ST. LOUIS - Given their precarious position in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference playoff race, St. Louis City SC likely needed to win all of their remaining MLS matches to have any chance of making the ninth-place wild card spot.
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City hosted Minnesota United Saturday evening, the team currently occupying the final Western Conference playoff place. A City win in a proverbial six-pointer would have shifted the playoff picture, but a win didn’t come. City fell 3-1 to Minnesota and all but ended any faint playoff hopes.
Opting for firepower, interim City head coach John Hackworth went with two attackers in Joao Klauss and Simon Becher from the start. The pair had success together in City’s 2-2 draw in New England, with their play leading to Becher’s second-half goal.
Becher’s ability to run at defenses and stretch backlines came into play for the City goal in the opening five minutes. A long ball from Jake Nerwinski towards the former Saint Louis University striker drew the attention of two defenders, and when the ball bounced toward Cedric Teuchert at the top of the visitors’ 18-yard box, he smashed a shot to the right of Loons keeper Dayne St. Clair and CITYPARK was in raptures, with aforementioned playoff hopes alive.
“We (scored) the early goal, and we think we’re in a good place,” said Hackworth. “We certainly were for a long time.”
In an effort to withhold more possession of the ball, and in part for their more ball-playing defensive lineup with Henry Kessler and Jannes Horn, City have been more comfortable playing the ball out of the back. The benefit of this is more possession and therefore less time spent defending, but when it goes wrong, it results in an easy Minnesota United goal.
City’s Eduard Löwen turned the ball over near midfield, and Minnesota had numbers breaking toward Roman Bürki’s goal. Kelvin Yeboah fired a shot that Bürki wished he could have clutched onto instead of parrying right into the path of Bongokuhle Hlongwane. Hlongwane ghosted to the far post without a City Red shirt picking him up and had an easy goal after Bürki’s initial save.
Before halftime, City center-back Henry Kessler had a clash of heads with Minnesota’s Kelvin Yeboah that left both players shaken up, but both were allowed to continue at the time. Chris Durkin was also dealing with a knee injury in the first half, requiring a bit of treatment before the halftime break.
Both Kessler and Durkin were substituted to start the second half. Hackworth confirmed the subs were injury-related. What resulted was a bit of a different look for City, with Jay Reid coming into the game at left back and Jannes Horn filling in at center back. Jake Girdwood-Reich got a full half in midfield in relief of Chris Durkin.
“(Durkin) felt his knee early in the half, and continued to feel it,” explained Hackworth. “He played a long diagonal (pass), said he felt something again. I know him well enough to know he’d do anything to come back out of the locker room and be out on the field and he just couldn’t.”
“With Kess (Henry Kessler), he took a knock, went through the concussion protocol, looked okay, but went back into the concussion protocol at halftime. It’s just not worth the risk.”
A somewhat makeshift St. Louis City just didn’t look quite right in the final 45 minutes. Minnesota came out of the locker room hot, testing Roman Bürki within 30 seconds of play restarting.
“I know guys obviously did the best they could,” said Jake Nerwinski on the halftime changes. “I think the guys that came in did well. It just messed with us a little bit, I think.”
Seven minutes later, the Loons would take the lead, and for the second time in as many weeks, City’s right flank of defense was beaten. Kelvin Yeboah ran onto a long pass from the Minnesota United defense, beat the covering Jannes Horn for pace on the wing, and cut back a cross that was unfortunately poked into the City goal by substitute left-back Jayden Reid.
“I think them getting that second goal was a bit deflating for us,” said Nerwinski. “We wanted to come out on the front foot those first 15 minutes, and unfortunately, we didn’t.”
Those lingering playoff hopes that were still alight in CITYPARK after Cedric Teuchert’s opening goal had been extinguished. Ten minutes later, Minnesota striker Kelvin Yeboah sealed the deal from the penalty spot.
In the 57th minute, a Loon corner kick bounced awkwardly off Kyle Hiebert, and Kelvin Yeboah immediately cried out for a penalty. After a VAR review, it was deemed that Hiebert’s arm was in an unnatural position jumping up into Yeboah, and the penalty was awarded and dispatched.
If you remember a week ago, a similar situation occurred where a ball was headed by a New England player onto Hiebert’s arm. Last week, that was deemed not to be a penalty. This week, with a different referee, it was a handball penalty.
By the letter of the law in MLS, both this week's and last week’s offenses should be considered penalties. But the inconsistency has created frustrations for players, fans, and coaches alike. New England manager Caleb Porter was suspended for their game this weekend for colorfully giving his thoughts on the situation after last week’s game.
In the 67th minute, five minutes after the penalty to make it 3-1, VAR also came into play when Joao Klauss was fouled at the top left corner of Minnesota’s 18-yard box. Klauss believed he was fouled in the box and should be awarded a penalty. Referee Marcus DeOliveira was not moved but was called to the VAR monitor to take another look.
After a bit of a lengthy review, DeOliveira stuck with his original decision, though he did move City’s free kick about a foot or so closer right to the edge of the box. Nothing came of the City free kick.
“If I just look at that play (Hiebert’s handball Saturday), and I look at it in slow-motion, okay, I understand how they call it a handball,” admitted John Hackworth postgame. “I don’t understand how VAR doesn’t give the penalty to us later on, (on the Klauss foul) I was told multiple times that the VAR was recommending it be a penalty. It wasn’t given. That’s pretty interesting.”
“I think two-one, it’s still manageable to come back into (the game),” Jake Nerwinski said postgame. “And then we get some kind of handball call again. And I think that, you know, deflated us even more. We don’t get the PK on the other end. We say it all the time, it’s a game of fine little details, and that’s just kind of what happened tonight.”
In the closing stages, it looked more like Minnesota would add to their lead rather than City would erase any deficit. When the final whistle blew at the 100th minute, CITYPARK had largely emptied out, with fans hoping to beat the traffic out of Downtown West.
“I'm not going to say much,” said Hackworth when he opened City’s postgame press conference. “It's clear that in the locker room, we're all feeling that disappointment. We believe that we could come into this game and not only win the game, but put on a really good performance. That didn't happen for us, and we lost the soccer game.”
Summer arrival and goalscorer Cedric Teuchert lightly admitted that focus is now turning toward 2025: “I think it was a really bad day for us, but we have to keep going. Have to work hard every day, and I think we have to work hard every day for next season.”
City, all but mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, head to San Jose next weekend to take on the Earthquakes.
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