St. Louis CITY SC picked up their fourth consecutive home MLS victory with a 2-1 victory over FC Dallas. Following a scoreless first half, midfielder Rasmus Alm connected with defender Anthony Markanich, who netted his first MLS goal to give CITY SC the lead. Forward Nökkvi Thorisson doubled the advantage in the 85th minute, sending one into goal off a cross from midfielder Eduard Löwen. FC Dallas’ Eugene Ansah cut the lead by one in second-half stoppage time, but CITY SC held on to seal the victory.
Summer Signings Shining
St. Louis CITY SC’s acquired two new faces in the summer window with Nökkvi Thorisson joining from Belgian side Beerschot and Anthony Markanich from Colorado Rapids. Both players found the back of the net late in the game against FC Dallas to give CITY SC their 15th win of the season.
Postgame Notes
- Anthony Markanich scored his first MLS goal
- In two matches played for CITY SC, Markanich has recorded two goal contributions
- Nökkvi Thorisson scored his first MLS goal
- Thorisson and Markanich are the 15th and 16th player to score this season for CITY SC across all competitions.
- CITY SC has seen 15 different goal scorers in MLS play this season, which is tied with Atlanta for the second-most goal scorers by an expansion team in their first season
- CITY SC has trailed just 100 of 1280 minutes at CITYPARK in MLS play
- Excluding the shootout era, CITY SC’s 15 wins ties with Atlanta United for the second most wins by an expansion team.
- CITY SC is 13-0-2 in MLS play when scoring first this season
- CITY SC is 10-3-1 at CITYPARK in MLS action
- CITY SC’s ten (10) home wins brings the team into a tie with Charlotte FC and CF Montréal for the second-most home wins by an expansion team in MLS history (excluding the shootout era), trailing Atlanta United’s mark (11) in 2017
- Eduard Löwen picked up his tenth assist in MLS play this season, tying him with Felipe Martins for the sixth-most assists by a player on an expansion team in their inaugural season in MLS history (excluding the shootout era)
Goal-Scoring Plays
STL – Anthony Markanich, 82nd minute: Anthony Markanich left footed shot from very close range to the bottom left corner.
STL – Nökkvi Thorisson (Eduard Löwen), 85th minute: Nökkvi Thórisson left footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner.
DAL – Eugene Ansah, 90+5 minute: Eugene Ansah right footed shot from the left side of the six-yard box to the bottom left corner.
Next Game
CITY SC heads east for a bout with cross-state rival Sporting Kansas City on Saturday, September 2.
August 30, 2023 – CITYPARK (St. Louis, Missouri)
Goals by Half 1 2 F
St. Louis CITY SC 0 2 2
FC Dallas 0 1 1
Scoring Summary
STL: Anthony Markanich, 82
STL: Nökkvi Thórisson (Eduard Löwen), 85
DAL: Eugene Ansah, 90+5
Misconduct Summary
DAL: Maarten Paes (ejection), 12
STL: Jared Stroud (caution), 44
DAL: Jader Obrian (caution), 46
DAL: Marco Farfan (caution), 60
DAL: Asier Illarramendi (caution), 67
DAL: Facundo Quignon (caution), 75
STL: Indiana Vassilev (caution), 90+4
Lineups
STL: GK Roman Bürki ©; D Akil Watts (João Klauss 71’), D Josh Yaro, D Tim Parker, D Kyle Hiebert (Anthony Markanich 46’); M Njabulo Blom, M Eduard Löwen, M Jared Stroud (Indiana Vassilev 46’), M Rasmus Alm, M Aziel Jackson (Tomáš Ostrák 80’); F Sam Adeniran (Nökkvi Thórisson 46’)
Substitutes Not Used: GK Ben Lundt, D Joakim Nilsson, D Jon Bell, D Lucas Bartlett
TOTAL SHOTS: 22; SHOTS ON GOAL: 6; FOULS: 14; OFFSIDES: 1; CORNER KICKS: 10; SAVES: 3
DAL: GK Marten Paes; D Marco Farfan (Jose Martinez 81’), D Nkosi Tafari, D Ema Twumasi, D Sebastien Ibeagha; M Facundo Quignon, M Dante Sealy, M Sebastian Lletget (Asier Illarramendi 61’), M Paxton Pomykal © (Liam Fraser 81’); F Jader Obrian (Eugene Ansah 61’), F Jesus Jimenez (Jimmy Maurer 16’)
Substitutes Not Used: D Geovane de Jesus Rocha, F Paul Arriola, F Alan Velasco, F Bernard Kamungo
TOTAL SHOTS: 5; SHOTS ON GOAL: 4; FOULS: 14; OFFSIDES: 5; CORNER KICKS: 2; SAVES: 4
Referee: Guido Gonzales Jr
Assistant Referees: Jason White, Adam Wienckowski
Fourth Official: Kevin Broadley
VAR: Jorge Gonzalez
AVAR: TJ Zablocki
Venue: CITYPARK
Weather: Sunny, 77 degrees
ST. LOUIS CITY SC POSTGAME QUOTES
Video: Bradley Carnell
Audio: Recordings
Bradley Carnell
Opening statement…
I think obviously any game plans get thrown out of the window when you get a red card after 12 minutes. Then, it just becomes about grit, determination inside.
So, it took us a while to figure things out, to figure out the spacing. And credit to Dallas — they really gave us a good game. Nico [Estévez] runs a tight ship there, and he does a great job.
And yeah, just excited for the group. Come out the half, making a bunch of changes, getting attacking guys on the field, getting attacking options through the width and the wings, and I think it was a matter of time. We certainly bent them to the point of breaking.
So, I’m really proud of the boys. We huffed and we puffed, and we finally broke them down. These games are tricky. I’ve been involved in many of these games, and walked away sometimes with a loss, walked away sometimes with a tie.
But again, credit to everyone off the bench. Credit to Nökkvi [Thórisson], everybody, Anthony [Markanich] — Rasmus [Alm] had a great game, contributed, chipped in, and I thought as a collective you could see what we stand for and the type of goals we score. You can’t walk down the aisle of doubt when these things happen. We get called to play slow and with delays, and it just catches up with us. And to break that mindset, mentality, we need to get into the locker room and almost reset the brain, the brains and the bodies, and almost show gaps of where we are with a man up. So, credit to the boys for the second half application and performance.
This kind of game, as it goes on and on does it seem maybe it’s going to be one of those nights where you can’t solve?
Yeah, you have to believe, though. You have to believe. And sometimes you have to earn and will yourself to the win, right. You have to create a bit of chaos. You have to create a bit of havoc. You have to be brave to play balls in the box and you have to do a couple of things that usually, you think, you’ve got the extra man; you should play more safe and really be strategic and methodical about how you are going to break them down.
So sometimes you just have to throw the kitchen sink at them and bend the opponent, and force mistakes and force dangerous crosses and force these types of things. We changed systems, we changed — we put just about every attacking play we had on the field.
So within a system, we threw the kitchen sink at it, too, so but still without losing our head. I’m disappointed for the last 30 seconds of game. But I think you could see there was a hunger in the boys. I think there was a determination and a desire to get these three points.
These three points meant so much to us tonight for the bigger picture. We have three more home games left and we know every home game is vital for us in terms of our quest for glory or quest for playoffs or quest for home berth in the playoffs. So we’ll just keep on doing what we’re doing.
What did it feel like when you heard the crowd respond to Klauss coming onto the field?
Yeah, it’s amazing. You could feel a bit of confidence within the crowd, and a bit of confidence; that boosts Klauss to another level, right. For sure he has not got the stamina in his body to last more than 30 minutes right now, so we are building him up strategically but you can see when he comes on, he’s a handful. He occupies these center-backs. He’s savvy with his body. He uses his feet well and brings others into play.
Yeah, I’m excited to have everybody on this roster that’s getting stronger, healthier fitter, and creating a little bit more of weapons off the bench, starting — teams that we start with Jared Stroud and Rasmus Alm, the workerman-like blue-collar, and then we can break teams down with the rest of the guys that come off the bench. That was today’s game plan and I’m happy for everybody as a collective.
You mentioned [Rasmus] Alm. Can you speak with ways he impacted the game from your vantage point tonight?
Yeah, he’s very dangerous in the half spaces. He’s clean and tight with his ball control in the pockets but then he’s a big weapon when he’s out wide and can crosses in. He’s dynamic. He shows a sense of urgency but. Yeah, he doesn’t fatigue. He just runs all day long and he gets back and does whatever is needed for the team.
So we had him playing as a wingback at the end of the game. We had a five and attacking a three. So we were a little bit flexible down the wide areas, and we showed intent with Anthony Markanich coming in the game. With Rasmus Alm, the different nuances we gave to his game and I thought he responded ever so well and with Jabs [Blom], the right center back at times.
I wanted to ask about Markanich because he comes from Colorado in a system where he struggles to find playing time, and comes here and has two goal contributions in his first two matches. What do you see from him?
You just look at DNA and profile. You look at DNA; he runs, he’s got good technical ability, and he shows great urgency and energy. So those are all tools that we need to play in our system and philosophy.
When we went through video with him, he was like, “Yeah, Coach, this is who I am. I like this. This excites me.” You can see a sense of enjoyment in his game.
I think he brings an added quality to us when we need to break down the opponent. I think he gets in dangerous areas in the final third, and credit to him, and he wills himself — I don’t know if he was on the goal or I don’t know if he scored or they gave it on goal, not sure yet but he wills himself to a successful moment. You only do that with confidence, enjoyment and desire, so I’m happy for Anthony playing off that.
Two new faces, two new goal scorers, assuming that it’s not an own goal, how important is that for some new faces to not only get the goal but to get the goal at home and build that momentum with the new teams?
It’s good for integration of the team. We had an approach at the beginning of the season to recruit really humble, modest professional human beings. So obviously the human beings and the soccer players we recruited have certain skill sets, right. So that we see certain skill sets so early on with Nökkvi [Thórisson] and Anthony [Markanich]. It’s a credit to everyone in the club, making these players feel welcome, because they have a certain skill set that we need, right, and it’s not always easy to just hit the ground running.
But I think it’s the environment that we’ve created. I think we have built a culture around this year’s accepting and everyone feels they have a chance, and everyone when they get the opportunity, they know that, yeah, anything can happen for them, right.
And these guys are hungry. They stay on the field longer. Yeah, Nökkvi, we have to force him off the [training] field. He takes 13 shots every single day after training and sometimes we are like, Nökkvi, it’s a little too much today. Credit to these guys to being open and willing to learn for new principles, for new tactical profiles and little nuances about the game that they might not have known. Once again, the collective wins in the system.
And you always talk about the newness. There’s a lot of newness. There’s always a different starting lineup, but to your point, you found a lot of leaders and you found a lot of confidence in this group. So can you speak to the fact that a lot of these guys, even when it’s their first shot, they are continuing to show up and be leaders no matter how old they are?
We don’t want to create a system. We want to create a system of expression within a system within a profile, within a tactical philosophy. And I think through the culture of what we’ve done, whether it’s been team building, whether it’s been off-the-field discussions, breakout sessions or just on-the-field principles and discipline of what we are trying to do and show conviction and belief.
So we have just created a will and a belief to want to achieve the next level. We have created some of — maybe people sitting in the room have create that edge as well because we wanted to prove people wrong. So this is another way of belief, right. Anthony joins us not getting minutes. He wants to show that he can. Nökkvi, he wants to show that he can.
So we have created an environment that we want to express ourselves. We are all different artists. We all are driven by ego but how can we just inject that into something positive for the group, and again, we don’t believe we are anything special. We just believe that we stick to our way.
Obviously Dallas has a very stingy defense, one of the lowest goals allowed in all of MLS and especially after the red card early on, just talk about breaking them down and breaking down that big block that Dallas had in front of their goal.
Yeah, it’s one of the things that obviously pressing teams have always had problems breaking down teams, and I’ve been part of teams that struggled to break down eight versus ten outfield games, and then we go and tie the game a couple years back. So I know how difficult it can be. It’s one break away the other way, and we are a goal down.
So we don’t want to be reckless. We don’t want to be random with our intentions and for us to strategically without losing patience, right. Strategically break an opponent down and wear an opponent down; and our way, the players, the way we train every day, the way we play, the system we play is really tiring. It breaks our players down sometimes just in terms of training load, right.
So we just think accumulatively what can that do to the opponent. The longer the game goes on, we all had belief that it’s just a matter of time until something happens. So I thought we didn’t give much away. And again, credit to Dallas, they really are a stingy defense. And yeah, we lost to them in the first round in Dallas over two legs, which was still something crazy, but we knew how hard it was there to break them down there, as well. Yeah, I’m just proud of my boys.
Bürki had to make a couple good saves in tight situations when they got the ball in close, and looks like that obviously loomed large in the game.
Yeah, it’s just one moment away. It’s one moment away. It’s one slip to midfield or whatever, and it’s just one moment. Again, Roman comes up big once or twice which was massive. I just feel sorry for him for the last goal because he doesn’t deserve that. He hasn’t earned that. But again we are in good spirits and we know the value of these three points was massive today.
Did it get a little heated on the field there after the game?
With what?
With players from teams? It looked like you were upset?
With the players?
You were upset with somebody. Possibly a Dallas assistant, I don’t know.
Oh, no. I know what you’re talking about. Well, we scored the second goal, I celebrate to the home fans, right. I think one of the assistants took it out of context.
And I have a really good relationship with Nico, so I just wanted to clarify that with Nico, and Nico understands. He knows me as a person. I just wanted to clear it up, and I wanted to be sure that we were on — that we give these guys something noise in the locker room when they arrive.
We respect the opponent, and you know, for us, it’s got nothing to do with anything, throwing anything in anybody’s face. So, it was just a misunderstanding.
Josh Yaro had a great game in the back, especially when it came to shutting down a lot of the long balls that were coming to the defense. And you combine that with the game we saw Watts playing so far up in almost right back role. Could we see more three and back five? Is that something that opens up more possibilities for you guys going forward?
Yeah, it does. We were playing a four defensively, and then in the first half rolling out Akil higher, 3-4-3, 3-4-2-1. So, we rolled out different formations, and then you know, as the game goes on, you know, they get the red card, so again, we don’t need three at the back. We only need two versus one against their striker. They are defending a 4-4-1. It gets a lot technical.
But yeah, it does give us options. Sometimes you go through the opponent vertically, and sometimes you have to go around the opponent. So you have to take what the game gives you, and we thought for this opponent, that was the game plan, but it changed after 12 minutes. So yeah, then we came, a little bit frustrating last 30 minutes of that half. But we then recalibrated, recorrected and got a new system in place and then that kicked in.
Njabulo Blom
On how tough Dallas’ defense was…
Yeah, I think it was tough because they played with a low block, and we had to move the ball a bit quicker. Also, be creative at the same time and try to play in the spaces behind their defense. So, it was kind of hard, but we persevered.
On if the game would have been a disaster if they had tied…
Yeah, it would have been a disaster because one went down, first off. I think we should have played a bit more with urgency, but we were a bit sluggish with our buildup. Second, they got another card, so I think if we tied the game, it would have been a disaster. And we kind of had, like, a lot of chances to capitalize on. We missed a few chances and then we managed to get two goals closer to the end of the game
On being new here in St. Louis and if having Kansas City being a rival means anything to him…
I’m not really sure, but one thing I know for sure is that on the weekend, they will be up for the game because of how they lost here at home. Apparently, it’s like one of the derbies in the league. So yeah, I think they’ll be up for the game as much as we are.
Anthony Markanich
On scoring his first MLS goal…
I know a lot of guys are joking about it. They were saying it wasn’t a goal, but it was a goal. I just tried to put my leg in front. I mean, I didn’t think it was going to get to me. Luckily, it hit me. That’s my first MLS goal. So, I mean, to be honest, I didn’t really know what to do after I scored. I was just full of happiness. So, I mean, for me, it was just for my family. I know they’re happy right now.
On the culture and experience at CITY SC…
Yeah. I mean, for me, I just like to learn from the other guys, especially Tim Parker and all the veterans and stuff. I mean, I just like to learn and watch them, listen to them.
On the switch from Colorado to CITY SC…
I went from last to first, you know, so I mean, not really used to that, but yeah, I mean, it seems so good. I mean, just coming from Colorado to here, just so much better. You could tell why they are in first. Even in training and stuff, it’s just so much better. Training is better. There is so much competitiveness here. I mean, I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight.
Nökkvi Thórisson
On how he felt after his first goal…
That was an amazing feeling. The fans are incredible and electric, like always. So, it was just a really good feeling to score and contribute to the win.
On how tough it was to break Dallas down…
It is always difficult when the other team loses a man. It completely changes the game. They always step down and form a low block, so you have to be patient and really, really push them. Try to find openings and keep pushing, just keep pushing, and I felt like we did that.
On how it is playing in St. Louis…
Yes, incredible. Nice city. People are so loving, so welcoming. So, I can’t wait to be here for the next few years.
