Real Salt Lake 1, St. Louis FC 1
BRADLEY CARNELL: Thank you to the the fans. I think that kept us in the game through the second half, and yeah, not all evenings are going to be picture perfect and not all evenings are going to be successful in the eyes of how we imagine things, but what I love about this group is the fire and the fight to get back into something, right.
I see a lot of hungry guys sitting on the sidelines. I see a team who is committed to go to the end. So yeah, while it wasn't pretty, it wasn't the best day at the office good teams find a way to get a point and a result, and we could have maybe made it all three at the end there.
So yeah, credit to the boys for staying in it and fighting through it. Yeah, we move on to Tuesday's game. It's a big game in Houston, and yeah, we have to be best prepared.
So yeah, we'll just have to do a bit of monitoring who is fit, who is available and move on from there.
Q. Speaking of that, and how is Tim? Can you talk about depth on this team, but certainly defensively your depth was put to a test tonight on the back line. Just talk about how that progressed.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, for sure. Listen, we had to thing quick on our feet and just come up with a situation that, you know, we weren't sure of the fitness of Joakim to go a full 90 because of obviously his paperwork in Sweden. So he missed two weeks of preseason. Edu Löwen, the same. So we had to go to precautionary measures at the end there. Throw in Jake, an extra center back, and kind of restructure our game plan. And again, through that, we get our way into it the game and we score the goal to equalize.
So you know, credit to the guys for adopting that, and guys to be fluid and flexible in the moment.
So, yeah, now we just have to evaluate Tim's I think he's going to be okay, without chatting to our doctor. Tim knows his body really well, and he said he just felt a very tight muscle. So hopefully there's nothing broken there.
Q. Looking scary with Josh going down twice?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, Josh is committed in everything we do and you could see that. He took a head knock, and the very first chance he comes out, he risks his body yet again and sticks his head out there. I'm glad he got through the game. Obviously he'll have to be evaluated and a monitored over the next 24 hours, and hopefully he's okay again, and good to go.
Q. And then you get Nerwinski, the play of the game, there saving a goal in the last minute.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, listen, we were upset the way we gave up a goal, right. So yeah, we thought we had many good looks and gained some form of momentum through that second half, and all of a sudden, they are standing three guys in our box, and guys, you know, salvaging something on the goal line.
So you know, we are going to have to look at that and see the film, but for sure, that was a bad moment to give away, and we'll have to evaluate that and have a look. But like I said, credit to the guys for staying in it.
Q. An impressive individual effort from Sam to score that goal, in that moment when the typically needed a spark can you speak to his performance.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, very good. I mean, I've had conversations with Sam and Klauss, and just said sometimes we might -- the game might need two strikers. Sometimes it might need just one, right. So whether that's Sam or Klauss, both players are prepared to do whatever the team needs.
And you could see Sam's willingness, his energy just to change something to spark something and that was lacking on the night.
I thought as a group, we let ourselves down with some of our intensity, right. So if we are a little bit late to certain challenges, then we just start running more. We became a bit too stretched in the first half. We weren't as compact as we should have been.
Yeah, and then you have to start now making measures in the second half and hoping guys can get to certain minutes, and then you make changes and hope to change the complexion of the game, and I think that's what we did.
Q. You mentioned lack of sharpness. Is that just early season trying --
BRADLEY CARNELL: I didn't say sharp -- I don't think I said sharpness. I said "intensity." If we lack that in our game model, then we are pretty much nothing. And if we can't get around guys who are pretty talented on the ball; we thrive in these moments if we're up for the challenge, and I thought for a lot of the game that we were second best.
And we know this team. So it's a better result here than we got a year ago against them. We look at the positive side. It's a tough group to play against. It's a tough coach to play against. So we know them pretty well, and yeah, we take this point away and we see this as a good point.
Q. Going back to the defensive decisions, especially with Josh getting nicked up the second time, and I know you had Jake warming up on the sideline, was there a thought process in the back four putting Jake at center back? Can you walk us through the thought process there in the moment?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, it's a good question. We spoke about the fitness of Joakim, and putting somebody out there and not getting a Thomas Totland out of the game who could have continued or what-have-you. We just tried to plug the Band-Aid and see how it was with Joakim, and if Joakim couldn't go, then at least we could slip into back forward, Jake, as the extra center back.
So that was the thought process if we had to pull the plug early on Joakim but credit to him, he fought through it. He felt okay and he really got through the game with flying colors. I thought he put a good performance out there. You know, he won a lot of duels against a tricky Gomez, who is never easy to come up against. Yeah, we know what we have with Joakim.
And yeah, we're just trying to get guys along, and you say, the rust is still there. You see a lot of teams through the game day, what type of performances or what type of score lines there are, and how the balances are. It's really 50/50 games right now so early on. So things are tight.
Q. You were talking about the intensity. Didn't seem like you asked AZ to range as far, he started on the left, and on Tuesday night, he was ranging all the way over to the right consistently. Seemed like AZ was a little bit more restricted in his movement tonight. Was that a game plan thing or what?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, AZ played underneath Klauss today, so he was a central ten. So yeah, he has flexibility to move within the red zones, we call them.
But yeah, AZ found some spots. We just couldn't get the next one off, right. We just couldn't get that next pass and that often broke down and we had some transitions going the other way, very cheap giveaways, and yeah, the boys were disappointed at halftime. They know we could do better.
We showed them some really good moments of the first half where if we just calmed down and played through the lines and played through the pressure, then we can have really dangerous moments. I just thought we were very cheap tonight with the ball and we gave it away a lot.
Q. You mentioned Totland briefly. Other than the scary turnover in your midfield, the last couple games he's been pretty solid. What do you have to say about his impressive adjustment so far early in the season?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, he's played at a high level. We recruited him for a reason. We signed him for a reason and know what we can bring; that it's going to be such a good fit so quickly.
Credit to the teammates he has around him. Just to get him on board and just to get him acclimated, and he's a good player. He's integrated really well with the team. Sometimes some players, you know, from overseas take a little bit longer. He hit the ground running. He came in fit. He came in sharp. He came in with a point to prove.
And credit to him, he's been pushed by Jake all the time. So Jake is an honest customer. He gives everything every single day. So we have good depth at that position.
Q. Just like you said, you mentioned a lot of intensity in this these type of games. How is the team feeling to face two competitive championships like the CONCACAF, Champions Cup and now MLS, how is the team feeling physically and overall mentally?
BRADLEY CARNELL: I see this as a privilege. We put ourselves into the situation, and we should enjoy these moments and we should celebrate it, right. Having to deal with two Cup competitions and four games in 12 days or 11 days, it's never easy to mitigate or navigate through.
But four days, Tuesday to Saturday, we should have no problem with this stretch now. But now coming up, it's going to be a question.
So we made some roster changes tonight, and we had some different bodies out there and part of that was to navigate through the next couple days here.
So we feel we can compete with our whole roster. We feel we can win games with our whole roster, and I think we showed that in parts tonight as well that we can compete to the very end with just about anybody that's left on our roster and you know, starting games or coming off the bench.
Q. First off, great match tonight. Now, you have been here in St. Louis for about a season now and now starting your second season. How has your experience been here coaching in St. Louis compared to the teams that you have been at in the past?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, I just think the environment that we are in, you know, St. Louis has a proud soccer history. Yeah, we are driven by the community, and they drive us every single day.
Yeah, we want to bring a product out to St. Louis that people feel proud of. In the short span that we've been here, I don't think that I'd been here one year, even when I wasn't working as an official coach as day one in the MLS, we spent a year behind the scenes building out the foundations and the structure and building culture.
We believe strong in culture around here. We push each other every single day, and we set the bar high for each other. We think that city deserves us. We think that the fans deserve that and you can see how they come out and support us game-in and game-out, so the very least we can do is empty the tank for them.
Q. Circling down to Indiana Vassilev, on Tuesday gets banged up, but he's back in training right away. Him and Sam come off the bench today to provide the spark in the game. What does it mean to have a player like him and Sam on the bench, itching to get in and make a difference?
BRADLEY CARNELL: From a year ago where we had no depth or MLS Next Pro players on our roster to all of a sudden now those same players have given us depth and given us quality and driven competition internally and pushed results externally.
So I'm proud of these guys. These guys are my go-to every single day. I'm not talking about Sam and Indy. I'm just talking about the whole roster. You know, these guys give me purpose every day because I see what they do for each other. I see how they push each other. And like I say, even when days don't go your way, not every day can go your way, but you can fight. You can fight to get a result and I see that's what they did.
Indy is a good character to be around the team.
Q. Was Hiebert not available today?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, Hiebert is unavailable probably for ten days, and then we'll reevaluate after that.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports