When Klauss got hurt April 22, there were questions about what ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC’s offense would do without one of Major League Soccer’s top goalscorers in those early weeks of the season.
And that fear was quickly proved right. In the team’s next four matches against MLS opponents, it scored two goals, one from Celio Pompeu and one from Miguel Perez. City SC lost all four of those games, three in MLS matches, one in the U.S. Open Cup.
And then it clicked. In its next three games, City SC scored 10 goals and since then has remained the most prolific goal-scoring team in the league. City SC leads the league with 49 goals and with one goal Saturday can become just the fifth team since 2002 to score 50 goals in the first 25 games of the MLS season.
But for that first month, forward Nicholas Gioacchini said, it was hard to adapt.
People are also reading…
“It took me about three weeks to a month to come to almost come to my senses, because I was really lost,†Gioacchini said. “It had been a long time, maybe 18 months, since I had played as a forward, so you needed a refresh and some advice to recap what you had inside of you because it is an instinct to be a 9 (a striker), but sometimes it gets a little lost in the way when it’s not practiced on a weekly basis.â€
But the team made it and now, four months later and a lot longer than anyone expected it would take, Klauss could be back in action Saturday for City SC when it plays at Orlando City (6:39 p.m., Apple TV Season Pass). In some ways, a lot has changed while he’s been away, but in others, it hasn’t. City SC was in first when he got hurt, and is still in first as he returns, four points ahead of second-place LAFC.
Coach Bradley Carnell said Klauss is roster ready and game ready but not start ready, so assuming he does get in, his playing time will be limited. But this is the first step, and with this the first of three games in eight days, the second step could come pretty quickly.
Carnell won’t have everyone at his disposal. Njabulo Blom has to sit out the game because of accumulated yellow cards and Tim Parker’s status is up in the air with his wife due to deliver their first child any day now. Carnell said they had explored all scenarios in case Parker had to stay in ºüÀêÊÓƵ for the birth.
“It’s always good to have fit, healthy, hungry players on the field of play and in training,†Carnell said, “and you could just see a step up in everybody’s overall presence in training — whether it’s quality or whether it’s just commitment or whether it’s just competition.â€
For Gioacchini, his world could be changing soon as he gets his former running mate back. When Klauss got hurt, Gioacchini went from being a 10, an attacking midfielder, to a 9, the striker. Once he got settled as a 9, he scored seven goals for a team-leading 10.
This is a meaningful game for Gioacchini. Last season, he came back to America from playing in France and signed with Orlando City, but the team seldom used him and when they did, not in his regular position. He arrived in July and got in 139 minutes over seven games, with no goals. City SC claimed him in the expansion draft and Gioacchini remembers everything about the day. He was in Paris, where he had lived in high school while in Paris FC’s youth academy, for what he called “a mental reconstruction moment.â€
“I’d missed pleasure for a year and a half, so I needed find a way to expel my rage and it was by buying a couple things,†he said
He was shopping at the Galeries Lafayette — “Not a place where you save money,†he said — when he got a phone call from Carnell and sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel. “It was the news of the year for me,†he said. “I had previously known that I wasn’t protected, which was also good news to me. I was in a situation where I wasn’t going to get much of a chance. Definitely more than happy that call arrived.â€
His issues with Orlando City basically came down to chances. He never seemed to get any.
“Tough. Tough mentally, tough physically,†he said. “It was, let’s say, not as explained to me, I took it personally, but these moments always make you stronger, smarter, wiser, so I don’t regret it at all. If anyone ever has a question about regret, I don’t. Everything happens for a reason. I’ve been looking forward to this game for eight months now.
“It was hard, I came to a group where it was 99 percent already established, I was coming off a very tough season in Europe. To come in and (play) a few minutes is not easy. It’s a situation where I had to be patient. It didn’t work out in the end.â€
And while the adjustment to playing without Klauss took him a while, Gioacchini thinks the switch back should go quickly.
“Confidence is a big part of that,†he said. “When you have confidence, your mind is a lot more relaxed and not so rigid on things. So as soon as I changed, I was lacking that confidence because it had been a while. I played as a 10 four months ago. So, it’s not as big of a change. I know also how Klauss works. I know his movement. I know what he wants. So, it’s a whole different scenario. But definitely, if they put me back in the 10 position or we play two strikers, I’ll know what to do.â€
Ultimately, what Gioacchini thinks is his best position is a 9 ½, with elements of both the 9 and the 10 mixed together. And what should they call that position?
“Niko,†he said.