St. Louis CITY SC's dream expansion season took a sour turn Sunday evening.
The Western Conference's top seed in the Audi 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs was encouraged by a vibrant, vocal CITYPARK crowd before Match 1 of their Round One Best-of-3 series against eight-seeded Sporting Kansas City.
While the rain didn't dampen the mood in the stands, the result certainly did: a heavy 4-1 loss against their Midwest rival from down I-70. Now, CITY SC face a do-or-die scenario over the next two games, starting with Match 2 at Children's Mercy Park (Sunday; 5 pm ET | MLS Season Pass).
For one night at least, a team that's repeatedly flexed its offensive muscle received a dose of its own medicine.
"We've punched teams in the face like this a few times, and now we know what it feels like," St. Louis head coach Bradley Carnell said postgame. "I think part of being a champion is also knowing how to lose, so tonight, we got knocked in the face."
Carnell added: "We couldn't really respond in the moment, so we didn't get rewarded for the moments that we got in front of goal, and we couldn't really quite get those critical moments in our favor to turn the game around."
What went wrong?
CITY SC didn't concede four goals at any point in their debut season beyond a 4-0 loss to Liga MX giant Club América in Leagues Cup. Out of their four home losses in MLS play, they had never lost by more than two goals.
It was a performance goalkeeper Roman Bürki deemed "unusual," even as St. Louis have lost their last three matches after wrapping up the West's No. 1 spot.
"Today, the quality was not enough. I would not say [Sporting Kansas City] did something spectacular, or something special ... we were not good enough," Bürki said.
"Now it comes down to us to put the right mindset, the right intensity in trainings, and don't let anyone just be so disappointed that they forget how to play and their head is full of thinking about what happened tonight."
"Still one more shot at this"
Carnell is tasked with ensuring STL's losing skid doesn't extend to a fourth match, spelling the end of their remarkable inaugural season that's defied all expectations.
And, despite the scoreline, the South African manager stressed his team must remain positive. A win brings the series back to CITYPARK for a deciding Match 3 on Nov. 11.
"We have some good characters in this team. We have some good players. We have a lot of depth in our roster. We have a lot of belief out there from the coaches, so [we're] making sure that we bring our energy and our attitudes every single day," Carnell said. "[It's] just to basically say 'Boys, there's still one more shot at this, and this is coming next week.'
" ... Tonight was a failure short-term, but over the long term, this group has been so successful, and those are the things we've got to pick off of."
