SEATTLE - St. Louis City SC is not a good soccer team right now, the players and coaches have said as much in recent times. The team was “embarrassed” after last Saturday’s 4-1 loss at home, one where most fans left before the final whistle.
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Wednesday was a new day, with City on the road in Seattle to take on the Sounders. The performance on the field was improved, but City couldn’t threaten Stefan Frei in the Seattle goal, and the hosts took the game by a comfortable 2-0 scoreline.
Once again, Sam Adeniran was left off the team sheet. Adeniran had also been held out of practice with the team during the week, and interim St. Louis City head coach John Hackworth admitted that the Houstonian striker was working on a transfer away.
On Wednesday night at Subaru Park, the Chester, Pennsylvania home of the Philadelphia Union, Sam Adeniran was spotted and soon the dots were connected. It was first reported by Joe Tansey of Union Soccer Blog Wednesday night that a deal sending Adeniran to the Union was in the works.
As for those on the roster in Seattle, Mykhi Joyner, who’s been tearing up MLS NEXT Pro with CITY2 this season, signed an MLS Homegrown Player contract with City on Wednesday afternoon prior to the game. He also signed a short-term loan deal from CITY2 to join the first team in Seattle.
Joakim Nilsson made a return to the starting lineup and told Hackworth he was good to start and play 90 minutes Wednesday night. More on that later.
From the start, City looked positive, but couldn’t turn their time on the ball into any real goal-scoring opportunities. A quick through ball set up Hosei Kijima from a tight angle, but Sounders keeper Stefan Frei was well-positioned to make a save with his body.
City would find the first goal of the game, just in the wrong net. Seattle’s Alex Roldan beat two City players for pace on the right wing and whipped in a cross, and in trying to deflect the ball away from Jordan Morris on the far post, Tim Parker inadvertently kneed the ball into his own net.
A bad bounce in a continued season of bad bounces, City were behind after a half hour, once again staring down a defeat on the road.
City’s best look at goal for the rest of the half came in the 37th minute when the ball dropped to Nökkvi Thórisson, who was bombing into the Sounders’ 18-yard-box. Thórisson, rather unfortunately, flubbed a shot that sailed harmlessly into the crowd.
In first-half stoppage time, Indiana Vassilev caught an unintentional stray hand from Roldan in the nose and was being treated on the sidelines with what looked like a broken nose. He didn’t return for the second half, and Joyner was given his MLS debut in the second half in Vassilev’s stead.
Seattle grew into the game through the first half and found their second goal just on the other side of halftime. Jon Bell, who made brief appearances for St. Louis City last season, has found more regular playing time in Seattle.
In the 49th minute, he would rise highest on an Albert Rusnák free kick to score the second goal of the night. Rusnák looped a cross in from the right wing, about five yards from the penalty box, to the far post where Bell directed his header to the vacant near post. City keeper and captain Roman Bürki was powerless to stop the shot, and could only look on as it bounced into the back of the net.
Not only was City losing, but now a player they deemed surplus to requirements had scored his first MLS goal in multiple seasons against them. In little more than a half hour, another injury would join that insult.
In the 83rd minute, City center-back Joakim Nilsson hit the turf at Lumen Field in obvious pain and wasn’t in any recent tackles or collisions. Nilsson, in tears, was grabbing his hamstring, and it became apparent that he couldn’t continue.
Nilsson was able to walk off on his own power, but you could see just how emotional the center-back was leaving the field. Hackworth confirmed that it was Nilsson’s hamstring that he had been nursing.
Kyle Hiebert just rejoined the City squad after his time with the Canadian National Team in Copa America, and now Nilsson is back on the injury report.
As has been the case for St. Louis City seemingly for the past calendar year, when someone gets healthy or otherwise returns to the lineup, someone else goes down, sometimes two guys go down, and the team is still left scrambling for depth and more importantly, any consistency.
“Joakim [Nilsson], he means so much to us. So, for him to go out with an injury is tough,” Hackworth said after the game. “For Indy [Vassilev] to go out, looks like he broke his nose, you know, really tough. We have had all season to deal with a lot of hardships and here we are yet again. So, it's a test. It's a test of our character.”
When the full-time whistle blew to confirm the 2-0 defeat, the game had really been over for some time. City did little on the front foot in the second 45, a few long-range misses from Eduard Löwen, a weak shot from Akil Watts, and a blocked effort from Chris Durkin being their only efforts.
Unfortunately for City, losing 2-0 is a step forward from their recent form. The defense dealt with pressure well for the most part, and the game was lost because of a bad-bounce own goal and a set piece. Chalk this one up as another night where “moments” soiled an otherwise solid defensive performance.
“It's tough to lose the game 2-0 and still think that there's a lot to build off of that,” said Hackworth postgame. “But I honestly think the players made a huge step this evening. Played much better than we did previously on Saturday. Gave ourselves a chance to be in that game, had some unfortunate things happen to us, but it wasn't for lack of trying, it was a lot of heart and soul, being a collective, having each other's backs. So those are positives that we can build on for sure.”
On the positive side, Joyner made an MLS debut on the day he signed a homegrown contract that will see him join the first team in 2025. He had a short-term loan to the first team Wednesday, but will rejoin CITY2 for the conclusion of their season.
“Honestly a great experience,” said Joyner on his first MLS minutes. “I was grateful to make my debut and didn’t know I was gonna get that much time but truly thankful for that. And thankful for Hack [John Hackworth] for believing in me to go on.”
Hackworth was asked postgame about the reports of Sam Adeniran being spotted at the Philadelphia Union’s 5-1 win over the New England Revolution on the other side of the country while City were in Seattle.
“We are in a situation that we’re working on, but I can’t say anything about that yet.” said Hackworth, closing his postgame availability.
In the coming hours, MLS beat writer Tom Bogert also added to the reports of Adeniran joining Philadelphia. By Thursday morning, those reports became official: St. Louis City had sold Adeniran to the Union for $150k, or traded for General Allocation Money, or GAM, in Major League Soccer lingo.
There are performance-based incentives in the deal that could see City make up to $450k from the deal, but the number might be lower than expected as Adeniran’s contract still ends at the end of this season, and it is still believed he is in discussion to join Austrian team LASK Linz after his MLS contract expires.
So ends the Sam Adeniran saga at City, one that started under Bradley Carnell’s watch, one that fans and onlookers believed was in the rearview mirror when Carnell was let go by the team, when Adeniran rejoined training. Seemingly the divide between player and club was too great, regardless of the coach on the sidelines, and now Adeniran is gone, sold for just slightly more than he was signed for from Seattle in December 2022.
“We thank Sam for all of his contributions while at St. Louis CITY SC,” said Sporting Director Lutz Pfannenstiel, in a press release Thursday morning. “We wish him nothing but the best in his career ahead.”
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