,” he said.

The full interview in English can be seen in the video above.