Carolyn Kindle at first referred to it as a night-before-Christmas kind of feeling.
No, scratch that.
“It’s like your sophomore year of college,†ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC’s CEO said this week while previewing Saturday night’s MLS regular-season opener against Salt Lake, and all of the pomp and circumstance that will accompany it.
Yeah, that tracks.
City SC enters its second MLS season after making a splash as the first expansion team to win a conference title. But just as fans got used to chanting the equivalent of, “He’s a freshman!†at opponents who were being left in the dust, the new kid fell asleep before curfew. An immediate ejection from the first round of the playoffs by rival Sporting Kansas City was a rude ending to a remarkable introduction.
That’s old news now. Now what?
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City SC returns to campus for Year 2 with a much better sense of the place, with plenty still to prove and with a determination to hang in the postseason party a lot longer this time around. There are still doubters. Maybe for good reason. You know what’s very common in sports? Sophomore slumps.
“The best thing that happened last year was, they had basically written us dead before we woke up,†sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel said. “They don’t do that now. But we still are a team where lots of people want us to fail. Lots of people are still whispering behind their hand. ‘Everybody knows what they do now. Time will catch up to them. They’re not really that good. Beginner’s luck.’ There are still a lot of ways for us to prove ourselves.â€
The best way would be a regular season that proves City SC’s goal of sustainability is accomplished, followed by some postseason sizzle. Hey, in 2018 Atlanta won the MLS Cup in its second season. Just saying.
“It showed that we had a good, competitive team,†Kindle said about Year 1. “It also showed there were areas of opportunity. It ended sooner than we wanted it to. It also gave us a lot of time to find some areas where we needed to bring in some different players. Just when you thought we had a great team last year, I think we have a stronger team this year.â€
In the immediate hours after City SC watched its historically successful MLS expansion season come to an abrupt and disappointing end, there was, it seemed, a bit of a rush to turn the page back toward the regular season’s success. It was understandable, this desire to zoom out and show the whole instead of the frustrating final chapter, considering no other team in the league’s history had accomplished a regular season so sweet, and every team every season has a somewhat sour ending if it doesn’t secure the MLS Cup. But as hours gave ways to days and weeks and months, a drilling down on what went wrong and what can and should make it less likely to happen moving forward became a focus. That’s been clear in conversations entering this fresh slate.
“We did lose the momentum,†Pfannenstiel said. “We did not know where we stood. It was very difficult for us to throw on the propeller again. They (Kansas) came with a bag full of confidence and belief in themselves. All of that put together, that’s what happened. We experienced it. We saw it. We learned from it. Now we figure out how to do it better.â€
No, City SC won’t plan on trying to not win the West again. But players, coaches and team officials all now have a real introduction to why teams with histories of deep playoff contention spend a lot of time trying to ensure they are producing their best brand of play when it matters most. Mentality is so much of it, and now a roster that largely returns has a big pool of players who experienced being on the receiving end of how a team properly synced for the postseason can punish. Pfannenstiel has challenged this year’s team to become what he calls, “mentality monsters.†Put that on a T-shirt, or a tifo.
“No one ever believes me when I tell them how long this season is,†co-captain Tim Parker said. “So, when I was saying that last year, I don’t think a lot of guys believed it. You hit the summer and the summer months in ºüÀêÊÓƵ are hot. By the end of that summer, you are exhausted. Instead of us playing our best stuff at the end of the summer, we might have tailed off a little bit. Lost a little energy. Lost a little momentum. That’s definitely on our minds entering this year.â€
The team’s depth, an underrated strength that flashed last season, could be even better now. Strengthened minds can’t help much if legs are zapped in crunch time. Sharing the workload will help.
“You start talking about these decisions throughout the season,†president and general manager Diego Gigliani said. “From the beginning of the transfer window, we knew we wanted to strengthen three specific areas. Left back, right back and defensive midfield. And we were able to get deals done very quickly for players we think are the right age fit, experience fit.â€
Tomas Totland could take the league by storm like some of City SC’s lesser known (until now) names did last season. Chris Durkin adds gobs of professional experience and a steadiness despite being only 24 years old. Nikolas Dyhr will be a name to know soon, if not now. And then there’s recently signed top draft pick Hosei Kijima, who won City SC its Concacaf Champions Cup game a blink after he made his debut.
That moment made it clear whatever leftovers lingered from last season’s playoff dud were properly disposed of before this season really starts. A wiser, deeper team begins a new story now. Sophomores don’t know everything, but they have learned the best parties go late.
“This team had never been in true playoff competitive play,†Kindle said. “You learn a lot from a situation like that. It’s very humbling. Was it upsetting it ended so fast? Absolutely. But I go back to lessons learned. We’re back. That’s the best part of this whole thing. We’re back.â€