St. Louis CITY SC Defeats LA Galaxy 2-1 at CITYPARK

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St. Louis City SC

St. Louis CITY SC Defeats LA Galaxy 2-1 at CITYPARK

September 1, 2024 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
St. Louis City SC News Release


St. Louis CITY SC earned three points with a 2-1 win against the LA Galaxy on Sunday afternoon. CITY SC took the lead within the first 9 minutes with Cedric Teuchert scoring his second career MLS goal for St. Louis. The goal was Teuchert's second consecutive goal in league play. The Galaxy opened the second half with a goal to tie the game 1-1, but St. Louis responded in the 68th minute with a goal from Marcel Hartel off a cross from Jay Reid. The goal was Hartel's first career MLS goal and the game winner to help CITY SC earn three points and remain unbeaten over their last four MLS matches. St. Louis will face Eastern Conference opponents New England Revolution for the first time on Saturday, September 7 at 6:30 p.m. CT at Gillette Stadium.

Postgame Notes

Cedric Teuchert scored his second career MLS goal and his fourth goal in his last seven matches across all competitions

Teuchert has now scored in back-to-back matches for CITY SC

Marcel Hartel scored his first career MLS goal

Jay Reid earned his third career MLS assist

Henry Kessler played in his 100th career MLS match

CITY SC remained unbeaten against LA Galaxy across the teams' four all-time matchups (1-0-3)

St. Louis' record at home is 18-8-7 all-time across all competitions

CITY SC pushed its unbeaten home streak to four consecutive matches across all competitions and recorded its second straight home win in MLS play

Goal-Scoring Plays

STL: Cedric Teuchert (unassisted), 9th minute - Cedric Teuchert scored with a right footed shot from the center of the box to the bottom right corner

LAG: Gabriel Pec (Miguel Berry), 46th minute - Gabriel Pec scored with left footed shot from the center of the box to the middle right zone

STL: Marcel Hartel (Jay Reid), 68th minute - Marcel Hartel scored with right footed shot from the center of the box to the top right corner

September 1, 2024 - CITYPARK (St. Louis, MO)

Goals by Half 1 2 F

St. Louis CITY SC 1 1 2

LA Galaxy 0 1 1

Scoring Summary

STL: Cedric Teuchert, 9'

LAG: Gabriel Pec (Miguel Berry), 46'

STL: Marcel Hartel (Jay Reid), 68'

Misconduct Summary

STL: Cedric Teuchert (caution), 38'

STL: Jannes Horn (caution), 53'

STL: Chris Durkin (caution), 74'

STL: João Klauss (caution), 81'

LAG: Joseph Paintsil (caution), 90'+3

Lineups

STL: GK Roman Bürki ©; D Jake Nerwinski, D Henry Kessler, D Kyle Hiebert, D Jannes Horn (Jay Reid, 64'); M Eduard Löwen (Jake Girdwood-Reich, 90+5), M Chris Durkin; M Marcel Hartel, M Cedric Teuchert (Rasmus Alm, 75'), M Indiana Vassilev (Nökkvi Thórisson, 65') F Simon Becher (João Klauss, 65')

Substitutes not used: GK Ben Lundt, D Tomas Totland, D Josh Yaro, M Akil Watts

TOTAL SHOTS: 9; SHOTS ON GOAL: 5; FOULS: 7; OFFSIDES: 4; CORNER KICKS: 2; SAVES: 5

LAG: GK John McCarthy; D Miki Yamane, D Maya Yoshida ©, D John Nelson (Mauricio Cuevas, 77'), D Jalen Neal; M Gaston Brugman (Isaiah Parente, 77'), M Diego Fagundez (Miguel Berry, 46'), M Mark Delgado (Edwin Cerrillo, 67), M Marco Reus (Dejan Joveljic, 77') ; F Gabriel Pec, F Joseph Paintsil

Substitutes not used: GK Novak Micovic, D Eriq Zavaleta, M Tucker Lepley, F Ruben Ramos Jr

TOTAL SHOTS: 10; SHOTS ON GOAL: 6; FOULS: 17; OFFSIDES: 0; CORNER KICKS: 3; SAVES: 3

Referee: Joe Dickerson

Assistant Referees: Corey Parker, Walt Heatherly, Ricardo Fierro

VAR: Daniel Radford

AVAR: TJ Zablocki

Venue: CITYPARK

Weather: Sunny, 86 degrees

Interim Head Coach John Hackworth

Opening statement:

I just told the boys in there that I'm really proud of them. Coming off of last week, their coaching staff really did put the team through a lot of work but it wasn't like the kind of work that is a punishment. It was just what we needed collectively to fix things, and whether Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you guys know, incredibly hot. Incredibly humid and they didn't flinch one bit. The group believes in themselves and we continue to make improvements. I'm proud of their performance today. I don't think it means we're back. We still have areas we have to improve but at the same time I want to celebrate this, and then get back to work so we can hopefully have another good performance in New England next week.

The way the crowd react the at the end of the game and the way you guys felt at the end of the game, has not been that way a lot of times this year. Does it feel almost like last year with the way everything went

Totally different situation and I personally know those guys can do that game-in, game-out. I said it to the Elvir and Mitch and Alex when we were on the bench, hey, let's not act like this is not expected. We expect this. We've been talking about it, from pregame and yesterday, we believe we can do this. Now the next step is to continue to do it. You have to to have that belief in yourself. Last week I sat in front of the monitor and answered your questions and I was miserable. You know, absolutely miserable, distraught. I couldn't believe -- frustration is an easy word. Didn't explain the way I was feeling. I'm satisfied this week but I don't think that this is the end of it. We want more. We have more to improve on. I think L.A. is an excellent team. It's a bonus when you can perform the way we did against a team like that -- but again I'm answering too long. I think we were ready for this.

Talk about the team's resolve after giving up the lead and going even to come back:

What a terrible halftime talk I must have given. You know, like, wow. But to your point, the resolve was great and I think you saw a little bit of that belief. After we give that one up, go back to the team and watch Cello. He's shaking everyone's is hand and trying to lift them up. You can see that we are trying to a true team trying to get everybody's backs in a moments when it would have been easy for people to put their head down like oh, it's going to happen us again. We didn't do that. Those little things are massive.

You guys had a season-low of seven fouls committed. The last time that happened was September 30th last year against sporting Kansas City:

How do you pull that out? That's amazing, by the way.

Was there a game plan of trying to be more cautious or do you think they just played a cleaner game?

A little bit of both. You know, L.A. is so good, you have to respect what they try to do. And for us, we needed to go put pressure on the ball, but we needed to have cover behind. And that meant that we couldn't be as aggressive as sometimes we normally are because if you're too aggressive against them, they just play through you.

So it doesn't work. And we had to change that. We spent a lot of time this week practicing that, and that's probably one reason. I also think the officiating was really good today. Rarely will you ever hear me complement an official or staff but I thought they did a good job. It felt like two teams going at each other both of us were trying to change tactics in game, and it was the players that were in control of that. So from that standpoint, really nice, and thanks for the amazing stats.

With Marcel and Cedric, are they exceeding your expectations in their ability to create and ultimately to finish?

Not really. We brought them here because we knew their quality. Really nice when you get two finishes like that out of players that when we were recruiting them and scouting them, we saw it again and again. You know, Lutz has intimate knowledge of how those guys have pros sed in their careers and that's what we expect from them, and can we do more of that. I don't want to temper the fact that it's really good goals. In particular I love the first one because it's off us executing a press, Nerwinski stepping out of the right back position into a center midfielder position to win the ball and the transition is excellent. The second one is just a great ball by Jayden after not serving such a good ball previous to that and a wonderful finish. So it's really nice, and if you're going to beat the Galaxy, you have to have guys that contribute goals like that.

The fullback battle, you said midweek it was a tough conversation to have. Jake, you talked about his defensive output. Can you speak about him slowing down Paintsil?

I don't know if you guys know but his wife gave birth to their second daughter on Thursday. So the biggest decision I was making with Jake was like how much sleep did you get; are you going to be able to play 90 minutes. And he was great. I really can't commend all of our guys but the example of tots and Jake and Akil kind of battling all week, like they just kept on pushing each other in training. You know, whether it wasn't Jake today, I absolutely believe Tots would have done a great job in that same role and he's been so good for us all year. A little different.

Jake is more of an experienced, stay-at-home defender where Tots loves to get forward. We made that tweak knowing we had to with Reus and Paintsil. They have some attacking weapons. Really proud of Jake and all that he's done in the last couple of days for sure.

On the other side, Jayden comes in off the bench and has that immediate impact.

You get an assist, you come in. The best play for me that Jayden made was when he was a little out of position and they crossed it to the back host and he battled and got that little flick that went out for a corner. I would have strangled him if he'd given up that goal, not really but would have been quite upset. Instead he makes that moment. You can watch him grow, last week, two weeks ago, we were not making that play. Happy for him, too. That depth is so great on a day like today when you know January issue put it all out there. He left everything on the field. He was telling me at halftime, "I might have five minutes left, I might have ten." I said, "You're going at least 15." There's no question. His little time out after he got the yellow card and was hurt gave him a second wind and nice to get that performance out of both outside backs, and having Jayden coming off the bench, huge. Great assist.

With Marcel and Cedric, how much more is that opening up your offense?

I mean, think about this. We brought Klaus onto the field. We brought Ras on to the field. New York have I came on to the feel. These are guys, it's been a long time since I look down the bench and have those kind of weapons to bring on to the game especially late. But from the minute they got here, Cedi and Cello have been contributing and changing the way that we play and being an attacking felt like it, it's really nice to have on your team.

How do you go about rebuilding belief? How do you approach that?

I probably couldn't write a book on it because I'm not that good at it. I think you have to have a mentality every single day about what you're doing and a belief that you're doing the right things. It's easy to say, you work hard. But it's working efficiently and working smartly and having a group that sees the little incremental advancements that you're making. This team could have made a choice a couple weeks ago, and you know, not gone in the direction that we are right now, and we have choose en, despite having games like Club Ameríca or last week where you could lose that belief really quick and we never did that. It's a credit to the guys in that locker room because it comes from leadership, it comes from the coaches trying to constantly push the guys but also believe in them and the more do you that, the more you get that feeling of confidence and belief. There's a lot more too. It.

The guys played together and pulled off the win but from a coaching standpoint, what do you think strategically helped?

I would be critical of us going up a goal and then kind of being too passive. I felt like I was watching last week again. I wanted to pull my hair out and these guys are trying to kill me with gray hair and a heart attack.

Because what we didn't do, did a little different this week, was -- and it was nice that we had a water break in the first half, we were able to make an adjustment and say, we got to get stepped out and put pressure on them. If we just sit back, we are going to give L.A. so many chances. In the second half, despite my halftime talk that was not so good and giving up a goal right away, I thought we were in really good defensive shape and I think that was the difference tactically to where we were today to win the game versus last week.

Did you have any special strategies to shut down Marco Reus?

The word was that Reus was not going to play any more than 30 minutes. Him and Roman are really tight and he BS'd him all week and told me he was only playing 30 minutes. I would say our midfield three, we put Durkin in the six and did an unbelievable job, and I do bring Cedric in front of him and later we put Cello in the middle. We got a lot of contributions out of our center midfield and that was a big difference.

Eduard Löwen, you seem to be dropping him back deeper to play with the defensive line but also more so than his usual left hand spot, you guys are dropping him to the right side more and running things. Is it trying to get more of a balance that you're usually so left side heavy or is interest another reason why you've dropped him and played him more on the right side than unusual?

Well, today we pushed him up higher and because when we push him up higher he started higher especially defensively and a dude does what a dude does, I use the word cook. He cooks. He goes to find the ball and we understand when we get Edu the ball good things happen for all of us, you can see the understanding of the players and sometimes like today, the space was on to pull more to the right.

He likes to go to your left, but today was more on to come to the right and he did that and then he saw Durkin and Cedi make a little shift. I like that when you can get that midfield triangle understanding their own movement that it's not coming from me necessarily. It's the players understanding their relationships.

Speaking of a left/right switch, when Thor came on, what was your thought process on the flip?

On the land side I needed a guy like Cello who can literally go up and down. They were trying to overload us from the start with Fagúndez and Johnny Nelson -- I should give Johnny a shoutout, he played a great game. I told him so afterwards. Great to see him. Like they were overloading us and bringing Fagúndez inside and pushing Johnny almost like a wind -- and Jake did a good job. When I brought Nökkvi on, I thought Cello would be a better option for that. We switched sides and Nökkvi became on and opens the space for our second goal. That's nice. When I brought Ras on, I moved Cello to the middle and we had options again, really nice to be able to make those adjustments in-game and particularly when it works.

Beating the leader in the Western Conference, what confidence does this give the team moving forward?

It means so much because we are learning how to win a game that last week we didn't know how to win. We are doing it and we are problem solving our way through with solutions that we talk about all week, and implementing those in a game like today. I'll give you an example. At the water break in the second half, like Henry comes over and just starts screaming at nobody but everybody, hey, remember what we talked about: Kill the game with the ball, get the next goal. He's been here for two weeks and having that influence. You can see that you have to do it ultimately, and today we did that, and now we have the confidence that we can do it again and get better. Next week is different. This league is unbelievably tough. There's so much parity but happy for the advances and steps we are making.

Marcel Hartel

On his feeling after this game compared to how he felt after last week's match:

Yeah, it's, of course, different. I think we made a very good game today. We win in the end. Yeah, I have to say, we defended, actually pretty well in the end, our box. And, yeah, I'm very happy to win against LA Galaxy.

On what he saw on Jay Reid's cross that led to his game-winning goal:

I was hoping that he saw because Nökkvi [Thórisson] made a very good one at the first post, and then I was hoping that Jay would see the eleven point where I was standing. And it was a good ball and a good finish.

On what he and Cedric Teuchert bring to the field that forces defenses to overplay and respect them:

I think it's not only me and Cedi who did a great job today or also the last weeks. So, I think in the end, we are a whole team, and the whole team make it easy in the end for our attackers to look good because if we don't play from behind out and shoot only long balls, then we, our attackers, can't play good. So, in the end, we as a team make it well. Yeah, so, it's a team performance.

Cedric Teuchert

On being new to the team:

Yeah, yes, I'm new in the group, but the team makes it very easy for me to come into the group. The team is so good on the field. So, I think for us, it was easy to come in the group.

On the team's confidence growing:

I think the most important thing is the training. In the week we change a lot in the week, we talk so much together, have also so much fun together. And I think everybody can see it on the pitch. We are one group.

On the feel of the stadium/crowd noise:

It was so nice. It feels like home. The fans were so amazing to give us the extra push to win this game. And I think we need everybody. We need the team, the staff, and also the crowd.

On his goal/timing of the goal:

Yeah, I think it wasn't enough time for me. I think it was a little bit of luck, but yeah, I'm very happy to score the goal, to help the team. And then I think it was a good opener.

Jake Nerwinski

On limited playing time this season:

Yeah. I mean; to be completely honest with everyone here, this has been easily the most disappointing and frustrating year of my career. You know, I don't think I've necessarily gotten the chances that I think I deserve in training. So, it was great, you know, [John] Hack[worth], you know, really believes in me. We had great talks. You know, he gave me that chance today, and I just took it. You know, when you have two kids, that's, that's all the motivation you need to, to play as hard as you can, to provide for them.

On the team's performance the past couple of weeks:

Yeah, I mean, I think we're really coming together right now. I hope it's not too late. I know it's not too late yet. We're getting results. I think you saw that in Portland now, going into that hostile environment, unfortunately, we didn't get three points, but the fact that we're mad we didn't get three points in Portland just kind of shows where we are. And to, you know, go out and play and beat the best team in the West right now is huge. So, I think that just shows that we're really starting to come together. You know, the guys that have come in, you know, in the summer have been just incredible, you know, not just on the field, but in the locker room, just all really good, you know, human beings. And I think that kind of helps, you know, with building our team chemistry.

On training this week:

Yeah, I think that was the emphasis all week, you know. That was why we had, you know, a difficult training week, was because it was very high demand of, you know, defending 1v1 situations, staying compact when to step out. That was just the main emphasis that we did this week. So we were, you know, as prepared as possible for those situations.

Roman Bürki

On the performance of the team during the last two matches:

I would say with the ball, it was both weeks a good performance against the ball definitely better today. We did not give up four goals, even though we gave up a goal again, like immediately after halftime, we stayed calm, you know, we tried to play out, not just clearing balls when we were under pressure. I think that was a big difference compared to Portland, where we were kind of panicking, you know, and just throw your balls, hit the balls long and away. Today, we tried to play, and I think that's what made the difference, and what made it hard for LA to score.

On if he does more directing when there's more passing in the back like in this match:

Yeah, for me, it's just being an option as well. You know, like, if I tell them not to play long, then I have to be an option, or somebody has to give the ball carrier an option, so I just always try to be available, that they can play with me, and just give them also confidence how I play the balls and yeah, that's all I can do with this.

On how much closer the club is now to where it ultimately wants to be:

Yeah, it's just one more step in the right direction. I would say it started in Portland; you know. But also, before the Leagues Cup, I think we played good. You know, we were not good enough to win the games, especially against Club América, because we didn't control the ball as well as we did today in Portland -- the same we scored three goals, four goals away in Portland. Yesterday, I saw, if I'm not mistaken Seattle lose, and Seattle is also a really good team. And so, if we can score four goals in Portland, we are a good team. We just need to know or adjust the little details like we did today. You know, like, LA's the best team in our conference, and we won against them because we did the small things right. So, I think we are in a good way, and we should keep going like this.

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