ST. LOUIS - St. Louis City SC had the pleasure of featuring in Major League Soccer’s primetime Sunday Night Soccer slot this weekend, hosting MLS Eastern Conference leaders Columbus Crew on a perfect evening for soccer at Energizer Park.
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A sellout crowd flocked Downtown West in hopes of a City win, or at least a City goal for the first time in a month. City put the ball in the net twice, but only one of them counted officially. Columbus put the ball in the net twice, and both officially counted, taking a 2-1 victory and handing St. Louis City their fourth consecutive loss.
City fans and the City commentariat have been clamoring for a more attacking lineup from head coach Olof Mellberg. Well, that wish was granted Sunday evening.
The defense was the same shape, but featured Timo Baumgartl starting for the first time since his offseason arrival. In full, Kyle Hiebert started as a left wingback, Baumgartl a left center back, Henry Kessler took up his usual role in the center of the defense, Josh Yaro as a right center back, and Conrad Wallem flipped sides to start as a right wingback.
Once again, Marcel Hartel donned the captain’s armband, as he has in every game since Roman Bürki’s hand injury, and played as a central midfielder. Alfredo Morales started to Hartel’s right in the middle of the park.
Celio Pompeu played as an advanced midfielder on the left side of the attack, with the object of using his pace and his skill on the ball in one-on-one situations to create opportunities for St. Louis City. Cedric Tuechert started in a similar role on the right side.
João Klauss started once again, offering City a big target to send long balls and crosses to. Not just an offensive threat, Klauss is also a big contributor to the team’s high-pressing defense, something which has been called into question under Mellberg’s more conservative defensive approach.
Klauss, and by extension, St. Louis City’s goal drought hasn’t been for a lack of trying, but a lack of clear opportunities to score. Six minutes into the contest, Klauss’s hard work paid off.
Celio Pompeu did exactly what he was put in the lineup for, beating a Columbus player on the dribble and getting behind the defense on the left wing. Pompeu played a low pass that Klauss side-footed off the crossbar. Fortunately for City’s big Brazilian striker, the rebound came right back to his forehead, and he guided it to the far corner beyond a lunging Patrick Schulte in the Columbus goal.
The goal snapped a month-long drought for City, who hadn’t found the back of the net since an Eduard Löwen free kick in the first half in a 1-0 victory over the Seattle Sounders in St. Louis on March 15.
Beyond Pompeu and Klauss’s foray forward for the opener, City found themselves defending far more than attacking. That’s not unusual for teams facing the Wilfried Nancy-led Columbus Crew, who are perhaps the best passing and possession team in Major League Soccer.
The Crew had a walloping 76 percent of possession in the first half, out-passing City 314-68 in the first 45. That wasn’t necessarily the game plan for City.
“On our possession game, our buildup, I don't think it was great today,” admitted City head coach Olof Mellberg postgame. “We really have to look at how we can really improve there and get better movement and variation in our attacks.”
St. Louis was forced into an early change within the half-hour mark. In the 23rd minute, defender Josh Yaro clashed heads with a Columbus Crew player going up for a header, and stayed down on the field after the collision.
Yaro was taken off the field to go through concussion protocol and was given the go-ahead to return to play minutes later. But Yaro played less than five more minutes before City’s team doctors stepped in and told head coach Olof Mellberg to take him out of the game.
Per a statement from the team postgame, the City medical staff “continued to monitor the player and determined further evaluation was warranted, at which point Yaro was removed from play.” Yaro’s availability will likely be addressed in the coming week following more assessment of his head injury.
Akil Watts came into the game and forced City to shift some personnel around. Hiebert filled Yaro’s spot as a right center back, Wallem switched from a right wingback to a left wingback, and Watts took up the right wingback spot Wallem vacated.
In first half stoppage time, Columbus’s onslaught of passing and pressure paid off. Pouring men forward in attack, the Crew found some space to work on the left, where winger Max Arfsten then sent in a hopeful cross. Steven Moreira, the 2024 MLS Defender of the Year, ghosted behind the City defense and hit a first-time volley that Ben Lundt had no chance of stopping.
The goal, in the 46th minute of the first half, was a backbreaker. Not only did it erase City’s first-half lead, but it gave Columbus momentum going into the halftime break.
“You get the energy [going into] halftime, you have a good feeling leading 1-0 against this Columbus team,” said City defender Timo Baumgartl. “[Columbus] needs to find solutions; they’re sitting in the dressing room thinking about what they can do better. It’s different when they get one right before halftime. They get the high [of scoring], we get the low. For us, it would have been perfect if we didn’t concede the goal right before halftime.”
With the wind in their sails coming out for the second half, it took less than 10 minutes for the Crew to take the lead. Diego Rossi gets credit for the goal, a shot from outside the box that Ben Lundt couldn’t get down to, but Lundt will want the goal back in a big way.
Lundt gave Rossi, one of the better players on the Columbus roster and the league, too much of the goal to shoot at, staying too close to his near post. When Rossi spotted Lundt’s position, he hit a low driven shot that Lundt was simply too far away from to stop.
Lundt has been serving as well as just about anyone could for Roman Bürki. Bürki’s goalkeeper gloves are big gloves to fill, and City really missed Bürki’s awareness and positioning in that moment.
The controversy alluded to at the start of this game story came in the 68th minute off a St. Louis City corner kick. Baumgartl was the first to the corner, flicking the ball into the path of Klauss, who buried a shot from close range.
The linesman immediately put up their flag for offside. But upon replay, it looked like Columbus Crew defender Sean Zawadzki put Klauss onside while marking City’s Alfredo Morales.
There was a brief review by the VAR crew in MLS headquarters, but no on-field review by referee Rosendo Mendoza, despite video evidence seemingly showing Klauss onside when Baumgartl heads the ball down.
The official reasoning given by PRO, the organizing body of MLS referees, was that there weren’t clear angles that showed Klauss onside.
"All angles were reviewed and there were none that could conclusively prove that STL No. 9 was in an onside position,” read the statement from the VAR crew. “Therefore, no review could be recommended."
Per the angle shown on the Apple broadcast, which was the angle that the players saw in the locker room following the game, it sure looked like Klauss was onside. He said as much to the media postgame.
“From the camera [angle] we watched in the locker room, it looked like I was onside,” Klauss said.
City’s head coach didn’t understand why the linesman was so quick to call the play offside instead of letting the review process decide for certain one way or another.
“I don’t know why [the linesman] gives the offside in the first place when it’s so close,” said Mellberg. “Better to get the goal and then they can look at it afterwards, and not the other way around. Apparently players have been looking at the pictures and its onside.”
Simon Becher, who came on for Cedric Teuchert at the hour mark, was about a few yards from giving City a “ball don’t lie” moment in the 72nd minute following the controversial offsides call. In an attempt to play out of the back, aforementioned Crew defender Sean Zawadzki passed the ball straight to Becher, who dragged a left-footed shot just to the right of a gaping Columbus goal.
In the 88th minute, Becher was given another golden opportunity when an Alfredo Morales pass over the top of the Crew defense fell right in front of him. Becher couldn’t get enough of a boot on the ball to steer it either side of St. Louis native Patrick Schulte in net.
Columbus’s newest addition, Daniel Gazdag, a big purchase from the Philadelphia Union this week, had the ball in the back of the net in second-half stoppage time. This time, a more clear-cut offside call came as the linesman’s flag went up.
But that was the last meaningful action on Sunday night, and City couldn’t break their losing streak, which now stands at four games. Only City and Eastern Conference stragglers, DC United, have lost their last four games in all of MLS, and like DC United, City finds themselves near the bottom of their conference.
“Today was a game we can build from,” said Klauss. “The start was good… But we’ve lost the last four games now, and we know we have to pick up points as soon as possible. Everyone knows how difficult it is to make the playoffs. We have time, but if we don’t win games now, it will be difficult.”
Now, City turns its attention to a Saturday matchup at Energizer Park with the Vancouver Whitecaps. A Whitecaps team that isn’t just leading the Western Conference, but currently leading all of Major League Soccer with 19 points, standing atop the MLS Supporters Shield standings after eight games.
Amidst a four-game skid, it isn’t getting any easier for Olof Mellberg’s St. Louis City.
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