{"id":46678,"date":"2023-05-03T19:07:24","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T23:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/?p=46678"},"modified":"2023-05-03T19:09:08","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T23:09:08","slug":"st-louis-city-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2023\/05\/03\/st-louis-city-lost\/","title":{"rendered":"What Does It Mean That St Louis City Lost?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>They lost their second home game. And they lost for the third time this season. To a team that even with that win is only one point away from missing the playoffs. A team that they had beaten convincingly a scant six weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>St. Louis City lost.<\/p>\n<p>And losses suck.<\/p>\n<h2>St. Louis City Lost<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Full-time \u23f9\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/986lxK1umM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/986lxK1umM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; St Louis CITY SC (@stlCITYsc) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/stlCITYsc\/status\/1652502369089847296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 30, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>\u201cWe Knew This Was Going to Be a Physical Battle\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cPortland just looked like the team that wanted it more and it hurts me to say that,\u201d head coach, Brad Carnell, said afterwards. \u201cWe got what we deserved \u2013 we couldn\u2019t match what they put out. This was very self-inflicted and that\u2019s the disappointing thing \u2013 we don\u2019t like playing like this in front of our fans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Again and again, Carnell and the players came back to the fans \u2013 how the team felt it had let down the sellout crowd who stood through it all, as they always do, even during this match\u2019s gale-force winds and pelting rain. And you have to wonder, by the way, if these crowds mean something different to a guy who has toed the line in New Jersey, bringing quality sides to the pitch in front of half-empty arenas. You have to wonder if, say, a Jake Nerwinski or Tim Parker, who has heard the lonely echo of a ball bouncing around a desperately empty Bell Centre, feels a different kind of responsibility to a dedicated fan base than players who have spent their careers playing to full houses every week.<\/p>\n<h3>\u201cThe Guys Are Brutally Disappointed in the Locker Room\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>But the test of a team, of any team, is not the loss. Teams lose. The test is what happens <em>after <\/em>the loss. Who is to blame? Where are the accusations? Where is the finger-pointing? And this team? This team pointed those fingers <em>at themselves<\/em>. \u201cDid I give the right messages?\u201d \u00a0Carnell said afterwards, \u201cI look to myself first.\u201d \u201cWe do not blame the refs,\u201d John Nelson said. \u201cWe deserved to lose,\u201d Celio said.<\/p>\n<p>Look, bonds are not forged in easy times. Bonds, like steel, are forged in heat, and tested under duress. For it is easy to stand up and take the bullet when you know there\u2019s no bullet coming. But to stand up and say, \u201cNo, not the refs, no, not the Timbers, no, not the weather. It was <em>us<\/em>. <em>We<\/em> failed; we failed <em>ourselves<\/em>, we failed <em>each other<\/em>, we failed <em>you.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 That\u2019s where the bonds are formed the make champions.<\/p>\n<h3>\u201cWe Let Them Walk All Over Us\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>And you can say, well, that\u2019s good old Midwestern American values right there. Except the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fifa.com\/fifaplus\/en\/articles\/who-is-bradley-carnell-the-south-african-behind-st-louis-citys-mls-revolution\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">coach is from South Africa<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Roman_B%C3%BCrki\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">captain is from Switzerland<\/a> and the rest of the team are from Brazil, Sweden, Denmark, hell even <em>Long Island<\/em>. No, this is just <em>values<\/em>. This is just what <em>adults<\/em> do. This is what teammates who feel they\u2019ve let each other, those around them, and their city, down.<\/p>\n<p>Which, in a sense, is not surprising. Because what has always been remarkable about this team has been how connected they are to each other. On the pitch, they know where each other are without looking. They know where each other are going to be without seeming to have to think about it. They know the pace and the angle and who likes the pass over the left shoulder and who likes it over the right That\u2019s remarkable in any team, but in an expansion team? It\u2019s almost unheard of.<\/p>\n<p>And it\u2019s true off the pitch, as you heard in the post-game interviews after the tornado-delayed FC Cincinnati beatdown. Everyone \u2013 players, coaches, staff &#8211; talked about how they kept each other loose, kept each other focused, and kept the energy up. Hell, you even heard it after the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2023\/04\/27\/us-open-cup-is-different\/\" target=\"_self\">Open Cup win<\/a>, when Aziel Jackson credited his goals to the shoes Roman Burki loaned him. Yes, really.<\/p>\n<h3>\u201cIt Wasn\u2019t Us Out There\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>None of this is normal. The fact that there is chemistry here, is something special and unique. And the wonderful thing \u2013 yes, wonderful \u2013 about what happened on Saturday night when St. Louis City lost at CityPark was that the players experienced how fragile and rare that chemistry is. It\u2019s there, but you have to respect it by earning it, every minute of every second of every game. Every second ball, every pass, every run, every tackle, every free kick. That special chemistry is there for them, in a way that it is not there for other teams. But they have no natural right to it. And Saturday reminded them what it feels like when they don\u2019t have it because they didn\u2019t earn it.<\/p>\n<h3>\u201cNo, I\u2019m Not Disappointed. I\u2019m Angry.\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>Aziel Jackson\u2019s father is <a href=\"https:\/\/alidrums.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ali Jackson<\/a>, the renowned jazz drummer. And <em>his<\/em> mentor was Elvin Jones, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/3rdstreetjazz\/videos\/branford-marsalis-on-elvin-jones-ken-burns-jazz\/2275143529368993\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">and Branford Marsalis tells this story<\/a>. \u201cA lot of younger musicians were hanging around with Elvin Jones, and they were talking about, \u2018Man, you know, you guys had an intensity when you were playing with Coltrane. The author of this article means, what was it like? How does one play with that kind of intensity?\u2019 And Elvin Jones looks at them and says, \u2018You gotta be willing to die with the motherfucker.\u2019 They started laughing like kids do, waiting for the punchline, and then they realised he was serious. How many people do you know that are willing to die\u2014period? Die with anybody! And when you listen to those records, that\u2019s exactly what they sound like. I mean that they would die for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"sl\" dir=\"ltr\">C\u00e9lio&#39;s first in MLS!<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/AllForCITY?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#AllForCITY<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WjqaHAoumn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/WjqaHAoumn<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; St Louis CITY SC (@stlCITYsc) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/stlCITYsc\/status\/1652500431401111554?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 30, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Starting on Saturday against FC Dallas, the team and the league will see what the boys are willing to do to achieve what they are capable of achieving.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Photo Credit: Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports, of the Headshot of Yimmi Chara and the Headshot of Tomas Ostrak on April 29, 2023.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They lost their second home game. And they lost for the third time this season. To a team that even with that win is only one point away from missing the playoffs. A team that they had beaten convincingly a scant six weeks ago. St. Louis City lost. And losses suck. St. Louis City Lost [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":991,"featured_media":46683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[119,24],"tags":[5413,5341],"class_list":["post-46678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mls","category-timbers","tag-bradley-carnell","tag-st-louis-city-sc"],"modified_by":"Raheem Bashir, Site Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/991"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}