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MLS St. Louis City SC

St. Louis CITY SC Come from Behind to Earn a Point Against Houston Dynamo FC

September 16, 2023 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
St. Louis City SC News Release


HOUSTON - St. Louis CITY SC fought from behind to earn a point on the road against Houston FC. Houston's Corey Baird scored for the home team in the 42nd minute to give the host the lead at halftime. With the match dwindling, João Klauss found the equalizer late in the match to rescue a point for the away team.

Klauss Back Among the Goals

João Klauss found a late equalizer against Houston to earn a point for CITY SC. The forward has scored for the second-straight game following his goal against LA Galaxy. Klauss joins Sam Adeniran for second on the team in goalscoring with seven goals, three behind Niko Gioacchini. CITY SC forwards are responsible for 24 of the team's 56 goals.

Postgame Notes

With the draw, St. Louis remains at the top of the Western Conference with 48 points

In scoring a goal against Houston, CITY SC ended a 540-minute-long shutout streak for Houston, which was the second-longest in their club history.

João Klauss has found the back of the net for the second straight game

Klauss scored his seventh MLS goal of the season

Klauss now has 11 goal contributions (seven goals and four assists)

Goal-Scoring Plays

HOU - Corey Baird, 42nd minute: Corey Baird header from very close range to the bottom left corner.

STL - João Klauss, 87th minute: João Klauss header from the left side of the six-yard box to the bottom left corner.

Next Game

St. Louis CITY SC returns to CITYPARK for a midweek matchup versus last year's MLS Cup Defending Champions LAFC at 7:30 p.m. CT on Wednesday, September 20.

September 16, 2023 - Shell Energy Stadium (Houston, Texas)

Goals by Half 1 2 F

Houston Dynamo 1 0 1

St. Louis CITY SC 0 1 1

Scoring Summary

HOU: Corey Baird, 42

STL: João Klauss, 87

Misconduct Summary

HOU: Erik Sviatchenko (caution), 8

HOU: Franco Escobar (caution), 22

HOU: Hector Herrera (caution), 25

STL: Njabulo Blom (caution), 34

HOU: Coco Carrasquilla; (caution), 62

STL: Tim Parker (caution), 90+5'

Lineups

HOU: GK Steve Clark, D Franco Escobar, D Griffin Dorsey, D Erik Sviatchenko, D Michael dos Santos; M Hector Herrera ©, M Artur, M Coco Carrasquilla (Sebastian Kowalczyk 89'); F Amine Bassi, F Corey Baird (Ibrahim Aliyu 81'), F Nelson Quinones (Brad Smith 74')

Substitutes Not Used: D Ethan Bartlow, GK Andrew Tarbell, D Daniel Steres, D Teenage Hadebe, M Luis Caicedo, F Thor Ulfarsson

TOTAL SHOTS: 12; SHOTS ON GOAL: 3; FOULS: 14; OFFSIDES: 3; CORNER KICKS: 4; SAVES: 6

STL: GK Roman Bürki ©; D Jake Nerwinski, D Tim Parker, D Joakim Nilsson (Josh Yaro, 82'), D Anthony Markanich (Indiana Vassilev 80'); M Njabulo Blom, M Eduard Löwen, M Jared Stroud (Niko Gioacchini 59'), M Aziel Jackson (Nökkvi Thórisson 59'), M Célio Pompeu (Tomáš Ostrák 80'); F João Klauss

Substitutes Not Used: GK Ben Lundt, D Akil Watts, D Kyle Hiebert, D Jon Bell

TOTAL SHOTS: 11; SHOTS ON GOAL: 7; FOULS: 19; OFFSIDES: 0; CORNER KICKS: 4; SAVES: 2

Referee: Ismir Pekmic

Assistant Referees: Corey Parker, Chris Elliot

Fourth Official: Ted Unkel

VAR: Jose Carlos Rivero

AVAR: Rene Parra

Venue: Shell Energy Stadium

Weather: Sunny, 75 degrees

ST. LOUIS CITY SC POSTGAME QUOTES

Head Coach Bradley Carnell

On Klauss's return to playing a full 90 minutes and scoring

You can see the qualities he possesses. He's a real holdup striker with skill, speed and savviness. When Klaus is playing at that confidence level, he's really difficult to construct a plan against him. He's able to draw people, he floats between the lines, he runs the line, like we saw on multiple occasions. So really happy about a lot of what we saw tonight and I'm sure he can be proud of his performance tonight.

On keeping the team focused with a seven-point lead in the West

We just looking at the next game and the next game. We don't have too much time to look at the league table or look at Oh, look at this game. The point is in the bank and we move on and we got a very important game on Wednesday at home in front of our fans and my group is hungry. There's a bit of high standards going on around you and the players want to hold themselves accountable to those high standards, including us coaches. We just push each other as hard as we can, and strive for the best possible results game in and game out. So some results might not go away, but we want to know that we've given everything to give a given opponent the whole game and take away points.

On putting Indiana Vassilev at the left back position, whether it was planned or the game forced his hand

No, I mean, the game gives you a different picture and I just thought for me to force play over the outside channels just to get a fresh Indy, who will run the line who will open up and get wide and good crosses in. Indy was very industrious. He played like a winger, he played like a left back so I really enjoyed what I saw in a moment, I wouldn't say of desperation, but we were trying to make a push up the game. Again, we held it solid with Jabs [Blom], who managed his yellow card very well. Edu [Löwen] was a trojan back and forth between the boxes, really happy with these guys performances.

Midfielder Indiana Vassilev

On Klauss sending in the late-game equalizer

Road games are always hard nonetheless. As we've seen in the past, I don't know four or five games we played away. Orlando, Sporting KC, LA Galaxy, this game. Road games are always hard in this league. And yeah, it just feels good to come away with a point here against Houston, who are very good side. They've been very good lately as well. So it feels good. You don't feel empty going home. You feel like you need to fall hard for 90 minutes and you got a point away from home kind of to learn from a couple of things but you just go on to the next game and we're happy with the point away from home.

On being put at left back instead of his normal midfield spot

I think that's the first time that I played there in my life. So yeah, maybe it wasn't doing some right things defensively. I'm not too sure to be honest with you. Because like I said, it's my first time playing there. I just tried to get forward as much as I could just because of the state of the game. I know we were down 1-0, so my mindset was just kind of go on and maybe forego some of those defensive responsibilities in the hopes that we could grab a goal and then once we grabbed a goal I guess I sat back a little bit more still didn't really know with it. I had no idea what I was doing really, to be honest with you. You know, it seemed to have worked out for today. I'm happy to help the team. Good point away from home and a very tough place to come and play.

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Major League Soccer Stories from September 16, 2023


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