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MLS St. Louis City SC

St. Louis CITY SC Blanks Inter Miami 3-0 at CITYPARK

July 15, 2023 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
St. Louis City SC News Release


ST. LOUIS - St. Louis CITY SC earned an emphatic 3-0 home victory over Inter Miami CF on Saturday night. Sam Adeniran got the scoring started by heading in a cross off a corner kick from Indiana Vassilev, and then Tim Parker headed one home off a corner kick from AZ Jackson. Eduard Löwen pushed the lead to three with a beautiful strike off a free kick in the 80th minute, securing CITY SC's eighth home win in MLS play this season.

Set-Piece Kings

St. Louis CITY SC has scored 43 goals in MLS this season, which is second behind Columbus Crew. Of CITY SC's 43 goals, 18 have come from set piece situations. With Sam Adeniran (corner), Tim Parker (corner) and Eduard Löwen (freekick) all scoring from a set piece against Inter Miami, CITY SC now leads the league in set piece goals, five ahead of Atlanta United. Löwen leads the team in set piece goals with five, which is tied for fourth in the league.

Postgame Notes

Indiana Vassilev recorded his sixth goal contribution on the season (2 goals, 4 assists)

CITY SC's 13 wins is the fifth most wins by an expansion team.

By heading in his third goal of the season, Tim Parker joins Jeremy Ebobisse, Giorgos Giakoumakis and Kei Kamara for the second-most headed goals in MLS this season

Parker's three goals are tied with Andrew Gutman, Brooks Lennon, Donovan Pines and Miguel Trauco for the fourth-most goals by a defender in MLS this season

Parker surpassed his career total two goals through his first eight seasons with three goals in 20 games this season.

Aziel Jackson recorded his second assist of the season, giving him a goal contribution in three of CITY SC's last four contests

Sam Adeniran scored his third goal of the season

Adeniran has four goal contributions across CITY SC's last five contests

With his goal, Eduard Löwen has twelve (12) goal contributions this season (six goals, six assists)

Löwen has five (5) goals off set-pieces this season, tying him with Alan Pulido, Amine Bassi and Cristian Espinoza for the fourth-most set-piece goals in MLS this season

CITY SC is 11-0-2 in MLS play when scoring first this season

CITY SC is 8-3-1 at CITYPARK in MLS action

Roman Bürki recorded his seventh clean sheet of the season. His seven clean sheets are tied for fifth in the league.

CITY SC recorded its seventh home win scoring three or more goals.

CITY SC has nine wins scoring three or more goals this season

CITY SC has 29 goals across 12 home MLS matches

Goal-Scoring Plays

STL - Sam Adeniran (Indiana Vassilev), 28th minute: Samuel Adeniran header from the center of the box to the bottom right corner.

STL - Tim Parker (Aziel Jackson), 40th minute: Tim Parker header from the center of the box to the bottom left corner.

STL - Eduard Löwen, 80th minute: Eduard Löwen from a free kick with a right footed shot to the top left corner.

Next Game

CITY SC plays away against Colombus Crew on July 23 for the first of their Leagues Cup group stage matches.

July 15, 2023 - CITYPARK (St. Louis, Missouri)

Goals by Half 1 2 F

St. Louis CITY SC 2 1 3

Inter Miami CF 0 0 0

Scoring Summary

STL: Sam Adeniran (Indiana Vassilev), 28

STL: Tim Parker (Aziel Jackson), 40

STL: Eduard Löwen, 80

Misconduct Summary

MIA: Benjamin Cremaschi (caution), 70

MIA: Kamal Miller (caution), 79

STL: Josh Yaro (caution), 90'+3'

Lineups

STL: GK Roman Bürki ©; D Akil Watts (Jake Nerwinski, 78'), D Josh Yaro, D Tim Parker, D Kyle Hiebert; M Njabulo Blom, M Jared Stroud, M Indiana Vassilev (Eduard Löwen 60'), M AZ Jackson (Célio Pompeu 69'), M Rasmus Alm (Niko Gioacchini 60'); F Sam Adeniran (Tomáš Ostrák 69')

Substitutes Not Used: GK Ben Lundt, M Miguel Perez, D Jon Bell D John Nelson

TOTAL SHOTS: 19; SHOTS ON GOAL: 11; FOULS: 8; OFFSIDES: 0; CORNER KICKS: 8; SAVES: 3

MIA: GK Drake Callender, D Ian Fray, D Sergil Kryvtsov, D Kamal Miller, D Noah Allen (DeAndre Yedlin 46'); M Dixon Arroyo, M Benjamin Cremaschi (Victor Ulloa 72'), M Lawson Sunderland (Leo Campana 46'); F Robert Taylor, F Josef Martinez ©, F Robbie Robinson (Edison Azcona 64')

Substitutes Not Used: GK Nick Marsman, D Christopher McVey, D Ryan, F Shanyder Borgelin

TOTAL SHOTS: 10; SHOTS ON GOAL: 3; FOULS: 8; OFFSIDES: 2; CORNER KICKS: 6; SAVES: 8

Referee: Lukasz Szpala

Assistant Referees: Peter Balciunas, Oscar Mitchell- Carvalho

Fourth Official: Calin Radosav

VAR: Malik Badawi

AVAR: Diego Blas

Venue: CITYPARK

Weather: Partly Cloudy, 86 degrees

ST. LOUIS CITY SC POSTGAME QUOTES

Video:Bradley Carnell

Audio:Recordings

Bradley Carnell

Opening Statement: Good evening, everyone. First of all, I would like to give a shout-out to Alexander Langer, our set piece specialist, for his hat trick tonight, supported by John Hackworth. We know we are pretty high up in the standings on the set piece count and these guys work their tails off, so congrats to them.

To the team, it's been a tough stretch over here to go the last four games, three clean sheets, but a bunch of points and to end off on this stretch going into this Leagues Cup break was massively important, playing at CITYPARK where the fans were electrifying once again and the fans were amazing and it gives us extra energy, thinking about guys like Njabulo [Blom] turning it around back-to-back and Indy [Vassilev] emptying the tank for the team and what we stand for. I was very happy with the clean sheet.

We move on. We just enjoy the couple of days now. We wish our MVPs all the best, at the All-Star, Tim [Parker] and Roman [Bürki] and we'll be supporting them as well.

Going into Leagues Cup break with another victory, can you make an assessment of what the season has been like so far for the team?

BRADLEY CARNELL: What started off to be a fairy tale has become business. It sparked an appetite, a hunger for more, and when I say the players, the way they performed tonight, knowing there's a little break coming up, knowing there's Leagues Cup and that essentially from a mental standpoint, you can at least switch off for a few days. This has been massively important for us and now we start to turn on the focus.

But what I've seen is a hunger and a desire not just to compete against each other but to set high standards. We hold ourselves by these and accountable every single day, and I think you can see a team that's connected. I think you can see a roster that's fighting for everything, and the points are there to back it up.

So incredibly grateful, but again it starts with momentum, and it starts with good starts, and it starts with good starts to games and good starts to the League in terms of momentum, and then we just keep it rolling. We've been dealt a few challenges and a few blows over the last couple months, but we have always found a way, and good teams seem to do that.

Do you really want to take a break right now the way things are going?

BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, is it a break? There are a couple days before we start ramping up again against Columbus for Leagues Cup. The next three days, we don't want to see the guys. He wants them to switch down physically, mentally and assess come middle of the week next week.

Momentum is hard to stop so we want to keep momentum, every official game there is to play we want to win and give ourselves a good showing and we want to compete for things. The team has earned some points on the board now and we can put that aside and just focus on the new competition.

The job Alex [Langer] is doing with set pieces is something. Every week he's got new plans coming up for set pieces?

BRADLEY CARNELL: I think there's ideas. There's creativity and there's bravery to implement them, and you need to have players who are willing and brave enough to execute. It's a culmination of everything, and sometimes things just click if you do the right thing enough times, you'll get (lucky). So, the harder you work, the luckier you get.

Saying that, we have some good weapons on the ball, and we have some good weapons off the ball, and you need to get the ball into those spots which means getting corners and getting free kicks in the final third. I think it's a culmination of everything, our game model, our principles and our philosophy and the willingness to execute as well.

Talk about Josh Yaro.

BRADLEY CARNELL: What would you like me to say? You see what a guy he is on the field and what a brave warrior and committed leader he is time and time again. He has been silent. He has not said a word being on the sidelines for so many months, and he comes in and shows like he has not skipped a heartbeat.

He can fit into this game model extremely well and he's loved and supported by everyone in this club, and it shows. He plays free, aggressive and how we like our center-backs to play, and again he's a voice on and off the field. He's a great human being off the field, as well. He's out in the communities more than anybody I know. So, he does his bit on and off the field.

I wanted to ask about the sequence directly before the first goal. Miami has their corner kick, and you and Adeniran, you were saying something in a conversation. What were you telling him? What were those adjustments?

BRADLEY CARNELL: It was just more adjustments to what we were trying to do from a pressing standpoint.

So, they were challenging us a little bit with their shape in the attack and they got around -- they got around our midfielder a little bit too easily, so we just shifted a few things with Indy [Vassilev].

So just a small change, which means, yeah, they are confrontational, their starting points of who their pressing and reference players changed a little bit, so it was more structural than anything else.

With the way Tim Parker heads the ball, can you describe, is it the authoritativeness or assertiveness of his head, heading, whether it's on the defense or on the corner kicks?

BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, I think it just shows intent. It shows intent to do the action that we require and shows the intensity in how he goes about it, right. There's not many guys as fearless and brave as Tim in the League, and he'll step through a brick wall if he has to for his team, and he's done it a bunch of times, right. But he also knows if he plays away towards our principles, he will be rewarded, right.

So, so many years, a veteran in the League to get his first All-Star call up is amazing, and it just shows credit to the road that we are paving and the opportunities that we are creating but again, players need to have buy in. Players need to implement the system. It's the full circle of belief and trust we are crying to create and culminate in this group, and Tim leads that by his actions.

Tim had two goals in his MLS career up until this season and three this season. Seems like he should -- he had eight more years.

BRADLEY CARNELL: Sometimes things are -- there's moments of changes in your life. You find a new purpose and you find a why, and every day you step over those white lines, you play for that purpose. And that's something maybe to ask Tim about but maybe he's found a new purpose in what he's doing.

And then sometimes you're a little bit freer, a little bit more agile, you're a little bit more fresh in the brain and you see things quicker than the opponent. You almost will yourself to success.

Looks like Eduard Löwen is back to being Eduard Löwen.

BRADLEY CARNELL: He was. He was pretty angry with me that I only gave him 30 minutes tonight. We are trying to manage Edu's minutes, and we don't want to be reckless with it. Because you can see in key moments in the transitions, how clean the transitions are going forward and how many more goal-scoring attacks we get.

I thought we have compensated that really well over time but then when he's on it and feeling the groove then he's pretty difficult to stop.

So it was great to have him on there. I don't think we should jump to conclusions too soon. We should just progress him along in the right way and downplay it because if I say anything too nice, he will marking my words and force me to play him longer.

Rasmus from minute one was pressing the entire game, ran for the entire 60 minutes he played and at the same time you were playing him further up the field and more of a forward role than winger role than we've seen from him. How much did he open up and dictate your game plan?

BRADLEY CARNELL: It's important when we know Rasmus [Alm] is a weapon running in behind, he wants to do this. He's a winger by trade but we know with the big Sam Adeniran partnership with Rasmus, he creates a ton of problems for the defenders. We used similarly to the San Jose game away and we had great success there. So it was roll out that game plan, match plan from that game and freeze up now space for AZ Jackson underneath. The shape didn't quite work as how I would like to and we changed things after a couple of minutes and that seemed to set a bet structure for us moving forward.

Four of the last five minutes, you started Yaro, Watts, AZ, Adeniran in those games. Adeniran have been involved in seven of eight goals and you have three of four clean sheets in those games. Talk about those four players, how they have changed the lineup?

BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, you have to talk about the team who went 5-0, too. These are all moments and blocks of our season and we stand together as a team. Some of the boys are supporting members in the match day roster and some are playing, right.

So we've created history with guys like Jake Nerwinski, Johnny Nelson who emptied the bank, and Lucas Bartlett, a couple of important games. JB, Jon Bell, plays excellently against LAFC.

So we have to look at this thing as a whole. I could not just say yeah, we look at 7 out of 8. We have to look at history as well, our short history which has been nothing but, yeah what people dream about.

Roman [Bürki] seemed to pull some new ones out of his bag of tricks tonight, the save with his entire being inside the goal except for one fist. How good was he tonight?

BRADLEY CARNELL: He was really good. He had some really good distribution moments as well and I would say the one he saved on the goal line down low was the most impressive one. The one he catches mid-air and holds on to it, that was for you guys, the cameras.

He's great. He's earned himself this All-Star call-up. He's earned himself momentum through performances; a resurrection of his career as well. He's still young enough to add many years to his career. He could have played anywhere in the world as a starter.

We were fortunate enough to grab him and with momentum and confidence, he grows as a human being and he gross as a leader and captain of this team and again he gets rewarded. You know we tried to reward him with clean sheets every single time we step on that field because we know how much of warrior he is by nature, by desire, he pushes us day-in and day-out on the training field and long may this journey continue for him.

Sam Adeniran just keeps on scoring goals, producing. What's he done with this opportunity you've had since you've brought him back?

BRADLEY CARNELL: We have to work from a tactical standpoint. We have to really work hard with Sam [Adeniran] in terms of the nuances of what we are trying to do but then there's just the raw talent and raw energy and power and strength of Sam who occupies two, three opponents every single time he steps on the field, which then frees us Rasmus [Alm] and [AZ] Jackson.

So he's taking this and running with it. He's a weapon. He needs a ton of confidence and I think through his performances and the freedom that we've given him, he's rewarding his team and rewarding himself as well.

Eduard Löwen

On what stands out from what the team has accomplished....

It's not always about playing a great game. I think there are tough games where it is very important to survive. It is very important to score the chances you have. Set pieces are very important for us. We won on the road in San Jose and Toronto. We are very happy with our current situation.

On what was learned from the time being injured....

I learned that it's very tough to sit out because I always want to play, I want to play every single minute. It was very important and good that the guys kept going and that we got a lot of points. I'm very happy and thankful to be back, and I also hope we get our other guys such as Klauss and Nilsson back.

On his free kick goal....

I'm always pretty happy when I get in positions like this. So, credit to Célio for drawing the foul. At first, I was very clear and had already made my decision to go for the top right corner. I saw the goalkeeper take a step to the side so I decided it would be better to go for the left side. Thankfully, I hit it pretty well.

Sam Adeniran

On having three goals in four games...

Yeah, I mean, you know, thankful to the staff for giving me the opportunity, you know, just thank God that I'm in this position. Yeah, I mean it's surreal.

On coming back from loan...

I mean, the locker room has always been comfortable with the guys. It's always been a good group of guys to work with. So, I think I'm kind of just getting back into the flow of things you know, and they are pretty good.

On pressing vs Inter Mami...

Definitely, you know. Inter Miami in terms of technicality is one of the best teams in the league. And so, I mean, it definitely takes a lot of preparation on the staff's part and then also on the players' part, but I think we held them pretty well in this game. There were definitely times where they scared us a little bit.

Roman Bürki

On his save in the 53rd minute...

Yes, it wasn't in the goal of course. But I waited a little bit because if he passed, or if he shot, I know that I'm fast in the feet, so I waited a little bit. The most difficult thing in this situation is just to stay cool, you know, and just do the easy thing and not over complicate things, and that's what I did.

On the pressure applied by Inter Miami at the beginning of the first half...

We talked about the whole game, in the first half, in the halftime, you know, that we have to keep going. They're always dangerous. If they score one, they can come back very, very quickly with a lot of pressure. And so, we knew we had to score the third one, and it took some time but Edu secured us the win.

On whether he's looking forward to playing in the All-Star game...

Yeah, of course. It's a very exciting thing. It's the first time for me to be on an All-Star team and in the All-Star game. I'm excited and curious to see what is gonna happen.

Tim Parker

On what he is excited about playing in the All-Star game...

For one, to play against a European power will be a great experience. Another will be playing with players from across the league and being able to learn from their experiences, what they think about it, and then yeah, of course to play Arsenal. You know, I think those guys -- what a year they had in England. And then to play against those guys, depending upon however it goes, you know, you never know. I think just the experience of the entire week is going to be really, really cool.

On the goals they scored tonight...

Yeah, all three goals are set pieces. Of course, we'd love a goal in the run of play, but when set pieces come off, we're always dangerous with the service that we have and the kind of guys that we have in the box. Yeah, that's something to be proud of as well.

On why the backline has been effective even as players have rotated in and out...

Yeah, it's a tribute to what we like to call our style. You know, I think you'll see moments this year where, obviously, certain guys go in and out of the lineup and some guys at times are committing more to the style than other guys. I think that it gives a lot of guys opportunities, and when guys are able to seize those opportunities, they do really well. Like you've seen what Yaro and Akil do -- I think those two guys are really good examples. And it shows that we rely on the style, you know, and I think as much as we rely on certain guys to make big plays, I think our style is the main factor.

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