After St. Louis City SC accomplished two things it has had trouble doing all season in one Saturday evening — shutting out the other team and winning on the road — you would have expected the mood to be light and celebratory Tuesday on the team’s practice fields as it readies for its game at San Jose.
Instead, practice ended with teammates having to come between captain Roman Burki and midfielder Celio Pompeu, who had an extended close-quarters shouting match, presumably about something that happened in the final short-field practice game (which was not won by their team). After that, interim coach David Critchley brought the team together in a big circle for an impromptu group therapy session, which included participation from players, for about 10 minutes.
“Wasn’t expecting it, but I’m OK with it,” said Critchley. “It shows that they’re not complacent with one win every so often and that they’ve come back out and they’re training hard. There’s good intensity. We had some of those moments last week as well in training. It translated well into the game on the weekend. So if we can translate that energy to this Saturday as well, I’ll be OK with that.
“I felt like it was a good time to bring the team in, and we had a good moment with each other. We talked about what’s our line (of acceptable behavior), and some of the conversation we had was, we are competing really well right now. This is a good training environment. Now, we have to watch the lines, of course, of being competitive. But it was a good moment for us to come together and discuss it as a unit, and we’ll move on.”
The emotions were, Critchley thought, something the team could have used earlier.
“They have told me that if they would have done this in Week 1,” Critchley said, “that we’d be in a different place. This is the environment you need to be successful. You need to be competitive. My main objective is to always create trainings where the demand is harder than the game itself, in every aspect. So I feel like we’re starting to really do that as of late.”
As players began to head to the dressing room, midfielder Tomas Ostrak sought out Critchley, and the two had a long talk while they walked around the practice fields, presumably about Ostrak being left out of the starting lineup Saturday. Ostrak had started the previous eight games and shown well before losing his spot to Pompeu for the Dallas game.
Ostrak came off the bench against Dallas and then didn’t play at all vs. Montreal. Critchley said after the game that the team felt that with the way Montreal defends, players who can attack on a one-on-one dribble, like Pompeu and Sangbin Jeong, would be the most effective, and that the two did that well.
“I know I have 11 happy guys on a Saturday afternoon,” Critchley said, “but I also have, well, I guess I have nine guys that aren’t starting that are probably upset and guys left at home. That was a good lineup. I was very excited with that lineup. We were able to get an away win. It’s uncommon for this club. We were able to get a clean sheet, which has been uncommon. So I was very happy with the lineup. I was happy with the performance, and I was really happy with the guys that came in, also off the bench, and impacted the game.”
And Critchley wants everyone to be battling for a starting spot.
“And Tomas Ostrak wants to do the same thing,” he agreed. “All 26, 27 guys want to do the same thing. Which is great. I’ve always said I want my job to be hard on the weekend. I do. I don’t like letting the players down because I deeply care about every single one of them. But that is the job in professional sports, and that’s the job that I want to sign up for is 20, 25-plus guys that want to compete every week for the starting lineup and are disappointed when they don’t get it.”
Jeong, Fall miss practice
Forward Sangbin Jeong and defender Fallou Fall didn’t practice on Tuesday. Fall was out sick and Critchley said they hoped he’d be back in 24 to 48 hours. Jeong was out of the country to deal with a personal matter.
“I’m communicating with Sangbin daily to see how he does,” Critchley said.
Critchley didn’t say it was a trip to his native South Korea for Jeong but did acknowledge that the trips would be long.
“It’s still very early in the week,” Critchley said. “We’ll give it another 24, 48 hours and then probably have more answers. We’re very conscious of the time traveling in these situations, but for right now, it’s only Tuesday. We’ll focus on this the rest of the week.”
Elimination alert
City SC kept itself alive Saturday with its win in Montreal, but its mathematically minute playoff chances could dry up Wednesday. The most points City SC can get is 37, and if Real Salt Lake, which is in 10th place in the West with 34 points, beats Los Angeles FC, it would have 37 points and clinch the first tiebreaker (more wins), eliminating City SC.
Clinching alert
City2, meanwhile, needs two points from any of its final three games to clinch first in the Western Conference of MLS Next Pro. City2 is three points up on New York Red Bulls II in the race for first place overall, so it controls its destiny.
City2 plays at Austin on Friday.
Get in the game with our Prep Sports Newsletter
Sent weekly directly to your inbox!
* I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch
Soccer reporter
Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!
Your notification has been saved.
There was a problem saving your notification.
{{description}}
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Followed notifications
Please log in to use this feature
Log In
Don’t have an account? Sign Up Today