Marcel Hartel revealed it was a “very difficult decision” to leave St. Louis City, but wanted to return to his native Germany.<\/p>\n
St. Louis announced Hartel’s departure on Tuesday as the midfielder joined German second-division side Hannover.<\/p>\n
Hartel scored 24 goals and provided 18 assists in 67 appearances across all competitions for St. Louis, quickly becoming a key player for the MLS side.<\/p>\n
In fact, Hartel’s six goals in MLS in 2026 are the most of any St. Louis player, while only Simon Becher (four) has provided more assists than the German (three).<\/p>\n
St. Louis face the San Jose Earthquakes in their first game without Hartel, who could not pass up a return to Germany.<\/p>\n
“Making this decision has been very difficult because my time in St. Louis has meant so much to me,” said Hartel.<\/p>\n
“From the moment I arrived, I felt welcomed by my team-mates, the staff, the\u00a0supporters\u00a0and the entire community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“This\u00a0was\u00a0a\u00a0very difficult\u00a0decision\u00a0that I felt I\u00a0had to make for my family\u00a0with\u00a0what is going on in our personal lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I know it\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0easy, but\u00a0I want to thank everyone at the club for understanding\u00a0my request to return to Germany\u00a0and\u00a0for\u00a0supporting\u00a0me\u00a0throughout this process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I wish my team-mates and everyone at\u00a0the club\u00a0nothing but success for the rest of the season and beyond.”<\/p>\n
San Jose are third in the Western Conference, four places and seven points above St. Louis, but their form has been poor.<\/p>\n
The Earthquakes have failed to win any of their three games since returning from the World Cup break (D1 L2), most recently losing 4-2 against FC Cincinnati.<\/p>\n
PLAYERS TO WATCH<\/p>\n
San Jose Earthquakes \u2013 Preston Judd<\/p>\n
Judd registered his third assist of the regular season on August 1, becoming the eighth different Earthquakes player to record three or more assists this season.<\/p>\n
San Jose\u2019s eight players with at least three assists are the most in MLS.<\/p>\n
St. Louis City \u2013 Tomas Ostrak<\/p>\n
In each of St. Louis’s last two matches, the club\u2019s lone goals have\u00a0been scored by a substitute (goals by Tomas Ostrak and Hartel).<\/p>\n
In 2026, St. Louis have had five league goals come from substitutes, equalling their combined number of such goals in the 2024 (two) and 2025 (three) seasons.<\/p>\n
MATCH PREDICTION \u2013 SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES WIN<\/p>\n
St. Louis extended their league unbeaten run to eight games (W6 D2) with a draw on August 1 and visit San Jose on a three-game road unbeaten run (W2 D1).<\/p>\n
That is one game shy of equalling the club record for their longest road unbeaten streak in league play, which they recorded from\u00a0July to September 2024.<\/p>\n
San Jose, meanwhile, have conceded four or more goals in two of their three regular-season games since returning from the World Cup break.<\/p>\n
Prior to the break, San Jose had allowed multiple goals in an MLS match only three times this season, and never more than three goals in a single game.<\/p>\n
San Jose\u2019s only non-loss against St. Louis was a 3\u20132 road win in April (L6), as the Earthquakes are winless (L3) at home against St. Louis.<\/p>\n
OPTA WIN PROBABILITY<\/p>\n
San Jose Earthquakes \u2013 53.2%<\/p>\n
Draw \u2013 24%<\/p>\n
St. Louis City \u2013 22.8%<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marcel Hartel revealed it was a “very difficult decision” to leave St. Louis City, but wanted to return…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-433682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}