St. Louis CITY SC fell 2-1 to Chicago Fire FC in their Round-of-32 matchup at SeatGeek Stadium on Tuesday night. Chicago Fire opened the scoring in the third minute through Maren Haile-Selassie before Fabian Herbers doubled the hosts lead in the 75th minute. As CITY SC searched for a way back into the game, homegrown player Miguel Perez halved the deficit in stoppage time but his late goal was not enough to deny Chicago the victory.
Homegrown Goal
CITY SC homegrown player Miguel Perez has featured in nine games while making five starts across all competition this season. The 18-year-old midfielder scored CITY SC’s lone goal against Chicago FC, recording his first-ever professional goal in his career and the club’s first homegrown goal.
Postgame Notes
- With his goal, Perez is now CITY SC’s youngest goal scorer at 18 years and 11 days old.
- Perez also scored the club’s first Homegrown goal
- Eduard Löwen recorded his sixth assists and ninth goal contribution across all competitions.
- CITY SC fielded its 13th different starting lineup across all competitions
- With Perez’s goal, 12 different players have now scored a goal for CITY SC across all competitions
- Vice-captain Tim Parker wore the armband for the first time this season
- St. Louis CITY SC’s ten (10) corner kicks set a new single-game high, surpassing the previous high-mark of eight against both Austin FC and San Jose Earthquakes
Goal-Scoring Plays
CHI – Maren Haile-Selassie (Mauricio Pineda), 3rd minute: Maren Haile-Selassie right footed shot from the center of the box to the top right corner.
CHI – Fabian Herbers (Brian Gutierrez), 75th minute: Fabian Herbers left footed shot from the center of the box to the bottom left corner.
STL – Miguel Perez (Eduard Löwen), 90’+3rd minute: Miguel Perez header from the right side of the six yard box to the bottom right corner.
Next Game
St. Louis CITY SC will face Chicago Fire FC for the second time in a week on Saturday, May 13.
May 9, 2023 – SeatGeek Stadium (Bridgeview, IL)
Goals by Half 1
Chicago Fire FC 1 1 2
St. Louis CITY SC 0 1 1
Scoring Summary
CHI: Maren Haile-Selassie (Mauricio Pineda), 3
CHI: Fabian Herbers (Brian Gutierrez), 75
STL: Miguel Perez (Eduard Löwen), 90’+3′
Misconduct Summary
STL: Célio Pompeu (caution), 70
Lineups
CHI: GK Spencer Richey; D Arnaud Souquet, D Wyatt Omsberg, D Mauricio Pineda, D Miguel Navarro; M Federico Navarro M Gaston Gimenez, M Xherdan Shaqiri © (Fabian Herbers 62′); F Brian Gutierrez (Georgios Koutsias 89′), F Kei Kamara (Kacper Przybylko 83′), F Maren Haile-Selassie (Chris Mueller 46′)
Substitutes Not Used: GK Jeffrey Gal, D Kendall Burks, D Alonso Aceves
TOTAL SHOTS: 11; SHOTS ON GOAL: 6; FOULS: 9; OFFSIDES: 3; CORNER KICKS: 4; SAVES: 3
STL: GK Ben Lundt; D Akil Watts (Njabulo Blom 78′), D Kyle Hiebert, D Tim Parker ©, D Selmir Pidro; M Miguel Perez, M Eduard Löwen, M Jared Stroud (Indiana Vassilev 78′), M Aziel Jackson (Niko Gioacchini 59′); F Célio Pompeu, F Isak Jensen (Tomáš Ostrák 59′)
Substitutes Not Used: D Josh Yaro, D Lucas Bartlett, GK Roman Bürki
TOTAL SHOTS: 14; SHOTS ON GOAL: 4; FOULS: 17; OFFSIDES: 4; CORNER KICKS: 10; SAVES: 4
Referee: Brandon Stevis
Venue: SeatGeek Stadium
Weather: Cloudy, 63 degrees
ST. LOUIS CITY SC POSTGAME QUOTES
Audio: Recording
Bradley Carnell
On what is missing from the attack right now…
Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to be a guy to make excuses or a coach. This is not my nature and my way, but I was really happy with a lot of the chances we created. Yeah, I think, you know, this is a field where they use for rugby games as well. So, I mean, it’s just — in terms of the way we want to play, in terms of where we want to create our chances, we got into good spots and just weren’t able to get those fractions of time to get a shot off. Like I said, disappointed about that. And, yeah, you know, we need to be creating those chances, which are good, but unfortunately we just couldn’t get the shot away or deflections, blocks, corners, you know what I’m saying? I don’t want to — listen, I’m not happy about the results. I don’t want to draw too many positives out of that. But yeah, we will look long and hard and try and get better.
On how he thought Njabulo Blom played in his return from injury…
I was really excited about getting Njabulo back, you know what I mean? He’s had a good couple of training days just to make sure that we’re not pushing him too hard too soon. And I thought the minutes progression was spot on tonight, you know, with the minutes that he played. So, yeah, he’s played as a right back before in South Africa. He can play a six, and I think he could see a lot of good progressions from him. And he created a lot of danger when he came in. So, you know, take away a positive fact from tonight. He was one of them.
On possessing the ball often and learning how to utilize it…
I mean, listen. Do I like this much possession? I’m not saying that I don’t, you know. For me, the principles when we lose the ball have to be, you know, a little bit better, especially early on in the game, right. So, we were a little bit too disconnected, balls popping underneath to Shaqiri and Kai Kamara, you know, challenging Miguel Perez, which shouldn’t be happening. There’s just a couple of things from the backline, there’s a couple of things from the midfield, there’s a couple of things from the strikers. So, you know, just making sure that now when we do get possession of the ball, what is it? Is it a purposeful, vertical position? Are we progressing through the thirds? Are we getting runs off the ball? Are we stretching the opponents? Are we, you know, progressing to the weak side? So, there’s a lot of things that I can take away positive out of this game. But yeah, when you score and when you concede an early goal, it’s just, you know, you’ve got your back up against it. And like we said, we had a young group out there. So, how do we deal with this? We made early changes. We tried to push the game. And yeah, unfortunately the guys only rewarded themselves a little bit later on, right. I mean, a lot of time wasting. A lot of delays — a lot of the goal kicks took I don’t know how long to take. So, you just add that all up, and then at halftime you get one minute. And I’m not complaining about the referees. I’m just stating the facts, right. And these are things we have to learn. We have to play the game within the game, and how do we manage that game? So, I take this as a good learning moment out of a disappointing result.
Miguel Perez
On what scoring his first goal was like…
Yeah, I mean, it was very special for me to score my first goal, with my family being here as well. I mean, it was — I’m blessed to score my first goal, but unlucky for the result.
On what wasn’t clicking offensively…
Yeah, I mean, we created a lot of chances. I mean, we had a lot of corners, a lot of free kicks. Credit to Chicago for their defending. They did good as well, but hopefully on Saturday we’ll be able to finish those chances off.
On whether they felt like they were going to score earlier in the game…
Yeah, I mean, we created a lot of chances in the first half as well. But, I think once I got that early goal, I mean, they dropped their whole line and at least their whole team in the box. So I mean, they got a lot of deflected shots, and we got a lot of corner kicks and free kicks off that, so yeah.
