COLUMN: St. Louis City looked 'like an expansion team' in loss to Real Salt Lake

Given how the inaugural season is going so far, it's easy to forget that St. Louis City SC is in its first year as an MLS franchise.

Every game at CityPark has been a sellout, the team was 7-2-1 entering Wednesday and hasn't suffered a loss in the past four matches in the friendly confides. The entire season has been spent at or around the top of the Western Conference standings.

Wednesday's game should have been an easy matchup for City SC. RSL entered the game with one win in 11 road games against expansion teams. That lone win came in the 2018 playoffs against LAFC. The two teams met earlier in the season, with City SC handing RSL one of its worst defeats against an expansion team by winning 4-0 in March.

RSL sent out an 18-year-old goalkeeper opposite of St. Louis goalie and captain Roman Burki. But in a 3-1 loss, City SC played, as head coach Bradley Carnell said, "like an expansion team."

“Unfortunately, as a collective,” Carnell said, “we let our principles get away for certain moments. Individuals from the opposing team find spaces, little pockets of space to penalize and hurt us because if our principles don't succeed in a 2 v. 1 mentality, gets interesting for the opponent."

Niko Gioacchini continues to lead City SC with eight goals and has found the net in each of the previous four games.

“It means the supply is getting better at finding Niko,” Carnell said. “Can other guys now be more of a goal threat; can we finish off with final plays; can we be more fluid in our attacks? We wanted to emphasize a little bit more in the crossing end today and we scored from a cross, which is a good thing.

Someone may want to consider covering Gioacchini in bubblewrap between now and Saturday when City SC travels to take on the San Jose Earthquakes, given how the injury bug has been biting their top goal scorers lately. Klauss led the way with five goals in the first nine games of the season, then he suffered a quad injury and has since missed nine games with reportedly four more weeks on the shelf. Midfielder Eduard Lowen led the charge as the engine of the offense with five goals of his own, including a goal in three straight home games recently. Now he is injured and looking at missing four to six weeks.

Lowen's absence is a major one for City SC, who are 0-2, being outscored 6-2, with him out of the lineup. St. Louis (9-7-2) is winless in four straight matches, going 0-2-2. SLC won its first five matches but has since gone 4-7-2.

With the dog days of summer apparently upon us, Carnell, harking back to his blue-collar background, is still confident in returning St. Louis to the win column regardless of who is out.

"I'm a worker by trade," Carnell said, "and we work, and we have to excuses. We don't want any free rides. We don't want any free tickets to the amusement park. We have what we have at the moment in time where it all comes together. We always believed as we did in the first eight games, nine games, we had some different lineups, and we found a way to make it work."

The loss knocks City SC off first place of the Western Conference standings, making way for defending MLS Cup champion LAFC to return to the top. After Saturday, City SC will have four more matches to go before MLS takes a break until August 20 and engages in the Leagues Cup, where St. Louis will have at least two games to participate in.

"The next game is your motivation," Carnell said, "points to be won and points to be proven."