Lowen, Nilsson return to City SC practice, but Yaro and Blom are out with injuries
The constantly shifting scene of who’s in, who’s out for ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC took another turn on Wednesday.
Midfielder Eduard Lowen and defender Joakim Nilsson were back on the field and practicing with the team for the first time since their respective injuries as the team resumed training Wednesday. But absent were defender Josh Yaro and midfielder Njabulo Blom. Yaro will be out at least four weeks, Blom from two to four weeks, both with hamstring injuries.
It’s too soon for coach Bradley Carnell to say if Lowen (hamstring) or Nilsson (rib) would be available on Sunday when City SC faces Austin at CityPark, but their presence at practice is an encouraging step. Both had been working out separately from the team as they got back into game shape. Lowen has missed four games — he didn’t train last week as Carnell said he dealt with a personal matter, but Carnell had said earlier Lowen likely wouldn’t have been ready anyway — and Nilsson three. Both wore yellow jerseys as “neutrals†in practice.
“Get a touch, get a feel,†Carnell said. “We can start progressing them from here. So yeah, the outlook is good on those two.â€
Not so good for Yaro and Blom. Yaro left Saturday’s 0-0 tie with Dallas in the 63rd minute, replaced by Kyle Hiebert after overextending his leg. Yaro missed four games earlier this season with a hamstring injury but had come back and played 90 minutes in the three games prior to the Dallas game.
Blom had missed three games earlier in the season with a knee injury. He has played a full 90 minutes in only one of the three games since returning to the lineup but said last week he felt 100%. Against Dallas, he came on as a sub in the 73rd minute.
“They both picked up problems from the last game,†Carnell said. “Unfortunately, Josh just aggravated the same muscle that he had previously. So it’s the same muscle group, same muscle side. So unfortunately, he’s out a little bit longer.â€
City SC has had all four of its center backs healthy for just one game this season, the season-opening Champions Cup game with Houston. But the group has been proficient in taking turns: Yaro missed three games but came back just as Tim Parker went out with a tight back. Parker missed two games but came back just as Nilsson went out with a cracked rib. Now Nilsson may be available again just as Yaro goes out.
“Every season, every year has its ups and downs and challenges,†Carnell said, “so we try to find ways to mitigate that as well. On the grand scheme of things, it feels or sounds like a lot, but we’re still having a good turnout in terms of training availability from everybody. There’s just a couple of names that keep popping up.â€
In the first nine games of this season (including Champions Cup), City SC has lost 21 man-games to injury. Last season, City SC lost 22 man-games in its first nine games, though 17 of those belonged to Nilsson or Jon Bell, who had been out from the start of the season as they rehabbed from surgeries.
Changes coming to MLS?
MLS will soon make changes in its salary setup, The Athletic reported Wednesday, as the league tries to maximize the value of having Lionel Messi in the U.S. The changes were approved by the league’s board of governors Tuesday, the report said, citing sources, but still need approval from the MLS Players Association, which has no reason not to approve them, considering the end result is more money being spent on players. The rules would take effect this season.
Teams presently can have three designated players, players who teams can pay over the league maximum salary without having that count against the salary cap. The league also a similar program, called the U-22 initiative, for players younger than 22; teams with three designated players can have one U-22 initiative player, and teams with two designated players can have three.
Under the proposed changes, teams with three DPs can have three U-22s, and teams with two DPs can have four U-22s, plus $2 million in general allocation money.
City SC has two designated players (Klauss and Lowen) and one U-22 initiative player (Chris Durkin).
Schulte makes history
Patrick Schulte, the goalkeeper from St. Charles who played at ºüÀêÊÓƵ University and is now with the Columbus Crew, made two saves in a shootout as the Crew beat Mexican club Tigres and advanced to the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions Cup on Tuesday. Columbus is the first MLS team to advance against a Liga MX team after failing to win the first game at home.
“We gave confidence to Pat,†Columbus coach Wilfried Nancy said, “and life is good. I believe that when you challenge yourself and when you do good stuff, you’re going to get the rewards, and he got it. That’s why Pat saved us.â€
Schulte stopped the first two penalty kicks he faced, guessing correctly and blocking shots by Andre-Pierre Gignac and Guido Pizzaro and allowing Columbus to go ahead 2-0 in the best-of-five shootout.
“I don’t think really anything is going through my mind other than trying to give the team the best chance of winning,†said Schulte, a Francis Howell High graduate. “They’re big players and guys who have been successful throughout their careers, but I just want to give our team the best chance of winning. I was fortunate to be able to do that.â€
A shutout by Burki isn’t enough as City SC gets another tie, this time 0-0 with FC Dallas
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Ties have become so pervasive for ºüÀêÊÓƵ City SC this season that even when it shuts out the other team, it still can’t win the game.
City SC’s defense could not have done any better — at least on the scoreboard — but its offense could have. City SC posted its second shutout of the season on a chilly Saturday night at a sold-out CityPark, but that wasn’t enough for it to beat FC Dallas. The final score was 0-0 as City SC played its fifth tie in seven games, matching its total for all of last season. City SC was able to snap a run of four games in which it allowed two goals or more but now has a five-game winless streak, with four ties and a loss.
“After the last few weeks, yes, definitely feels good to have a clean sheet,†goalkeeper Roman Burki said. “ But on the other side, we should have definitely won that game.â€
How Dallas got its zero was simple: Burki had another one of those games in which he makes great saves at just the right moment. (He also got some help from a world-class miss from a few feet out by Dante Sealy of Dallas.) How City SC got its zero was not quite so simple: Despite dominating the game in every way, shape and form offensively, City SC couldn’t score, and after a while, it just seemed like the team was doomed, whether it was the shot by Klauss that went off the bar in the 67th minute or the shot by Samuel Adeniran that grazed the post in the first minute of second-half stoppage time.
City SC took a club-record 23 shots, and none of them went in. City SC had the ball for 64.9% of the game, more than it has had in any other game this season or last when the opponent didn’t get a red card. Its 23 crosses were the second-most the club has had in a game, but those, along with the team’s nine corner kicks, produced nothing.
“We definitely have to get back to being a team that is hard to beat,†said Burki. “We weren’t that team today. We weren’t a team. We were dominating the game 100%. We had more from the game sometimes. We had a lot of phases where we put them under pressure. But to be a really good team, we have to win games. We have to be crucial in front of the goal. And we have to decide sometimes the games earlier because we have the chances to, and if you don’t do that, the other team is still smelling a little bit of hope or having a little bit hope and tries to try so use that.
“We have to try to be a team that is hard to beat and not give up a lot of chances. Even today, in my opinion, we were clearly the better team, but we could lose that game. We should work on being a team that is difficult to play like we were last year. Last year I think nobody wanted to come here. At the moment, now everybody sees that we are struggling a little bit, so we have to find a way back to being that team again that is hard to play.â€
Despite having 23 shots, only six of City SC’s shots were on goal, and for all those balls City SC put into the box on crosses and corners, Dallas was credited with 40 clearances. That’s the most ever for a City SC opponent. The ball was going into the box and in many cases coming right out.
“I think we have to be a little bit calm,†said midfielder Tomas Ostrak, who had six of those 23 shots. “And you know, like, just believe it’s going to come and it’s going to, you find the next pass and just be prepared and mentally focused for the next action. I think this is the point.â€
“Yeah, of course it’s frustrating,†said midfielder Rasmus Alm, who made his first start of the season and subbed out at halftime. “But I also see the other side of it that we create a lot of chances, and that’s a good sign. And yeah, I think if we score one this game, we might score more. Like some games are like that, before you score then everything opens up, but today unfortunately we couldn’t get one in. But I think it’s a positive sign that we created a lot of chances.â€
That was what City SC coach Bradley Carnell kept coming back to: Any team that creates that many chances is going to win games sooner or later. It just hasn’t happened yet in City SC’s case.
“I’d be posing a lot more questions if we weren’t getting into these dangerous areas,†Carnell said. “Eventually it will come. ... We’ll continue to be us and we’ll continue to develop and evolve and control these types of games, and yeah, we just need to now get that one over the line or take that last jump over the hurdle to get the three points.â€
The main focus for that is Klauss, who was tied for the team lead in goals last season with 10 but who has just one, on a penalty kick, so far this season. He took six shots on Saturday, two of which were on target, but couldn’t score. He’s taken 16 shots in the past four games, with the PK the only ball to go in.
Shutouts often are a reflection on team defense rather than the goalkeeper, but not in City SC’s case. Burki denied Dallas’ Sebastian Lletget in the 59th minute, raising his hand to knock away a shot from close range and then a minute later off the ensuing corner kick reached out his right hand to swat away a ball headed for the net.
“I think the first one was just a reflex,†he said. “I don’t really think about it in these moments, and I just look at what happens and somehow the ball hits me. It’s similar to the save I had against Galaxy. It’s like you just do it. You don’t even know that you’re going to do that, I just do it. On the other save, luckily once I stopped watching the ball from the corner, I picked the right player that is going to hit the ball because sometimes you look where the ball could go and pick which player is ready to hit the ball and I just followed through the ball and in my action. So it was definitely a little bit luck involved, but I’ll take that.â€
“He’s on a different level, he’s way too good,†Alm said. “We’re happy that we have him and he saved us tonight as well.â€