St. Louis CITY SC fell 4-0 to Club América in the team’s final Leagues Cup group stage match. Las Águilas drew first blood, with Henry Martin firing in a goal in the 5th minute. Coming out of the halftime break, Julián Quiñones and Kevin Álvarez each put home a goal in a three-minute span to push the away side’s advantage to three, and then Alejandro Zendejas increased the lead with a goal in the 77th minute. CITY SC returns to action when they take on Austin FC on Sunday, July 20.
Goal-Scoring Plays
AME – Henry Martin, 5th minute: Henry Martin with a right-footed shot to the bottom left corner.
AME — Julián Quiñones, 51st minute: Julián Quiñones with a header to the middle of the goal off a cross.
AME — Kevin Álvarez, 54th minute: Kevin Álvarez with a right-footed shot to the left side of the goal.
AME — Alejandro Zendejas, 77th minute: Alejandro Zendejas with a right-footed shot to the bottom right corner.
Next Game
CITY SC resumes MLS action with a home match against Austin FC on Sunday, August 20 at 8:30 p.m.
July 27, 2023 – CITYPARK (St. Louis, Missouri)
Goals by Half 1 2 F
St. Louis CITY SC 0 0 0
Club América 1 3 4
Scoring Summary
AME: Henry Martin (Julián Quiñones), 5
AME: Julián Quiñones (Leonardo Suárez), 51
AME: Kevin Álvarez, 54
AME: Alejandro Zendejas (Leonardo Suárez), 77
Misconduct Summary
STL: Tim Parker (caution), 16
AME: André Jardine (caution), 40
AME: Jonathan dos Santos (caution), 49
STL: Eduard Löwen (caution), 81
STL: Kyle Hiebert (caution), 84
STL: Aziel Jackson (caution), 85
Lineups
STL: GK Roman Bürki ©; D Akil Watts (Célio Pompeu 55’), D Josh Yaro (Lucas Bartlett 67’), D Tim Parker, D Kyle Hiebert; M Rasmus Alm (Tomáš Ostrák 80’), M Eduard Löwen, M Indiana Vassilev (Sam Adeniran 67’), M Aziel Jackson, M Jared Stroud (Jake Nerwinski 81’); F Niko Gioacchini
Substitutes Not Used: GK Ben Lundt, GK Michael Creek, M Miguel Perez, D John Nelson, M Isak Jensen, D Jon Bell, M Njabulo Blom
TOTAL SHOTS: 9; SHOTS ON GOAL: 4; FOULS: 12; OFFSIDES: 1; CORNER KICKS: 1; SAVES: 3
AME: GK Luis Malagón; D Kevin Álvarez (Miguel Layún 79’), D Israel Reyes, D Sebastián Cáceres; M Jonathan dos Santos (Alejandro Zendejas 63’), M Álvaro Fidalgo, M Richard Sánchez, M Salvador Reyes (Luis Fuentes 79’), M Leonardo Suárez (Néstor Araujo 79’); F Henry Martín, F Julián Quiñones (Brian Rodríguez 68’)
Substitutes Not Used: M Santiago Naveda, D Emilio Lara, GK Óscar Jiménez, D Ramón Juárez
TOTAL SHOTS: 16; SHOTS ON GOAL: 7; FOULS: 10; OFFSIDES: 0; CORNER KICKS: 2; SAVES: 4
Referee: Selvin Brown
Assistant Referees: Roney Salinas, Luis Paz
Fourth Official: Jaime Herrera
VAR: Diego Montaño Robles
AVAR: Jorge Abraham Camacho Peregrina
Venue: CITYPARK
Weather: Clear, 95 degrees
ST. LOUIS CITY SC POSTGAME QUOTES
Video: Bradley Carnell
Audio: Recordings
Bradley Carnell
Q. Club América just looked really good out there today.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, they looked like a hundred years old, right, in their history. We look like seven months old in our journey, which all is true, right.
So in some ways, I think it’s clear for us as coaches, players, fans, staff, just to see where the level is at and where we are at. It’s almost a relief in many ways because been living in a fairy tale, in a dream world and sort of proving people wrong the whole way and then you match up against an opposition like this and you get to kind of see where your levels are at, individually, tactically, collectively which is not a bad thing.
Yes, the 4-0, the result is harsh and feels like boys amongst men but it’s almost a great learning moment for our group just to show that there are other levels to strive for and to know what the thresholds are. We take this one on the chin and again, we had pretty decent moments, and then really sub-par moments.
So we try to find balance and a medium but unfortunately there was too much real estate between when we looked okay and when we looked really poor and there was a lot of land in between. That’s now for us the job, to close those gaps and to try and become a little more consistent when we come up against really good teams like this.
Q. Just the way they move the ball, some of their passing intricacies, just tough to keep up with?
BRADLEY CARNELL: It’s almost like street football. You’re playing court soccer on 114 by 74, and it’s a little drop of the shoulder. It’s a little touch of the outside of the boot. It’s a give-and-go and it’s a one, two. Again, this is a team that’s been together for probably three years now, and they have added little bits and pieces, and you can see that continuity.
You can see the gelling and the cohesion between the ranks, and again, I think if you just look at caliber of individual, there’s 11 DPs that played for them in the starting lineup based on salary terms. So again, we don’t use this as excuses. We use this as learning and growing.
Q. What are the positive takeaways you take away from this game, either team-based or individually players?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Positives, Eduard Löwen gets 90 minutes. For me that’s a positive. And again we had pretty decent moments. We created a little bit when we came over the wider areas and I thought we created a few chances and we pressed the ball two, three, four times. We picked up the transition moments but the next part two of our transition was a little bit lacking.
We had really good moments and then really moments where you could see the quality and if you come a step late, if you’re not collective, if you’re not connected, if your background is too deep, if the front line is too high, if we are not compact enough, the good teams will find a way to punish you. If you close down one area here, they open up one area there. If you close that one, they open up another one. These are savvy soccer players, and like I say, you can put everything aside and just say on the day, it’s a better team.
Q. Earlier this week you talked about the focus on Plan A and should that not work out, we turn to Plan B. Have you given any thought on what that’s going to look like?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yes, some guy also play City2. Club América use our facility tomorrow so we won’t be in. We’ll take the next couple days to gather our thoughts, where we’ve seen this game as frustration, whether we’ve seen this game as learning moments, whether we’ve seen this game as individually, good, bad, indifferent, to use whatever this is with the energy and rewatch the game and take all these learning moments and apply it for the running to the 20th of August against Austin.
We have 11 finals to finish off the season, and for us we want to get over that line. These are things to look at. These things are achievable, and again, we put this aside and we swallowed a bitter pill and we move on.
Yes, Plan B is we will resume on the 5th of August.
Q. Is it a benefit that you get to go through almost a second preseason ahead of the return to MLS play?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Not really. It’s a two-week window, so we get seven days off now, and we go again for two and a bit weeks before the final four training sessions of the run-in to Austin. It’s very important to get the bodies, the minds, just rested.
Again, this group has committed so much to what we do, whether it’s staff, families, front office, and now is the time to think about your families, so just go home and enjoy some family time. Switch off, don’t think about soccer for a little bit and there’s going to be enough to do in the next couple weeks.
Q. Is Eduard going to not think about soccer?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Not sure. You’ll have to ask him that.
Q. What’s the status of Blom?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Not sure. In the last game, not sure when you came in, he struggled a little bit and he moved a little bit uneasy. We didn’t diagnose any issues. He’s a bit tender in his groin areas and it’s one of those things we wanted to be precautionary with, because we would rather build up the time now. If we were leading 2-0 we would have thrown caution to the wind because we know a 2-0 result would have been okay but we didn’t want to risk the health of the player at 3-0 or 4-0. Our focus is the 20th of August now and we have made that conscious decision to not play him.
Q. You had spoken previously about the styles of the Mexican clubs versus MLS. Is there anything you can take away from this match going to the back half of the MLS season?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Just the use of the ball, and even against the ball, when they lose the ball, you see a hunger to win the ball back straightaway. You see a savviness, you see a feistiness and a desire, and we have shown a lot of that and now these guys add another level with the ball. They have another layer of quality with the ball whether it’s individual movement or collective movement or just quality of passing.
We’ll look at some of these, and hopefully this will inspire us, because we have all seen it now live in the flesh what a really good South American team looks like and what a great team looks like over years. So this is compared to Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, all these teams, Manchester United, I can name them all but this is one of the biggest ones here in this region, so good for us to see.
Q. We talked beginning of the year, you would pay the high press, a lot of pressing tonight, your guys never gave up. What is your impression of the team’s fitness level going into the break?
BRADLEY CARNELL: I think we rode waves of fatigue for sure, which is totally normal and understandable. And then through subs, you’re able to get a little bit of ignition of some new energy, a little bit of new dynamic, and then we go again and then guys come in and fatigue quickly because they give everything really early when they get subbed on.
And again, the guys, we gave it everything in terms of physical output and again, we had really good moments and really poor moments.
There’s just a couple of different area codes between those two, so we just have to minimize some of the stuff and learn out of it and really believe when we go, the other ones coming just behind and unfortunately it was almost like a chain reaction. A little bit too slow, not really proactive. The times we were proactive in our thoughts and in our moment collectively, and it was good synchronization. Then we were able to turn over the ball and show really aggressive body posture and then we win the ball. Unfortunately too many times we just got caught chasing a little bit.
Q. Elimination from the tournament was not what you expected. I want you to talk about Klauss’s situation and if you think St. Louis would have performed better in the Leagues Cup.
BRADLEY CARNELL: It’s disappointing, if I can understand you properly, correctly, it’s disappointing to get knocked out of an elimination, and especially playing here at CITYPARK with a great atmosphere and great fans. We have had eight out of 13 games we have won by three goals or more or two goals or more. We know we have the capacity to score goals, we showed it once or twice tonight, but again these are good learning moments for us.
Regarding the matter of Klauss, he started some return to play protocol, which means now getting on the field movements, movements with the ball, movements without the ball. Trying to get him more and more physical every single day, so development in his body, development in his fitness and development in his mentality, because obviously for being out such awhile now, confidence is a big thing in your body.
So we are just trying to get him confident and feeling good about himself and then accelerating each and every day here.
The team will get off but obviously he will continue his build-up program and hopefully getting towards closer to the 20th of August that he will be ready.
Roman Bürki
On how good he thought Club América played…
I think they were decent. Today, we were not at our standards. We didn’t trust in our principles. We tried to press sometimes, but it was not with 100% conviction. It was more like we tried and they outplayed us. They outplayed us three times. Then, we lost confidence in the plan, and I mean against the team that is very good on the ball, it’s just deadly.
On how he feels having a break for the next few weeks…
100%, I mean, you know, there’s one thing that is the money, but the other thing is that — take every player in our sport, and I think I talked to a lot of other teams, too, they need a break. You need a break. If you play like 90 minutes in the heat like this, it’s just extremely exhausting. And it could be dangerous. So, not only for the muscles, but also for other conditions, body parts. So, we definitely need that break.
On what lessons they can take away from this game…
Yeah, that we are a good team. There are many, many other agile teams out there. That’s when we are not sticking to our principles and not all working together, don’t believe in each other, that we will always have problems against teams that are very good on the ball.
Tim Parker
On how Club América moves the ball…
I mean, they’re a really good team. And I think it was not necessarily our best night, but Club América — give a lot of credit to them because they’re very good on the ball. They don’t make a lot of mistakes. So, at moments when we think that we had them, we didn’t.
On what to take from the game…
You know, I mean, you take the experience out of it, that’s all, you know, I mean, you don’t try to overanalyze it. I don’t think we need to sit here and dwell on it, either. It’s a shame we don’t get to move forward in Leagues Cup, but for us, it’s a good team that we got to play a bit tonight. So, I hope everyone kind of sees it that way.
On the atmosphere…
It’s something that I anticipated, you know. Club América always travels well. All the Mexican teams always travel when they come to the States. So, it’s not something that shocked me, by any means. But, I mean, it’s nice to see that they, you know, have support as well.
Eduard Löwen
On playing the game…
It would have been a little bit easier against a team who did not have so much possession. Club América and this weather made for a very tough game for sure.
On losing to Club América …
They’re a great team. You can definitely lose against a team like that. Of course, it’s disappointing. You never want to lose four-zero. You never want to lose any games, but at the end of the day, we have to admit and admire that América is a great team, and they will for sure get very far in the tournament.
On the week break…
I wanted to go to the next round, and I bet the other guys wanted to as well. So, I’m sure nobody booked any flights or anything. Now that we are out, we have a week off. I think that’s going to be good for us, and we’ll try to rest as well as possible and come with a fresh mind and body. Then we’ll get back to the league again.
