COURTESY ST. LOUIS CITY SC
Despite yellow cards and mistakes from St. Louis CITY SC, coach Bradley Carnell trusts his players.
St. Louis CITY SC’s culture thrives off belief and trust. This unwavering confidence presented itself after CITY’s 1-1 draw against the LA Galaxy on Sunday. Jake Nerwinski’s mental mistake led to LA Galaxy’s game-tying goal in the 85th minute. But head coach Bradley Carnell maintained his trust in Nerwinski after the match. “We’re a team and stick together as teammates and as a collective,” Carnell said.
“We’re not here to blame and shame. We’re here to stick as a group and stay connected with each other and trust each other.”
A Rocky Start
The Galaxy used a rigid 4-3-3 formation to control the first 15 minutes of the match. But CITY’s press lacked its usual vigor as the Galaxy exploited the spaces between CITY’s lines to create opportunities.
CITY generated a few dangerous opportunities of its own in transition, but none of the chances resulted in a goal.
CITY’s aggressive defensive approach led to Eduard Löwen, Njabulo Blom, and Rasmus Alm being shown yellow cards in the first half. Center-midfielders are crucial for interceptions and tackles in CITY’s pressing style. The pressure CITY’s center-midfielders apply puts them at a higher risk of receiving yellow cards.
Thus, Löwen and Blom receiving yellow cards before half-time meant Carnell would have a decision to make: Substitute both of them during the second half to prevent either from receiving a second yellow (which constitutes a red card and expulsion from the match), or trust that Löwen and Blom could play it safe. Carnell chose the latter.
“We put a lot of stressful situations on our players in training. And that should equip them to do well with those situations and, you know, credit to [Löwen], credit to [Blom] in the midfield. They manage their emotions really well,” Carnell said.
A Mixed Second-Half
CITY’s breakthrough came in the 68th minute. But the goalscoring play began in the 67th minute off a Galaxy counter-attack. Galaxy’s Douglas Costa played a dangerous through ball to Dejan Joveljic. CITY’s Tim Parker challenged Joveljic and won the duel. Parker’s defensive intervention kickstarted a CITY attack.
“We've been speaking a lot as a group about being brave to defend these moments like this. And the backline showed tremendous courage and connectedness to the rest of the group,” Carnell said.
After a few passes, CITY’s Indiana Vassilev crossed the ball to Nicholas Gioacchini. But the ball bounced awkwardly in front of Gioacchini. Gioacchini instinctually flicked the ball towards the goal to put CITY ahead.
“I knew that the goal was a little bit behind me to the right, so I just got a touch on it and the ball also came in quite quickly. So it's not really an extremely calculative gesture, it's just a natural instinct,” Gioacchini said.
CITY had an opportunity to double its lead just minutes later. Roman Bürki cleared the ball far up the pitch off a backpass from Lucas Bartlett. Galaxy defender Jalen Neal attempted to control the ball, but a heavy first touch led to Vassilev intercepting the ball. Within moments, Vassilev and Gioacchini found themselves with a numerical advantage against Galaxy’s Martín Cáceres. Vassilev could’ve passed the ball to Gioacchini but he opted to dribble past Cáceres. Vassilev managed to beat Cáceres to get off a shot, but it went straight at goalkeeper Jonathan Bond. Cáceres ended the chaos as he cleared the ensuing rebound.
“We had a lot of chances. And we should have been more clinical,” Vassilev said. “Today wasn't clicking enough for us in front of the goal.”
The Galaxy made four substitutions in the 78th minute in an attempt to generate more attacking opportunities. One of those substitutes included midfielder Daniel Aguirre.
Nerwinski received a pass from Löwen in the 85th minute. Nerwinski appeared to be indecisive as Galaxy’s Douglas Costa tackled Nerwinski to intercept the ball.
The ball rolled to Galaxy’s Preston Judd who passed it to Costa out wide.
Aguirre ran in the box unmarked. Costa crossed the ball right into Aguirre’s path who finished the opportunity to bring the Galaxy level.
A Tough Draw
Drawing after conceding a goal late in a match always feels like a loss. “This doesn't feel good to get a point here,” Vassilev said. “We want to kind of run teams over here. We want to get wins and I think we did play well, and I think we did do enough to win this game.”
“We just weren't clinical enough. We ended up paying for it.” CITY’s missed opportunities kept the Galaxy in the match. “It's tough to concede in the 85th minute knowing that we had so many chances earlier and we defended pretty well in the whole game,” Gioacchini said. Carnell hopes his team can move on and earn a victory against Nashville SC on Saturday at Geodis Park. “Sometimes you don't get rewarded for good performances, because I thought we deserved three points today. So credit to the boys,” Carnell said. “I know we want to win the home games, but we move on.”
This reporting was supported by the River City Journalism Fund.
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