Samuel Adeniran back in practice with ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC as team resumes training
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Samuel Adeniran was back on the practice field Wednesday with ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC as the team resumed training.
Adeniran had been kept out of the past two games as coach Bradley Carnell expressed displeasure with the forward’s work rate.
“Right now, we’re focusing on the guys who bring a certain standard, intensity, work ethic in training, and those players will get rewarded,†Carnell said last week. “Sam, until further notice, will be training on his own.â€
Carnell didn’t have much to say about the situation Wednesday.
“Sam’s back on the field training,†he said.
City SC doesn’t play this weekend, so players had an extra day off after a 3-3 tie with Sporting Kansas City on Saturday.
Adeniran scored goals in each of City SC’s first two MLS games this season and even got the nod to start ahead of Klauss in the first meeting with Austin. He was left off the game-day roster for the second Austin game, even though the team had an available spot for him and played the game with eight players on the bench instead of nine. The team did that again Saturday against Sporting Kansas City.
Adeniran took part in all of training and was on the field after practice working on shooting with teammate Aziel Jackson and members of the coaching staff.
Eduard Lowen, who has missed six games with a combination of a hamstring injury and a family illness, jogged during training, and midfielder Njabulo Blom and defender Josh Yaro have begun to step up their rehab work.
“Edu we treat totally different from the rest of the group right now,†Carnell said. “If his body’s feeling up to it, he can progress as needed. But it’s up to Edu.
“Josh is starting some on-field work and integration back into running and getting used to a little mobility on the field. Some straight-line stuff, but he’s progressing and in a good way. He’s feeling alright, but we don’t want to rush him. Jabs (Blom) has started on-field work. I think probably Jabs is the closest one at the moment.â€
Notebook: City SC's late goals have changed results and earned it points this season
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A year ago, ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC scored three goals in second-half stoppage time, after the game had passed the 90-minute mark.
The goals were largely incidental: a 93rd-minute goal by Miguel Perez that made the final score of City SC’s Open Cup loss to Chicago 2-1; a 94th-minute goal by Perez against Vancouver that secured a 3-1 win; and a 95th-minute goal by Samuel Adeniran against Austin in a 6-3 win.
This season, City SC has scored three goals after the 90th minute, and all of them have changed the outcome of the game: Hosei Kijima’s goal in the 91st minute in the CONCACAF Champions Cup gave City SC a 2-1 win; a goal by Celio Pompeu in the 93rd minute against Austin got City SC a 2-2 tie; and Tomas Totland’s 92nd-minute goal against Sporting Kansas City on Saturday earned City SC a 3-3 tie.
That’s two points saved by City SC in the closing minutes, plus the Champions Cup goal that improved their position in a total-goals series but not enough.
“I think we just never stopped fighting, we never gave up,†said Pompeu after the Sporting Kansas City game. “That’s what I love about this team. We don’t quit. We always keep going. We can be losing, but we never put our heads down. We always keep fighting, and that’s what happened.â€
“Credit to the boys for not giving up,†Carnell said, “and it’s something that this team continues to show — a never-say-die attitude.â€
City SC has allowed only two goals after the 90th minute, both on the road, and only one has changed the outcome of the game. It allowed one goal against the Los Angeles Galaxy in the 95th minute to turn a potential City SC win into a tie and another by Real Salt Lake turned a one-goal loss by City SC into a two-goal loss. So because Houston’s goal didn’t earn it any points because it wasn’t in MLS play, that’s two points lost to late goals, leaving the team even for the season.
A breather
With no game this weekend for City SC, Carnell let the team off until Wednesday. Normally, the team would have done regeneration work Sunday and practiced on Tuesday. This is the first weekend off for the team since the season began Feb. 20.
“We have to keep working on the things that we have to get better,†Klauss said. “I think we have to use this time, now the first days to rest because the beginning of the season was really tough with CONCACAF and MLS starting at the same time. So use the first days to rest to calm down a little bit. And then the next week used to get better physically, mentally and also the things that we have to improve.â€
“A game like (Sporting KC) takes up a lot of energy,†Carnell said after the game. “It takes up a lot of physical and mental energy. So yeah, we’re going to get the guys out of town for a few days who wants to go out of town for two to three days, and we’ll be back on Wednesday.â€
With City2 also off this weekend, the teams will scrimmage on Saturday, then City will get back on a normal practice schedule for the game at Houston on May 4.
Anything for you
A week after scoring a goal after promising his wife he would score on her birthday, Klauss had a goal and an assist on Saturday vs. Kansas City, but there were no promises this time.
“I didn’t,†he said. “I cannot promise her every week, but every week, she asked me to score a goal for her.â€
Every week?
“Yeah, every week,†he said. “So maybe I got one week free then. Just kidding. I don’t want that week free. I want to keep scoring and helping my teammates.â€
Notes
Tomas Totland’s goal earned him a spot on the MLS team of the matchday, and Klauss made the bench, a week after making the first XI.
Tim Parker got a yellow card against SKC, giving him four on the season. That makes three City SC players — Parker, Totland and Chris Durkin — who have four yellow cards and would get a one-game suspension with their fifth. Players get a yellow card removed from their total if they go five games without another. Totland has gone two games, and Durkin one toward that.
City2 has signed defender Oscar Benitez to a Next Pro contract for the remainder of the season. Benitez is from Colombia but spent his youth career in Brazil with RB Bragantino II. He turns 20 in June.
Since losing its opening game, City2 has gone undefeated in its past five games, with two regulation wins and three ties to move into first place in the Western Conference of MLS Next Pro.
City SC-SKC rivalry picks up speed: STL Soccer Talk
Yet another tie, this time against rival Sporting Kansas City: STL Soccer Talk
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ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC beat writer Tom Timmermann and co-host Beth O'Malley talk about the team's sixth tie of the season, this time against Sporting Kansas City. The rivalry between the teams continues (and City SC won the shoulder battles, certainly), but City SC's struggles with tie games also continue.
Tomas Totland comes to the rescue with a stoppage time goal as City SC ties Sporting KC 3-3
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KANSAS CITY, Kan. — City SC right back Tomas Totland got engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Synne Raa, a couple of weeks ago and, like many soccer players, had a plan for how he would commemorate the event on the field if he scored a goal.
It seemed unlikely he would need a plan, having scored just one goal in the past three seasons. Still, maybe make a heart with his hands. If it was a game at CityPark with his fiancee in the stands, he’d point at her.
“As a fullback, it’s not as easy as a striker,†Totland said a few days before the game. “But when it comes, I might have some sort of a celebration.â€
That moment came very late in City SC’s game Saturday with Sporting Kansas City at Children’s Mercy Park. With City SC trailing 3-2 and seeing what had looked like a nice road win about to turn into a frustrating loss, there was Totland, beating a defender to the ball in SKC’s end, leaping over the defender sliding and regaining the ball in stride and nicely firing it in for his first MLS goal. It tied the game two minutes into a very brief second-half stoppage time to rescue a 3-3 draw for City SC.
And then — nothing.
“At that point, the curtains went down, and I forgot about where I was,†Totland said, grinning, after the game. “I just blanked out, and then I just slid on my knees. ... It was a big relief getting that goal, almost more than joy, but I dedicate that goal to her.â€
It was a fitting finish on a wild night in Kansas in what is shaping up as a very entertaining — and high-scoring — rivalry, with both teams taking leads and losing them. As befits a tie, there were equal amounts good and bad, of events to be recognized and events for City SC to hope never happen again. The game managed to be both encouraging and discouraging.
Ties have become the norm for City SC this season. Two-thirds of its first nine games have ended in a tie, to go with two wins and one loss. While City SC is one of just five teams in the league with one loss or fewer, its six ties are keeping it in the middle of the pack in the Western Conference — though in the tightly packed West, the middle of the pack isn’t all that far away from the top. City SC outshot SKC 20-7 and held it to just three shots on goal, all of which went in.
“For us to dominate away from home was an incredible performance for the boys,†said City SC coach Bradley Carnell. “But we all feel a little dejected about the type of goals we gave up.â€
The goals City SC gave up were one off a turnover by City SC in its own end; another that goes into the books as an own goal after goalkeeper Roman Burki got his hands on a shot from a tight angle by Daniel Salloi, only to see it redirect just enough to go in off the far post; and then City SC’s outside backs keeping Erik Thommy onside to set him up for a breakaway that Burki couldn’t stop.
Asked if each of the goals was annoying in its own way, Carnell said, “For two or three minutes, we lose the shape, we lost the momentum of the game. I also have to look back at it because I’m as flabbergasted as you.â€
“Learning moments,†said Klauss. “But how long and how many times do we have to make these mistakes to learn?â€
The big thing on the encouraging side is that Klauss is, clearly, back. After getting his first goal in the run of play in 1,001 minutes a week earlier, he scored a goal and had an assist Saturday (and he had a touch in the build to Totland’s goal).
On the goal that made it 2-1 for City SC, Klauss assisted in a bunch of ways: He slammed into Willy Agada and sent him flying with a firm shoulder hit to win the ball. He then passed it to Celio Pompeu and then ran past him, taking a defender with him while pointing to a spot on the field and telling fellow Brazilian Pompeu in Portuguese to go to the middle rather than giving the ball back to him. (“That’s a good thing about speaking the same language,†Pompeu said.)
Pompeu blasted it in from just outside the box.
Klauss’ hit wasn’t the only one in the game. Chris Durkin used his shoulder to win the ball from Tim Leibold before getting it to Rasmus Alm, whose perfectly placed pass allowed Klauss to one time it in to tie the game at 1-1. After both goals, Sporting KC players protested to referee Allen Chapman, and the video review took a long look at them before deciding they didn’t need to be reviewed by Chapman.
“I mean, it’s a derby, right?†Carnell said. “And we get up for these moments. And there’s a lot on the line. There’s a lot that happened here over 12 months. So for us, it was a natural reaction to want to and believe that we can. ... I think the goals were well taken, well deserved. But again, we have to go back to the drawing board for conceding although we’ve been so stout the last couple of games.â€
“Maybe a lot of people will argue that was a foul,†Klauss said of his hit on Agada. “But I think it was just a normal duel for me. We were running on each other, and I think it’s just a normal duel and I’m happy to beat him because I was able to find Celio and then Celio, unbelievable.â€
And just when it looked like City SC was going to see that all go for naught after Thommy’s 77th-minute goal, Totland came through. As a goal kick from SKC goalkeeper Tim Melia pinballed around the midfield, Totland started his run down the right. SKC’s Salloi won the ball but put his clearance right into Totland’s path. He got to it an instant ahead of a sliding Leibold, pushing the ball ahead and then leaping over the sliding defender in one motion. He took one more touch, then lined it up and on his next touch drove it past Melia, who had come out to challenge him and was pounding his fists on the turf after the ball went in.
“I actually thought about if I should pass it,†Totland said. “But the keeper came out and opened that space. ... It looked like the game was going away from us ... but we showed again that we don’t give up and we take back a point.â€
“It was great,†said Klauss, assessing Totland’s finishing. “I think it was very important for us. Being away in MLS is always tough. Getting one point here was good for us. And I think for the first half that we played and for the game, they had maybe 20 minutes better than us. I think we didn’t deserve to lose this game. So I think we got our reward.â€