St. Louis CITY SC fell 3-1 to Real Salt Lake at CITYPARK on Wednesday night. The away side took the lead in the 15th minute off a goal from Diego Luna, but Niko Gioacchini netted the equalizer in the 21st minute. Real Salt Lake’s Damir Kreilach responded with a brace in the second half to secure all three points for the away team. St. Louis heads west to face San Jose Earthquakes for their Matchday 21 showdown on Saturday.
Postgame Notes
- Niko Gioacchini has scored in four consecutive matches dating back to June 3rd against Houston Dynamo. The forward’s goal tally is up eight.
- Gioacchini’s four-game goalscoring streak ties Alan Pulido, Cristian Espinoza, Amine Bassi and Giorgos Giakoumakis for the longest streak by a player in MLS action this season
- In games that Gioacchini has scored this season, St. Louis CITY SC is 5-2-1
- Jake Nerwinski recorded his first assist for the club
- Njabulo Blom led the game with four interceptions
Goal-Scoring Plays
RSL – Diego Luna (Danny Musovski), 15th minute: Diego Luna right footed shot from the center of the box to the bottom right corner
STL – Niko Gioacchini (Jake Nerwinski), 21st minute: Niko Gioacchini header from the center of the box to the top right corner.
RSL – Damir Kreilach (Maikel Chang), 48th minute: Damir Kreilach left footed shot from the center of the box to the bottom left corner.
RSL – Damir Kreilach (Andrew Brody), 66th minute: Damir Kreilach left footed shot from the center of the box to the bottom left corner
Next Game
St. Louis CITY SC travels to the west coast for a meeting with San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday, June 24.
June 21, 2023 – CITYPARK (St. Louis, MO)
Goals by Half 1 2 F
St. Louis CITY SC 1 0 1
Real Salt Lake 1 2 3
Scoring Summary
RSL: Diego Luna (Danny Musovski, Pablo Ruiz), 15
STL: Niko Gioacchini (Jake Nerwinski, Célio Pompeu), 21
RSL: Damir Kreilach (Maikel Chang, Diego Luna), 48
RSL: Damir Kreilach (Andrew Brody, Diego Luna), 66
Misconduct Summary
STL: Jared Stroud (caution), 29
STL: Tomáš Ostrák, (caution), 30
STL: Jake Nerwinski (caution), 47
RSL: Brayan Vera (caution), 54
STL: Lucas Bartlett (caution), 55
RSL: Gavin Beavers (caution), 71
Lineups
STL: GK Roman Bürki ©; D Jake Nerwinski, D John Nelson, D Lucas Bartlett (Josh Yaro 80’), D Tim Parker; M Njabulo Blom, M Tomáš Ostrák (John Klein 80’), M Jared Stroud, M Indiana Vassilev (Aziel Jackson 69’), M Célio Pompeu (Rasmus Alm 64’); F Niko Gioacchini (Isak Jensen 80’)
Substitutes Not Used: D Selmir Pidro, D Akil Watts, M Miguel Perez, GK Ben Lundt
TOTAL SHOTS: 11; SHOTS ON GOAL: 3; FOULS: 13; OFFSIDES: 2; CORNER KICKS: 4; SAVES: 5
RSL: GK Gavin Beavers, D Andrew Brody, D Brayan Vera, D Justen Glad, D Emeka Eneli, M Pablo Ruiz (Bode Hidalgo 75’), M Diego Luna (Illijah Paul 83’), M Bertin Jacquesson (Maikel Chang 46’), M Jasper Loffelsend (Moses Nyeman 83’); F Damir Kreilach © (Bryan Oviedo 83’), F Danny Musovski
Substitutes Not Used: M Scott Caldwell, GK Zac MacMath D Delentz Pierre
TOTAL SHOTS: 13; SHOTS ON GOAL: 9; FOULS: 8; OFFSIDES: 2; CORNER KICKS: 3; SAVES: 2
Referee: Lukasz Szpala
Assistant Referees: Jason White, Meghan Mullen
Fourth Official: Calin Radosav
VAR: Kevin Stott
AVAR: Jozef Batko
Venue: CITYPARK
Weather: Clear, 85 degrees
Attendance: 22,423
ST. LOUIS CITY SC POSTGAME QUOTES
Video: Bradley Carnell
Audio: Recording
Bradley Carnell
BRADLEY CARNELL: I thought a good start to the game from us, and to go down a goal against the run of play, and fought our way back in, clawed our way back in the game and I thought ended the half really well.
Second half, started and looked like an expansion team, just a little bit leggy, just a little bit slow in the thought process, just a little bit delayed in our actions. And unfortunately, as a collective, we let our principles get away for certain moments. And yeah, individuals from the opponent team find spaces, little pockets of space to penalize and hurt us, because if our principles don’t succeed in a 2v1 mentality, gets interesting for the opponent.
Growing moments for us. We are just looking for consistency now. We are looking to control games a little bit better. There’s a couple of moments where small details, small moments get away from us over the last two, three games. This is a good challenge to have. So yeah, we pick our lips up off the ground and move on to Saturday against San Jose.
In the attacking end, we turnover a season high, I believe, of 25 turnovers in the opponent’s half, and we fail to capitalize. I thought the pressing was really good in the first half. I thought we turned over the opponent many, many times, and we’re just not lethal enough in the final third. So yeah, we move on.
Q. Kind of a case like against Nashville where you make a mistake and you pay for it pretty soon?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, it did feel like that, right.
But again, I thought we turned over the ball with a lot more frequency. So, I thought we turned over the ball at will, in terms of attack in transition. I thought we had some really good looks, really good moments and failed to capitalize.
So now the opponent gets one against a run of play, and we first have to swallow that disappointment. We first have to take it and absorb it in and then we find a way to bounce back. I thought the first half was good and some of the subs that came in made a case for themselves — you know, made a real case for themselves to argue for more playing minutes, posting us questions for games down the line here.
Q. Not having Löwen, does it miss a soothing impact he has on settling things down?
BRADLEY CARNELL: They were without Savarino, Rubio, Gomez, four of their guys, four of their key players.
So, if you look at depleted teams, they were more depleted than us, right. It just didn’t look and feel right in that second half today, and we’ll take ownership of that and move on.
Q. Looking at the midfield, Löwen is a big hole to fill and obviously some recalibration with players roles and things. What adjustments would you like to see out of the midfield going into this weekend’s game?
BRADLEY CARNELL: It’s tough because I ask a lot from my midfield. I ask a lot from the strikers.
So, it’s the same story as last week when two of our guys get yellow cards early on, right, it almost nullifies what we are trying to do because we want to defend brave. We want to defend forwards. We want to win tackles. We want to be proactive, and that means in a certain way and in a certain style, right.
So, if we cannot now defend as we would like to because we have a fear of yellow cards and
then it kind of weakens us, I would say. So, is that now being a little bit more savvy, not giving away cheap fouls?
We just have to learn from these moments and become a little bit more savvy, a little bit more ruthless, a little bit more proactive in the brain so my body doesn’t have to suffer in the moment. Because if I’m sharp in the brain, the body just — you know, the actions will be more flowing and a lot easier to solve.
So for us now, it’s a sharpening of the brain.
Q. Is it good or bad whenever you as coach says, we look as an expansion team, and this season, this team has not looked like a team, a handful of times, not that many, is it good or bad? It’s June; is it good or bad that this is the first time we messed up in a game like that?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, any moments you lose a game and you lose points, you lose at home it doesn’t feel great. It doesn’t feel great playing a game at home, and we are the new kids on the block. And all of a sudden we have a very good first half, I thought, and then we just can’t capitalize and they get another early goal within one minute or two minutes of the start of the second half.
So yes, does it feel — is it good or bad? I mean, I think we learn from these bad moments, and it’s good because there’s still 16 more match days.
Q. Talk about Blom’s effort after his travel schedule.
BRADLEY CARNELL: We pushed him. We pushed him for 90 minutes. I don’t want to say that was not the plan. We knew he was fresh. We knew he didn’t play any minutes.
But to recalibrate your body for seven, eight hours of time difference is never easy, right, traveling across the world, and you could see he was a little bit gassed. But he stuck to it and he did well. He was composed and he was calm and he won his challenges. He helped us on the ball a little bit. So yeah, he lasted the game and did just enough to survive.
Q. Luis mentioned looking like an expansion team. I understand you’re looking game-to-game, but do you ever reflect that you have not seen your team at full strength with Blom, Löwen, Klauss and the rest of support all in there? Does that excite you to see that?
BRADLEY CARNELL: I’m a worker by trade and we work, and we have no excuses, right. We don’t want any excuses. We don’t want any free rides. We don’t want any free tickets to the amusement park.
We have what we have at that moment in time. When it all comes together, what does that look like? We hope that looks great. But right now, we have always believed as we did in the first eight games, nine games, we had eight or so different lineups, and we found a way to make it work.
We need to get back to those ways and to that belief and that momentum and that energy, and that’s the only way for us to survive because we know who we are, and that’s the good thing, right. We have to embrace who we are.
And you can look at whatever in terms of league budgets, salaries. We know who we are, right. We embrace that. We thrive off of that. We love that because that falls within our principles and within our ways. We love developing players. And sometimes when you are developing players, you go through highs and lows, right.
So, we embrace it, and we look forward to the next time that we can get guys fit and healthy, but right now, no excuses.
Q. On the topic of excuses, a lot of the very off-season talk or preseason talk was about your high press and how the effect of the summer heat on some of your players could affect later in matches. We have seen back-to-back games where in the second half, obviously Nashville with the red card but this one tailed off a little bit. Is that just —
BRADLEY CARNELL: Well, I don’t think when you concede within one minute; so 46 minutes, so you can’t really talk about the during of a second half or a duration of a game, right.
So like I said, we had a season-high total of 25 positive defensive pressing moments, right. We turned — it’s a season-high for us. So we equaled our tally; I think L.A. Galaxy was the next one with 25 where we turned them over. Those are mighty numbers for us. That’s what are we thrive off of; that’s our bread and butter, right.
So if we can still maintain a season-high in the highs of the summer months, I think I can look positively at that outlook, but I can’t say and judge the game when we are conceding at the 4th minute.
Q. Nico scores again. He’s got goals in four straight games but in the last three games, he’s the only guy that scored. How do you look at how that comes together?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, it means the supply is getting better at finding Niko [Gioacchini]. So yeah, can other guys now be more of a goal threat; can we finish off with final plays; can we be more fluid in our attacks. We wanted to emphasize a little bit more in the crossing end today and we scored from across, which is a good thing.
We look at moments like this to get better in the final third. I know the boys work incredibly hard at the final third, right. So we know that movement off the ball is key. Supporting runs is key, and back line being connected and compact. Just to sustain the waves of attack for us in our attacking moments. But Gio is on a good run of form. He’s got a good nose for goal and his movements are excellent.
Q. And he’s getting goals in different ways, whether it’s medicine head, foot, parts of his body?
BRADLEY CARNELL: He’s put out a lot of effort, right. So if you see the output, and he works really hard, and it’s a just reward for him to get rewarded. We are happy that he’s getting goals. Unfortunately the goals are not turning into points, and that’s something we have to rectify.
Q. Were the late subs with a mind towards you have a game on Saturday?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Like said, guys are — whether it’s in training or training, guys are making arguments for more minutes. Josh Yaro is a prime example. Aziel Jackson is doing really well. Johnny Klein performing at City 2.
So we look at these guys, and why not? When a game stands at 3-1, you know, yeah, for sure we have to keep Saturday in mind. But we believe that we can have a quick turnaround even in five minutes of a game, right. So if we got the second goal, we’re back if the game.
So unfortunately it didn’t prevail that way, but we have to remain positive and believe in our roster.
Q. You five guys have had a number of busy weeks this year and another one this week. Is there a motivation to get this bad taste out of your mouth, you don’t have to wait very long and you’re playing again on Saturday?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Your next game is your motivation, right. Your next game is your next point, points to be won and points to be proven.
First good half. There’s a few other things we need to look at in the second half for sure within our principles that were not up to the standard of the first half and were not up to the standard of the season. And when you don’t live up to those standards, then it’s easy to say, we are the new team on the block and that’s not our standard either. For us, the next game is on our doorstep and we have to embrace that.
Q. Célio had another good night tonight all over the pitch. Talk about what he brought to your team and maybe the decision to bring on Rasmus Alm in exchange him in the 62nd minute or whatever.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Célio [Pompeu] brings a dynamic movement when we try to come up with a tactical game plan. He’s very good in the 1v1. He offers using some different to the other players. If you look at Tomáš Ostrák, they all have different profiles, right.
So when we put these guys and piece them together, where they are going to play and how they are going to play and what their movements are like and how we can orchestrate it to get Célio time and space.
Yeah, so Célio has outperformed his — yeah, where he is in his career. So we try and assist him and help him within that process. WY thought for much of the game today, we wanted to bring on Rasmus Alm who brings a live wire; is a spark. He brings an energy. You can see when he warms up and comes to the sideline, the crowd, you can just see how he energizes people, and we embrace that as well.
So yeah, we like a lot of guys on our roster.
Njabulo Blom
On how the last three days have been since he left South Africa and how he’s feeling physically…
Yes, it’s been tough. It’s been a long journey. It’s been a long trip from back home. I was happy to go back home to represent my country and see my family. Time difference counts, but the physios were able to help me to get back on track to come and play today.
On what went wrong in the second half…
I think we also had our chances, and then we didn’t apply our principles correctly, and then they capitalized on our mistakes. It was a bit of being sluggish, not facing at the right time, not being in the right place. I think, yeah, it’s that communication also was a big factor today. So, I think we have to take the loss and then we move to Saturday’s game.
On the difficulties of not having Lowen in the team today…
Yeah, Edu is one of our key players. We missed him on the pitch obviously, but obviously us guys had to work and be technically good. He’s the one who’s able to start the play for us, and we struggled to start the play today. It was a bit tough for us, but we have to work as a team.
Niko Gioacchini
On how he felt after halftime…
We wanted to come into the second half of the game with a game plan. We faced a team with good individuals, and they came out to win today. It’s part of the game, and we’re here to do better going forward.
On how it feels coming off a loss in Nashville…
We’re still learning how to use a couple players. When you adapt with who you have on the field, it’s a learning curve. We are not at all worried or upset about anything that happens. It is part of the game, and we learn to work better together and do better.
On chasing Real Salt Lake more often in the second half…
I’ll have to review the game again. Off the top of my head, it was definitely something we struggled with a little more in the second half to do what we wanted to. And it probably showed and as you said it’s part of the learning curve. It’s something where we need to get back together and learn how to be a little more proficient.
Tim Parker
On the first Real Salt Lake goal…
You know, it’s kind of one of our principles to try to forward defend, and it just hits me straight in the kneecap and kind of goes to one of them and he hits the first-time bomb. So, it’s a tough one to swallow, but it’s something that we’re expected to do as a backline. So, sometimes you can get punished for it, sometimes you can get rewarded for it.
His thoughts on being disciplined while playing aggressively…
Yeah, it’s tough. I mean, I definitely think there’s times that you want to make a tackle that maybe you shouldn’t, especially in my cases. So, there’s a fine line that you have to be able to walk on. Sometimes you get punished for it and sometimes you don’t.
His thoughts on the upcoming game against San Jose…
Yeah, it’s a quick turnaround, you know. It’s a quick turnaround. So, tomorrow we’ll be in a little bit later, get a lot of recovery done. Now, it’s about time for guys to be professional, take care of their bodies and try to feel as good as they can for the weekend.
