CITY SC draws even with Real Salt Lake in their 2024 MLS opener, with Sam Adeniran scoring the equalizer.
ST. LOUIS (February 24, 2024) – St. Louis CITY SC fought from a goal down to secure a 1-1 draw against Real Salt Lake in their 2024 MLS opener. After a scoreless first half, Real Salt Lake scored the game’s first goal in the 74th minute before Sam Adeniran equalized five minutes later to split the points. CITY SC’s next match will be against Houston Dynamo in the second leg of their CONCACAF Champions Cup matchup on Tuesday.
Löwen Continues Assist Streak
Setting up Sam Adeniran’s game-tying goal in the 79th minute, midfielder Eduard Löwen picked up an assist in CITY SC’s MLS opener for the second consecutive season. On both occasions, the assist set up the team’s first goal in MLS play, as Löwen fed Tim Parker for the first-ever goal in team history in 2023.
After visiting side Real Salt Lake took the lead in the 74th minute, it did not take long for CITY SC to respond. Forward Sam Adeniran, who subbed on in the 67th minute, put in the equalizer just five minutes after Salt Lake took the lead, beating multiple defenders before curling in a goal. It was the second-consecutive match this year that Head Coach Bradley Carnell made an impactful second-half substitution, as he brought on Hosei Kijima, who eventually netted the game-winner, with stoppage time approaching against Houston Dynamo on Tuesday.
Postgame Notes
- Eduard Löwen has registered an assist in each of St. Louis CITY’s first MLS match
- The midfielder has recorded 15 assists in MLS season play
- Lowen now has two assists in two matches played against Real Salt Lake
- With his goal tonight, Sam Adeniran now has 10 goal contributions (nine goals, one assist) in MLS
- For a second straight match, one of Bradley Carnell’s substitutions scored a goal
- Chris Durkin and Tomas Totland made their MLS debuts for CITY SC
- St. Louis now has a 1-1-1 record against Real Salt Lake in league play
- CITY SC is now 13-5-3 as the home team across all competitions over the past two years
Goal-Scoring Plays
RSL – Cristian Arango (Matt Crooks), 74th minute: Cristian Arango right-footed shot from the center of the box.
STL – Sam Adeniran (Eduard Löwen), 79th minute: Samuel Adeniran left-footed shot from the center of the box.
February 24, 2024 – CITYPARK (St. Louis, Missouri)
Goals by Half 1 2 F
St. Louis CITY SC 0 1 1
Real Salt Lake 0 1 1
Scoring Summary
RSL: Cristian Arango (Matt Crooks), 74
STL: Sam Adeniran (Eduard Löwen), 79
Misconduct Summary
STL: Célio Pompeu (caution), 24
Lineups
STL: GK Roman Bürki ©; D Tomas Totland, D Joakim Nilsson, D Tim Parker (Josh Yaro 35’), D Anthony Markanich; M Eduard Löwen (Chris Durkin 82’), M Njabulo Blom, M Nökkvi Thórisson (Indiana Vassilev 67’), M Aziel Jackson (Jake Nerwinski 67’), M Célio Pompeu; F João Klauss (Sam Adeniran 67’)
Substitutes Not Used: GK Ben Lundt, D Akil Watts, D Hosei Kijima, M Tomáš Ostrák
TOTAL SHOTS: 12; SHOTS ON GOAL: 4; FOULS: 15; OFFSIDES: 0; CORNER KICKS: 4; SAVES: 2
RSL: GK Zac MacMath; D Andrew Brody, D Brayan Vera, D Justen Glad, D Bode Hidalgo (Bryan Oviedo 90’); M Braian Ojeda, M Pablo Ruiz (Matt Crooks 63’), M Diego Luna (Fidel Barajas 86’), M Andres Gomez (Anderson Julio 86’), M Emeka Eneli; F Cristian Arango ©
Substitutes Not Used: M Noel Caliskan, GK Gavin Beavers, D Marcelo Silva, M Maikel Chang, M Nelson Palacio
TOTAL SHOTS: 15; SHOTS ON GOAL: 4; FOULS: 13; OFFSIDES: 5; CORNER KICKS: 7; SAVES: 2
Referee: Lorenzo Hernandez
Assistant Referees: Wilmer Soriano, Jose Landa Jr.
Fourth Official: Atahan Yaya
VAR: Greg Barkey
Venue: CITYPARK
Weather: Clear, 43 degrees
ST. LOUIS CITY SC POSTGAME QUOTES
Audio: Recordings
Head Coach Bradley Carnell
BRADLEY CARNELL: Thank you to the fans. I think that kept us in the game through the second half, and yeah, not all evenings are going to be picture perfect and not all evenings are going to be successful in the eyes of how we imagine things, but what I love about this group is the fire and the fight to get back into something, right.
I see a lot of hungry guys sitting on the sidelines. I see a team who is committed to go to the end. So yeah, while it wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t the best day at the office, good teams find a way to get a point and a result, and we could have maybe made it all three at the end there.
So yeah, credit to the boys for staying in it and fighting through it. Yeah, we move on to Tuesday’s game. It’s a big game in Houston, and yeah, we have to be best prepared.
So yeah, we’ll just have to do a bit of monitoring who is fit, who is available and move on from there.
Q. Speaking of that, and how is Tim? Can you talk about depth on this team, but certainly defensively your depth was put to a test tonight on the back line. Just talk about how that progressed.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, for sure. Listen, we had to think quick on our feet and just come up with a situation that, you know, we weren’t sure of the fitness of Joakim to go a full 90 because of obviously his paperwork in Sweden. So, he missed two weeks of preseason. Eduard Löwen, the same. So, we had to go to precautionary measures at the end there. Throw in Jake, an extra center back, and kind of restructure our game plan. And again, through that, we get our way into it, the game, and we score the goal to equalize.
So, you know, credit to the guys for adopting that and guys to be fluid and flexible in the moment.
So, yeah, now we just have to evaluate Tim. I think he’s going to be okay, without chatting to our doctor. Tim knows his body really well, and he said he just felt a very tight muscle. So hopefully there’s nothing broken there.
Q. Looking scary with Josh going down twice?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, Josh is committed in everything we do and you could see that. He took a head knock, and the very first chance he comes out, he risks his body yet again and sticks his head out there. I’m glad he got through the game. Obviously, he’ll have to be evaluated and a monitored over the next 24 hours, and hopefully he’s okay again, and good to go.
Q. And then you get Nerwinski, the play of the game, there saving a goal in the last minute.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, listen, we were upset the way we gave up a goal, right. So yeah, we thought we had many good looks and gained some form of momentum through that second half, and all of a sudden, they are standing three guys in our box, and guys, you know, salvaging something on the goal line.
So you know, we are going to have to look at that and see the film, but for sure, that was a bad moment to give away, and we’ll have to evaluate that and have a look. But like I said, credit to the guys for staying in it.
Q. An impressive individual effort from Sam to score that goal, in that moment when the typically needed a spark can you speak to his performance.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, very good. I mean, I’ve had conversations with Sam and Klauss, and just said sometimes we might — the game might need two strikers. Sometimes it might need just one, right. So whether that’s Sam or Klauss, both players are prepared to do whatever the team needs.
And you could see Sam’s willingness, his energy just to change something to spark something and that was lacking on the night.
I thought as a group, we let ourselves down with some of our intensity, right. So if we are a little bit late to certain challenges, then we just start running more. We became a bit too stretched in the first half. We weren’t as compact as we should have been.
Yeah, and then you have to start now making measures in the second half and hoping guys can get to certain minutes, and then you make changes and hope to change the complexion of the game, and I think that’s what we did.
Q. You mentioned lack of sharpness. Is that just early season trying —
BRADLEY CARNELL: I didn’t say sharp — I don’t think I said sharpness. I said “intensity.” If we lack that in our game model, then we are pretty much nothing. And if we can’t get around guys who are pretty talented on the ball; we thrive in these moments if we’re up for the challenge, and I thought for a lot of the game that we were second best.
And we know this team. So it’s a better result here than we got a year ago against them. We look at the positive side. It’s a tough group to play against. It’s a tough coach to play against. So we know them pretty well, and yeah, we take this point away and we see this as a good point.
Q. Going back to the defensive decisions, especially with Josh getting nicked up the second time, and I know you had Jake warming up on the sideline, was there a thought process in the back four putting Jake at center back? Can you walk us through the thought process there in the moment?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, it’s a good question. We spoke about the fitness of Joakim, and putting somebody out there and not getting a Tomas Totland out of the game who could have continued or what-have-you. We just tried to plug the Band-Aid and see how it was with Joakim, and if Joakim couldn’t go, then at least we could slip into back forward, Jake, as the extra center back.
So that was the thought process if we had to pull the plug early on Joakim but credit to him, he fought through it. He felt okay and he really got through the game with flying colors. I thought he put in a good performance out there. You know, he won a lot of duels against a tricky Gomez, who is never easy to come up against. Yeah, we know what we have with Joakim.
And yeah, we’re just trying to get guys along, and you say, the rust is still there. You see a lot of teams through the game day, what type of performances or what type of score lines there are, and how the balances are. It’s really 50/50 games right now so early on. So things are tight.
Q. You were talking about the intensity. Didn’t seem like you asked AZ to range as far, he started on the left, and on Tuesday night, he was ranging all the way over to the right consistently. Seemed like AZ was a little bit more restricted in his movement tonight. Was that a game plan thing or what?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, AZ played underneath Klauss today, so he was a central ten. So yeah, he has flexibility to move within the red zones, we call them.
But yeah, AZ found some spots. We just couldn’t get the next one off, right. We just couldn’t get that next pass and that often broke down and we had some transitions going the other way, very cheap giveaways, and yeah, the boys were disappointed at halftime. They know we could do better.
We showed them some really good moments of the first half where if we just calmed down and played through the lines and played through the pressure, then we can have really dangerous moments. I just thought we were very cheap tonight with the ball, and we gave it away a lot.
Q. You mentioned Totland briefly. Other than the scary turnover in your midfield, the last couple games he’s been pretty solid. What do you have to say about his impressive adjustment so far early in the season?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, he’s played at a high level. We recruited him for a reason. We signed him for a reason and knew what he could bring; that it was going to be such a good fit so quickly.
Credit to the teammates he has around him. Just to get him on board and just to get him acclimated, and yeah, he’s a good player. He’s integrated really well with the team. Sometimes some players, you know, from overseas take a little bit longer. He hit the ground running. He came in fit. He came in sharp. He came in with a point to prove.
And credit to him, he’s been pushed by Jake all the time. So Jake is an honest customer. He gives everything every single day. So we have good depth at that position.
Q. Just like you said, you mentioned a lot of intensity in this these types of games. How is the team feeling to face two competitive championships like the CONCACAF, Champions Cup and now MLS, how is the team feeling physically and overall, mentally?
BRADLEY CARNELL: I see this as a privilege. We put ourselves into the situation, and we should enjoy these moments and we should celebrate it, right. Having to deal with two Cup competitions and four games in 12 days or 11 days, it’s never easy to mitigate or navigate through.
But four days, Tuesday to Saturday, we should have no problem with this stretch now. But now coming up, it’s going to be a question.
So we made some roster changes tonight, and we had some different bodies out there and part of that was to navigate through the next couple days here.
So we feel we can compete with our whole roster. We feel we can win games with our whole roster, and I think we showed that in parts tonight as well that we can compete to the very end with just about anybody that’s left on our roster and you know, starting games or coming off the bench.
Q. First off, great match tonight. Now, you have been here in St. Louis for about a season now and now starting your second season. How has your experience been here coaching in St. Louis compared to the teams that you have been at in the past?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, I just think the environment that we are in, you know, St. Louis has a proud soccer history. Yeah, we are driven by the community, and they drive us every single day.
Yeah, we want to bring a product out to St. Louis that people feel proud of. In the short span that we’ve been here, I don’t think that I’d been here one year, even when I wasn’t working as an official coach as day one in the MLS, we spent a year behind the scenes building out the foundations and the structure and building culture.
We believe strongly in the culture around here. We push each other every single day, and we set the bar high for each other. We think that the city deserves us. We think that the fans deserve that and you can see how they come out and support us game-in and game-out, so the very least we can do is empty the tank for them.
Q. Circling down to Indiana Vassilev, on Tuesday gets banged up, but he’s back in training right away. Him and Sam come off the bench today to provide the spark in the game. What does it mean to have a player like him and Sam on the bench, itching to get in and make a difference?
BRADLEY CARNELL: From a year ago where we had no depth or MLS Next Pro players on our roster to all of a sudden now those same players have given us depth and given us quality and driven competition internally and pushed results externally.
So I’m proud of these guys. These guys are my go-to every single day. I’m not talking about Sam and Indy. I’m just talking about the whole roster. You know, these guys give me purpose every day because I see what they do for each other. I see how they push each other. And like I said, even when days don’t go your way, not every day can go your way, but you can fight. You can fight to get a result and I see that’s what they did.
Indy is a good character to be around the team.
Q. Was Hiebert not available today?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, Hiebert is unavailable probably for ten days, and then we’ll reevaluate after that.
Eduard Löwen
On what CITY SC had to do to get back into the game…
Yeah, honestly, I don’t know if we really found a way to come back in that game because I think, honestly, that we played a really bad game. We just couldn’t get the second balls, we couldn’t win the second balls, we were always a step late. We couldn’t secure the first balls, we lost a lot of balls, had a lot of mistakes. So, I think that wasn’t a great game, but at the end of the day, it’s a good point. It’s a good point for us and you have to be able to still get a result out of that. So, I think that’s a good point. And we take that and yeah, we focus on the next game.
On his assist that led to Samuel Adeniran’s goal…
Yeah, I mean, I think it was a decent pass, but I think Sam still had to create a lot out of that. And I think most of the credit belongs to him because like, what he got out of that was incredible, with his pace, with his body, went past the defender. So, I think that was a great action from Sam.
On him and his teammates’ expectations for the upcoming season…
Yeah, honestly, the last season was incredible, was great. But we are trying not to think about it as much because, like, in the end of the day, last season is last season, and we have another season now and we have to show that one more time. And, yeah, everybody forgets, like it’s in the history books for sure, but like at the end of the day, it’s this season and we got to play a good season now and that’s what we are focused on. We are not like setting a lot of goals now like we want to achieve this, we want to achieve that, like we are trying to go from game to game. Now on Tuesday we have Houston coming up. Obviously, we want to go to the next round of the Champions Cup and make it as far as possible. Because it’s a great tournament, it’s great for the club, and it’s just a very nice experience to play in the Champions Cup. And yeah, after that game, we go again at home versus New York City and then like the next game, then the next game, like we are trying to focus on game to game, and not set too many goals now because the season is so long.
Njabulo Blom
On the game today…
I think we let them control the game and then I think we didn’t take on the second balls. We were losing too much and too many balls, especially in the midfield. So, I think we let them control the game and then we woke up late when we went one-nil down and then we were able to get the equalizing goal.
On losing Tim Parker early in the game…
We all know Tim has experience, especially defensively. I think he helps us a lot, especially on set pieces. We knew that we needed to up our game a bit more. When Tim is back there, he makes things easy for us. Especially with me and Edu [Löwen] in the midfield.
On whether the type of match they’re playing affects the intensity…
I think it depends on the kind of team we play. When we know we’re playing Houston, they have a slow build up and are a bit more tactical. Today’s game was a bit of back and forth, back and forth. We have good depth within the team to go through the whole season with a lot of games that we will have.
Joakim Nilsson
On getting back out onto the pitch…
Yeah, it’s been a while since I played 90 [minutes], so it was fun to be back to play at CITYPARK again. Yeah, I’m happy that I was able to play the full 90.
On if he was concerned about whether he could play the full 90…
I mean, it’s always hard to tell. As you know, I had to go back to Sweden for the green card process. I missed a few games, which I wanted to have, but it is what it is. But I’ve been trained well in Sweden, and I got a week and a half here, trying to stay fit, and I felt strong out there. Obviously, it was a hard fight. But I had no doubt that I was able to complete the game.
On what he expected from RSL…
This is a team with a lot of qualities on the ball, the one and two touch passing and moving. We knew about this. Today was also a battle out there. It was physical. And, yeah, we prepared for that. I think as we all saw today that we could do better in the physical sense. But they are a good opponent, absolutely.
Sam Adeniran
On his goal tonight…
Yeah, you know, I give credit to Edu [Löwen] because every single time I make a run forward I know Edu sees me. So, you know, and he always puts it in a in a great spot. Yeah, I had to do some work. But at the end of the day, you know, he needed to put that ball in there for me to get on to it. And then yeah, from that it was just trying to get past the defender. He’s a strong defender, quick as well. So yeah, it’s trying to get past him and then yeah.
On challenges from tonight that were a positive learning moment…
I would definitely say being able to use those outlets. You know, any single time we have the opportunity to do so is important. And, obviously, you know, I think one of the great things I love about our team is that we always fight, you know, whether we’re one-nil down or three-nil down, we’re going to keep on fighting. So, I would definitely say it’s not really a learning moment for us, but I definitely say that it’s something that I look at as a positive is that we always keep fighting. We always keep fighting for the fans, keep fighting for the organization, you know, so being able to continue to fight even when you’re down is what’s most important because you’re going to find yourself down in this league a lot. You know, cause they’re just good teams in this league. So, yeah, I think keeping that that mentality and keeping that focus on that is very important.
On playing with two strikers…
I think obviously there are advantages to both, you know, but obviously I enjoy playing with Klauss. I mean, you know, he makes life a lot easier for me on the field, you know, because just him being so big and being strong and also being good with his feet. You know, he’s able to hold the ball up, you know, and see things sometimes that I’m not able to see when I’m holding the ball up, you know. So, I think playing with two strikers is very important in my opinion. I like playing with two strikers but also playing with one striker is good as well, especially if you have someone like AZ [Jackson] or Nökkvi, you know, under you to be able to help you. But overall, I think it’s more so just the thing of the team’s mentality when we’re playing. So, it’s not necessarily about the tactics, but more so just how we go into the game because I think whatever formation we play in we’re able to beat any team.
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