The road back for City SC may take some time.
City SC won its first game after firing coach Bradley Carnell on Wednesday, but its second game under interim coach John Hackworth didn’t go quite as smoothly. City SC fell to the Colorado Rapids 4-1 on Sunday night in Commerce City, Colorado, the second time in three games it had allowed four goals.
Potentially more concerning is that goalkeeper Roman Burki left the game in the 32nd minute with what is thought to be back spasms. Also, the team was without playmaker Eduard Lowen, who has an adductor injury. Neither injury seems particularly serious — Hackworth thinks it’s 50-50 Lowen is back in practice midweek — but the season just keeps on being painful.
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City SC goalkeeper Roman Bürki yells to his defenders in the second half against the Colorado Rapids on Wednesday, June 19, 2024, at CityPark.
Still missing is that finishing touch, the skill of being to score key goals at key times to change the direction of a game.
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“I think the most important thing that this group of men have to learn is how to how to try to keep grinding,” Hackworth said, “and can we get a chance, can we get two chances, can we get three? And in fact, we did that because if you walk out of this building at 2-2, regardless of that, the fact that we didn’t play very well, learning how to win on the road in this league against a really good team and giving yourself a chance to get a result — a draw here would have been really, really important for this group. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go that way. And we’re all disappointed and it’s unacceptable.”
But Hackworth could find some causes for optimism. To him, it was good news that the team, in the 80th minute, was just one kick away from tying the game and potentially stealing a point in a difficult road environment. When the teams met 2½ weeks ago, City SC fell behind two goals in the 60th minute. This time, it didn’t happen until the 81st.
St. Louis City SC's interim coach John Hackworth talks to the media after the team lost to the Colorado Rapids on Sunday, July 7, 2024. Video edited by Beth O'Malley
“I can’t overstate the fact that if you can put yourself in a position to get one goal back and walk out of here with a point, that’s massive,” Hackworth said. “So we were clearly going for it. We were not trying to bunker in and just survive this game 2-1 and walk out of here. No, we went for the win. And that opened ourselves up a little bit. It definitely looks and feels a lot worse. But we’re going to try to build on those positives, it’s the only thing we can do. We have to be a team that starts to look for solutions to the problems that we have, because it’s the only way to get out of the hole that we’re in.”
“We got to the 80th minute in the game, on the road, against a good team,” said City SC midfielder John Klein, who scored his first MLS goal 12 minutes in. “That’s the next step for this group. We’re in the game there. We had chances to tie, it we had chances to maybe go win it, and you just can’t give that third goal away. It really, really closed the game out. So that’s what you take from it. Being able to just fight with a team like that, but at some point, we’re gonna have to start turning the corner there.”
Indeed they do, because the team has 12 games left in the season and probably needs to win at least seven of them.
City SC, which has yet to win a game on the road this season, did not do itself any favors when it allowed a goal six minutes into the game and then after Klein got them even, fell behind again, to stay, in the 35th minute. The two goals had some notable similarities, with City SC defenders being caught up field on Colorado counterattacks and letting unmarked players having open looks at goal.
“It’s obviously very concerning,” Hackworth said. “But I would also say that, like you were playing a Colorado team, that literally, they want to catch us in transition. So, we knew exactly what they were going to try to do. And unfortunately, it’s not like we allowed them to do that, but we made several mistakes, especially on the first one, really fundamental mistakes. And I don’t want to go into who it was, and how it happened, but I’ll put it this way. You can’t have three defenders and your three defenders all do different things when you’re being counter attacked, and that allows for a lot of time and space and a numerical advantage for your opponent. And that is definitely concerning.”
“This was definitely a tough game,” said left back Jayden Reid, who had the assist on Klein’s goal, “and games like this, you can learn a lot from. I feel like if everybody gives 10% more, we’ll be in a better spot. But tonight, just wasn’t good enough from us on the backline. But there’s always room for improvement. And we’re going to go back to the drawing board and get ready for Vancouver,” the team’s opponent on Saturday night.
St. Louis City SC player Jayden Reid talks to the media after the team's loss to the Colorado Rapids on Sunday, July 7, 2024. Video edited by Beth O'Malley
Burki came out a minute before Colorado retook the lead, though there was no cause and effect at least as backup Ben Lundt was concerned. Cole Bassett of Colorado had more than sufficient space to drive the pass from Kevin Cabral in for the goal.
“It happened on the first kick of the game,” Hackworth said of Burki. “And he told us on the side, ‘Hey, you know, I did something to my back.’ We had him looked at and just from what the medical staff told me at halftime, I don’t think it’s a pulled muscle or anything. I just think it was a back spasm that couldn’t be relieved and, and so therefore, he really couldn’t move much. And he tried but he couldn’t go.”
In those 46 minutes City SC was just one goal down, but it never got the tying goal. There were chances, especially after Samuel Adeniran subbed into the game in the 59th minute, but Adeniran and Nokkvi Thorisson are in the same situation as Klauss was when he was healthy, getting chances but just not quite being able to finish.
Also bad for City SC is that after Hackworth subbed in Adeniran with a half hour to play, he had no other options to boost his offense other than 17-year-old Caden Glover. Those remaining on the bench were defensive players because that’s who’s healthy. The best Hackworth could do was sub in fresh players such as Josh Yaro and Anthony Markanich and hope that helped.
“It’s not great,” Hackworth said. “When we got to that point where it was 2-1 late in the game, we didn’t bring on attacking players necessarily. We just had to adjust to a different system with the players we had on the field to give ourselves a chance. Obviously that didn’t work.”
Klein did get his first MLS goal, heading in a cross from Reid, playing his first game since signing a first-team contract with City SC after making two appearances on loan from City2. The goal came six minutes after Colorado took the lead and launched a stretch where City SC had the better of play but couldn’t score.
“It’s a good personal moment for me,” Klein said. “My family was in the crowd and it’s a moment I’ll never forget, but at the end of the day, it’s a 4-1 loss on the road. And I think I could have had had more, another goal, or more assists, I thought that could impact the game more. So, while I was happy with the goal, kind of disappointed that I wasn’t able to impact any other scoring chances.”
St. Louis City SC player John Klein talks to the media after the team lost to the Colorado Rapids on Sunday, July 7, 2024. Video edited by Beth O'Malley
St. Louis City SC's interim coach John Hackworth talks to the media after the team lost to the Colorado Rapids on Sunday, July 7, 2024. Video edited by Beth O'Malley