St. Louis City 3, Inter Miami 0
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, good evening, everyone. First of all, like to give a shout-out to Alexander Langer, our set piece specialist, for his hat trick tonight, supported by John. We know we are pretty high up in the standings on the set piece count and these guys work their tails off, so congrats to them.
To the team, it's been a tough stretch over here to go the last four games, three clean sheets, right, but a bunch of points and to end off on this stretch going into this League's Cup break was massively important, playing at CITY PARK where the fans were electrifying once again and the fans were amazing and it gives us extra energy, thinking about guys like Njabulo turning it around back-to-back and Andy emptying the tank for the team and what we stand for. Very happy with the shout-out and the clean sheet.
Yeah, we move on. We just enjoy the couple of days now. We wish our MVPs all the best, all the All-Star, Tim and Roman and we'll be supporting them as well.
Q. Congratulations on the win, going into the league break with another victory --
BRADLEY CARNELL: Every time. He makes the same mistake --
Q. Okay. Sorry. I think when I hit unmute, John is also doing the same thing but I'm here. Going into League's Cup break with another victory, can you make an assessment of what the season has been so far for the team?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, I mean, what started off to be a fairy tale has become business, right. It sparked an appetite, a hunger for more, and when I say the players, the way they performed tonight, knowing there's a little break coming up, knowing there's League's Cup and that essentially from a mental standpoint, you can at least switch off for a few days, right. This has been massively important for us and now we start turning focus.
But what I've seen is a hunger and a desire not just to compete against each other but to set high standards. We hold ourselves by these and accountable every single day, and I think you can see a team that's connected. I think you can see a roster that's fighting for everything and the points are there to back it up.
So incredibly grateful, but again it starts with momentum and it starts with good starts and it starts with good starts to games and good starts to the League in terms of momentum, and then we just keep it rolling. We've been dealt a few challenges and a few blows over the last couple months but we have always found a way, and good teams seem to do that.
Q. Do you really want to take a break right now the way things are going?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, is it a break? There's a couple days before we start ramping up again against Columbus for League's Cup. The next three days, we don't want to see the guys. He want them to switch down physically, mentally and assess come middle of the week next week.
Yeah, momentum is hard to stop so we want to keep momentum, every official game there is to play we want to win and give ourselves a good showing and we want to compete for things. The team has earned some points on the board now and we can put that aside and just focus on the new competition.
Q. The job Alex is doing with set pieces is something. Every week he's got new plans coming up for set pieces?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, I think there's ideas. There's creativity and there's bravery to implement them, and you need to have players who are willing and brave enough to execute. It's a culmination of everything, and sometimes things just click when if you do the right thing enough times, you'll get (lucky). So the harder you work, the luckier you get.
Saying that, we have some good weapons on the ball and we have some good weapons off the ball, and you need to get the ball into those spots which means getting corners and getting tree kicks in the final third. I think it's a culmination of everything, our game model, our principles and our philosophy and the willingness to execute as well.
Q. Talk about Josh Yaro.
BRADLEY CARNELL: What would you like me to say? You see what a guy he is on the field and what a brave warrior and committed leader he is time and time again. He has been silent. He has not said a word being on the sidelines for so many months, and he comes in and shows like he has not skipped a heartbeat.
He can fit into this game model extremely well and he's loved and supported by everyone in this club and it shows. He plays free, aggressive and how we like our centre-backs to play, and yeah, again he's a voice on and off the field. He's a great human being off the field, as well. He's out in the communities more than anybody I know. So he does his bit on and off the field.
Q. I wanted to ask about the sequence directly before the first goal. Miami has their corner kick, and you and Adeniran, you were saying something in a conversation. What were you telling him? What were those adjustments?
BRADLEY CARNELL: It was just more adjustments to what we were trying to do from a pressing standpoint.
So they were challenging us a little bit with their shape in the attack and they got around -- they got around our midfielder a little bit too easily so we just shifted a few things with Indy.
So just a small change, which means, yeah, they are confrontationalized, their starting points of who their pressing and reference players changed a little bit, so it was more structural than anything else.
Q. With the way Tim Parker heads the ball, can you describe, is it the authoritativeness or assertiveness of his head, heading, whether it's on the defense or on the corner kicks?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, I think it just shows intent, right. It shows intent to do the action that we require and shows the intensity in how he goes about it, right. There's not many guys as fearless and brave as Tim in the League, and he'll step through a brick wall if he has to for his team, and he's done it a bunch of times, right. But he also knows if he plays away towards our principles, he will be rewarded, right.
So, so many years, a veteran in the League to get his first All-Star call up is amazing, and it just shows credit to the road that we are paving and the opportunities that we are creating but again, players need to have buy in. Players need to implement the system. It's the full circle of belief and trust we are crying to create and culminate in this group, and Tim leads that by his actions.
Q. Tim had two goals in his MLS career up until this season and three this season. Seems like he should -- he had eight more years.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Sometimes things are -- there's moments of changes in your life, you know. You find a new purpose and you find a why, and every day you step over those white lines, you play for that purpose. And that's something maybe to ask Tim about but maybe he's found a new purpose in what he's doing.
And then sometimes you're a little bit more free, a little bit more agile, you're a little bit more fresh in the brain and you see things quicker than the opponent. You almost will yourself to success.
Q. Looks like Eduard Löwen is back to being Eduard Löwen.
BRADLEY CARNELL: He was he was pretty angry with me that I only gave him 30 minutes tonight. We are trying to manage an Edu's minutes, and we don't want to be reckless with it. Because you can see in key moments in the transitions, how clean the transitions are going forward and how many more goal-scoring attacks we get.
I thought we have compensated that really well over time but then when he's on it and feeling the groove then he's pretty difficult to stop.
So it was great to have him on there. I don't think we should jump to conclusions too soon. We should just progress him along in the right way and downplay it because if I say anything too nice, he will marking my words and force me to play him longer.
Q. Rasmus from minute one was pressing the entire game, ran for the entire 60 minutes he played and at the same time you were playing him further up the field and more of a forward role than winger role than we've seen from him. How much did he open up and dictate your game plan?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, it's important, right, when we know Rasmus is a weapon running in behind, he wants to do this. He's a winger by trade but we know with the big Sam Adeniran partnership with Rasmus, he creates a ton of problems for the defenders. We used similarly to the San Jose game away and we had great success there. So it was roll out that game plan, match plan from that game and freeze up now space for AZ Jackson underneath. The shape didn't quite work as how I would like to and we changed things after a couple of minutes and that seemed to set a bet structure for us moving forward.
Q. Four of the last five minutes, you started Yaro, Watts, AZ, Adeniran in those games. Adeniran have been involved in seven of eight goals and you have three of four clean sheets in those games. Talk about those four players, how they have changed the lineup?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, you have to talk about the team who went 5-0, too. These are all moments and blocks of our season and we stand together as a team. Some of the boys are supporting members in the match day roster and some are playing, right.
So we've created history with guys like Jake Nerwinski, Johnny Nelson who emptied the bank, and Lucas Bartlett, a couple of important games. JB, Jon Bell, plays excellently against LAFC.
So we have to look at this thing as a whole. I could not just say yeah, we look at 7 out of 8. We have to look at history as well, our short history which has been nothing but, yeah what people dream about.
Q. Roman seemed to pull some new ones out of his bag of tricks tonight, the save with his entire being inside the goal except for one fist. How good was he tonight?
BRADLEY CARNELL: He was really good. He had some really good distribution moments as well and I would say the one he saved on the goal line down low was the most impressive one. The one he catches mid-air and holds on to it, that was for you guys, the cameras.
He's great. He's earned himself this All-Star call-up. He's earned himself momentum through performances; a resurrection of his career as well. He's still young enough to add many years to his career. He could have played anywhere in the world as a starter.
We were fortunate enough to grab him and with momentum and confidence, he grows as a human being and he gross as a leader and captain of this team and again he gets rewarded. You know we tried to reward him with clean sheets every single time we step on that field because we know how much of warrior he is by nature, by desire, he pushes us day-in and day-out on the training field and yeah, long may this journey continue for him.
Q. Sam Adeniran just keeps on scoring goals, producing. What's he done with this opportunity you've had since you've brought him back?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, listen, we have to work from a tactical standpoint. We have to really work hard with Sam in terms of the nuances of what we are trying to do but then there's just the raw talent and raw energy and power and strength of Sam who occupies two, three opponents every single time he steps on the field, which then frees us Rasmus and Jackson.
So he's taking this and running with it, right. He's a weapon. He needs a ton of confidence and I think through his performances and the freedom that we've given him, he's rewarding his team and rewarding himself as well.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports