Club Ameríca 4, St. Louis City 0
Q. Club Ameríca just looked really good out there today.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, they looked like a hundred years old, right, in their history. We look like seven months old in our journey, which all is true, right.
So in some ways, yeah, I think it's clear for us as coaches, players, fans, staff, just to see where the level is at and where we are at. It's almost a relief in many ways because been leaving in a fairy tale, in a dream world and sort of proving people wrong the whole way and then you match up against an opposition like this and you get to kind of see where your levels are at, right, so individually, tactically, collectively which is not a bad thing.
Yes, the 4-0, the result is harsh and feels like boys amongst men but it's almost a great learning moment for our group just to show that there are other levels to strive for and to know what the thresholds are. We take this one on the chin and again, we had pretty decent moments, and then really sub-par moments, right.
So we try to find balance and a medium but unfortunately there was too much real estate between when we looked okay and when we looked really poor and there was a lot of land in between. That's now for us the job, to close those gaps and to try and become a little more consistent when we come up against really good teams like this.
Q. Just the way they move the ball, some of their passing intricacies, just tough to keep up with?
BRADLEY CARNELL: It's almost like street football, right. You're playing court soccer on 114 by 74, right, and it's a little drop of the shoulder. It's a little touch of the outside of the boot. It's a give-and-go and it's a one, two. Again, this is a team that's been together for probably three years now, and they have added little bits and pieces, right, and you can see that continuity.
You can see the gelling and the cohesion between the ranks, and again, I think if you just look at calibre of individual, there's 11 BPs that played for them in the starting lineup based on salary terms. So again, we don't use this as excuses. We use this as learning and growing.
Q. What are the positive takeaways you take away from this game, either team-based or individually players?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Positives, Eduard Löwen gets 90 minutes. For me that's a positive. And again we had pretty decent moments. We created a little bit when we came over the wider areas and I thought we created a few chances and we pressed the ball two, three, four times. We picked up the transition moments but the next part two of our transition was a little bit lacking, you know.
So again, like I said, we had really good moments and then really moments where you could see the quality and if you come a step late, if you're not collective, if you're not connected, if your background is too deep, if the front line is too high, if we are not compact enough, the good teams will find a way to punish you. If you close down one area here, they open up one area there. If you close that one, they open up another one. These are savvy soccer players, and like I say, you can put everything aside and just say on the day, it's a better team.
Q. Earlier this week you talked about the focus on Plan A and should that not work out, we turn to Plan B. Have you given any thought on what that's going to look like?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yes, some guy also play City 2. Club Ameríca use our facility tomorrow so we won't be in. We'll take the next couple days to gather our thoughts, where we've seen this game as frustration, whether we've seen this game as learning moments, whether we've seen this game as individually, good, bad, indifferent, to use whatever this is with the energy and rewatch the game and take all these learning moments and apply it for the running to the 20th of August against Austin.
We have 11 finals to finish off the season, and for us we want to get over that line. These are things to look at. These things are achievable, and again, we put this aside and we swallowed a bitter pill and we move on.
Yes, Plan B is we will resume on the 5th of August.
Q. Is it a benefit that you get to go through almost a second preseason ahead of the return to MLS play?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Not really. It's a two-week window, right, so we get seven days off now, and we go again for two and a bit weeks before the final four training sessions of the run-in to Austin. It's very important to get the bodies, the minds, just rested.
Again, this group has committed so much to what we do, whether it's staff, families, front office, and now is the time to think about your families, right, so just go home and enjoy some family time. Switch off, don't think about soccer for a little bit and there's going to be enough to do in the next couple weeks.
Q. Is Eduard going to not think about soccer?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Not sure. You'll have to ask him that.
Q. What's the stat you us of Blom?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Not sure. In the last game, not sure when you came in, he struggled a little bit and he moved a little bit uneasy. We didn't diagnose any issues. He's a bit tender in his groin areas and it's one of those things we wanted to be precautionary with, because we would rather build up the time now. If we were leading 2-0 we would have thrown caution to the wind because we know a 2-0 result would have been okay but we didn't want to risk the health of the player at 3-0 or 4-0. Our focus is the 20th of August now and we have made that conscious decision to not play him.
Q. You had spoken previously about the styles of the Mexican clubs versus MLS. Is there anything you can take away from this match going to the back half of the MLS season?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Just the use of the ball, and even against the ball, you know, when they lose the ball, you see a hunger to win the ball back straightaway. You see a savviness, you see a feistiness and a desire, and we have shown a lot of that and now these guys add another level with the ball. They have another layer of quality with the ball whether it's individual movement or collective movement or just quality of passing.
So you know, just we'll look at some of these, and hopefully this will inspire us, because we have all seen it now live in the flesh what a really good South American team looks like and what a great team looks like over years, right. So this is compared to Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, all these teams, Manchester United, I can name them all but this is one of the biggest ones here in this region, so good for us to see.
Q. We talked beginning of the year, you would pay the high press, a lot of pressing tonight, your guys never gave up. What is your impression of the team's fitness level going into the break?
BRADLEY CARNELL: I think we rode waves of fatigue for sure, which is totally normal and understandable. And then through subs, you're able to get a little bit of ignition of some new energy, a little bit of new dynamic, and then we go again and then guys come in and fatigue quickly because they give everything really early when they get subbed on.
And again, the guys, we gave it everything in terms of physical output and yeah, again, we had really good moments and really poor moments.
So again, there's just a couple of different area codes between those two, so we just have to minimize some of the stuff and learn out of it and really believe when we go, the other ones coming just behind and unfortunately it was almost like a chain reaction. A little bit too slow, not really proactive. The times we were proactive in our thoughts and in our moment collectively, and it was good synchronization. Then we were able to turn over the ball and show really aggressive body posture and then we win the ball. Unfortunately too many times we just got caught chasing a little bit.
Q. Elimination from the tournament was not what you expected. I want you to talk about Klauss's situation and if you think St. Louis would have performed better in the Leagues Cup.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, obviously it's disappointing, if I can understand you properly, correctly, it's disappointing to get knocked out of an elimination, and especially playing here at CITY PARK with a great atmosphere and great fans. We have had eight out of 13 games we have won by three goals or more or two goals or more. We know we have the capacity to score goals, we showed it once or twice tonight, a well, but again these are good learning moments for us.
Regarding the matter of Klauss, he started some return to play protocol, which means now getting on the field movements, movements with the ball, movements without the ball. Trying to get him more and more physical every single day, so development in his body, development in his fitness and development in his mentality, because obviously for being out such awhile now, you know, confidence is a big thing in your body.
So we are just trying to get him confident and feeling good about himself and then accelerating each and every day here.
So the team will get off but obviously he will continue his build-up program and hopefully getting towards closer to the 20th of August that he will be ready.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports