This much seems certain for St. Louis City SC as it approaches its 28th game of the season on Saturday night against Houston at Energizer Park: There’s no such thing as normal for this club.

Last week could have been normal, with the team almost back to full strength, and then the team had to leave one player home because his visa to enter Canada didn’t arrive — the team was tracking the package containing it online but it did not get to St. Louis in time — then it got to Vancouver and had not one, not two, but three penalty kick calls go against it, which was enough to get the club to send a letter of complaint to the league.

The fallout of that game would have been on everybody’s minds this week, but that was moved to the back burner after sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel, who had a

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