City SC forward Joao Klauss, center, pressures Austin FC defender Zan Kolmanic, left, as he makes a pass during the second half at CityPark on Sunday, April 14, 2024.
The problem for Ƶ City SC this season has not so much been its offense, which sits in the middle of the pack for goals and expected goals and near the top in shots, or its defense, where goalkeeper Roman Burki is tied for the league lead in shutouts with four.
It’s been the team’s timing.
It’s been either one or the other for the team for much of the season, and that’s what’s led to seven ties in 10 games. The offense, for instance, had four straight games with two or more goals in March. It won just one of them. City SC has scored three goals in a game twice. It got only a tie both times. On those occasions it wasn’t the offense that was the problem, it was the defense.
Lately, it’s been the defense’s turn to shine. The team has posted shutouts in three of its past four games, with the one exception being a derby showdown with Kansas City which was a 3-3 tie. The offense, meanwhile — other than that KC game — has scored one goal over that span. The team has won just one of the three shutouts, with two games ending in 0-0 ties.
So that’s why finishing, the act of putting the ball in the net, was a big emphasis in practice this week as City SC prepared to face its other rival, the Chicago Fire, on Saturday (7:30 p.m., Apple TV Season Pass) in its first game at CityPark since April 14. The chances were there last Saturday against Houston, but a lack of finishing at the end kept City SC off the board again and was the difference between getting three points and getting one point.
“We always try to put our guys in good spots (in practice), realistic as we can to the games,” City SC coach Bradley Carnell said. “Obviously, they’re playing against a set of players who are hungry and play in a certain intensity, so it’s never easy to find those moments but it makes us sharper, it makes us quicker to handle under pressure really well. So I thought it was a really good week of training.”
“I think you can look a lot of different ways,” said Klauss, the team’s leading scorer, who then ran through a list of high-scoring games that didn’t end with wins. “I think sometimes because we tie a game 0-0, people target one part of the team or certain players, so I just look different. It’s very easy to target the offensive group when you tie 0-0, but the point is we have to figure out as a team how we can win more games than tie but I don’t think the team is in a bad way. We had 10 games, we lost only one. Of course a lot of ties but tough games. … Houston is a great team. They were in the final last year and we go to Houston, the weather’s tough, a lot of things, and we also tie the game. We think we played the game the way we want to play. We didn’t give up a lot. I think we didn’t create a lot as well. But we played the way that we want to play and as coach says, just a matter of time.”
Klauss had the best of City SC’s chances against Houston, shooting over the crossbar from close range. It snapped his two-game goal-scoring streak.
“Unfortunately, as a human being I will make mistakes as well,” he said. “I will not score every chance that I have. So if someone finds a striker that is going to score every chance that he has, then tell me because I want to learn with him.”
“Just a little bit of composure, I think that’s what it boils down to,” said midfielder Indiana Vassilev. “That’s it. We have guys with a boatload of composure in front of the goal. If you give Klauss that one he had in front of the goal, out of 50 times I think he scores that 47 times. Out of 100, I would say 96 times, I’ll even bump it up plus two, I won’t even double it. … We just keep on moving forward. Do we want to score more goals? Hell yeah we want to score more goals and they will come. And they will come.”
This will be the first trip to Ƶ for the Fire in a rivalry that hasn’t really gotten started. Ƶ vs. Chicago is prominent in other sports, but because these two teams are in different conferences in MLS, it limits their interaction to one meeting a season. City SC has faced Kansas City six times already; this will be meeting three for City SC vs. Chicago, with Chicago having won the previous two meetings, both last season in Chicago, in the span of five days. (One was in the Open Cup.)
This is the first of three games in eight days for City SC, and as good a chance as it will have for a win as it’s going to get in that stretch. Chicago has been shut out in its past four games (though managing two ties at 0-0) and is 25th out of 29 teams with 10 points.
Carnell has used the same lineup the past three games, an unprecedented event for City SC, but with a midweek game next week, there’s the potential for some juggling. There’s also the potential for the return of Njabulo Blom or Eduard Lowen or both. Both trained with the team all week, though whether either of them would be ready to start after lengthy absences is another matter. But even if they’re not ready to go Saturday, it seems both could be seeing action soon. Both are listed as questionable on the weekly injury report.
City SC sits in a strange place overall: tied for having the fewest wins (two) as well as the fewest losses (one) in the league. Ties have become the big thing.
“Listen, we want to be winning more games,” Vassilev said Wednesday. “We know we haven’t been winning more games. We are not worried. Which is all I really want to say. We’re not worried. Today’s training was so good, the boys are on, it felt really good. … We’re in a good place. We’re in a good place.”
