St. Louis City FC 1, Austin 0
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, good afternoon, everyone. I'll keep this really short. I think the team spoke enough on the field and I couldn't compliment them enough so I'll hand it straight over to you guys. The team was fantastic today.
Q. Looked like just a relief for Klauss when he got a goal to go in.
BRADLEY CARNELL: Amazing, yeah. We invested a lot in the last couple weeks. Focused a lot, and I've seen steps towards, you know, movement in the right way, especially inside the box, and when you see these things in the first half where it's just a pass shy or just a pass off, but really encouraging stuff. And then to get rewarded through the efforts, not just for today but through the whole couple of weeks now, credit to the team that they have gone to these measures to ensure two clean sheets in a row.
Q. And two clean sheets in a row but this one has to feel a lot different from the last one because Austin didn't have a whole lot of anything?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Austin, they are focused a lot on their defensive structure and credit to them. They have a good game plan and hope to catch us in transition. But I'm not sure, I don't think we gave a shot away on forget and not too much at all. So again, these types of games are always cagey affairs until something happens, and you know, today we made sure it happened in our favor and I thought we put out as good a defensive performance that we have in a long time.
Q. Guys like Roman Burki had great saves, Klauss with the goal, an unsung guy recently, how do you think Totland played today?
BRADLEY CARNELL: I could mention 11 names, plus the guys that came on the field, plus the guys who didn't even start the game. For us, I think this was a really signature team performance, and so for me to isolate any one individual would be unfair to the team.
Q. Could you speak a little bit about Klauss's work, not the goal, but his defensive work?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Yeah, he should be on 15 goals for the amount of work he puts in because that's the reward he deserves. Evenly really happy to see him getting on the score sheet. You can see he invests a lot.
Again, the staff we invest a lot in the individual, and it's nice to see it when it all comes around. We know the value. We've seen it last year in Klauss. It's just a matter of time. He got the PK goal a couple of weeks ago and now he's in the run of play scoring goals in the 18-yard area.
Again, it's progression. Good players night have a rough patch here and there but quality will always shine through in the end.
Q. I heard that Lutz (ph) predicted his scoring today?
BRADLEY CARNELL: That's good. He should have done it a couple weeks ago.
Q. I know the game obviously just ended but looking a little bit ahead to the Kansas City game --
BRADLEY CARNELL: I think if you look where our group is over time now, it's our eighth game, two clean sheets in our last two games, and for me that's always encouraging. Because from a good foundation, a solid base and you build a platform from there, and our platform is strong. We stick together. We stay strong and we ride waves of adversity and we move on.
To see it come through on the other side, I think it's a reward for the fans and everyone invested in us. It was good to have a bit of payback today to everyone out there today. So yeah, thank you for that.
Q. How much is this a weight off the shoulders of the players?
BRADLEY CARNELL: I don't know, I think I said it the other day, if you're emotionally invested, I think then it becomes this weight on your shoulders. If you look at time, the team is playing well. The team is doing well. The team is creating chances. The team is defending really well.
For me, it's a matter of time before you get rewarded. So staying true to who you are in the process, inevitably you get the results.
So yeah, I don't think it's this massive weight off anyone's shoulders.
Q. When you look back at this game, there are no shots on target, nothing generated towards your net. Is this kind of a statement game, kind of a blueprint game that you can say, this is how we want to play and how we want to win?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Each opponent gives you a different problem to solve. There's different puzzles, and Austin can score goals. We saw just last week four against San Jose. To mitigate them to zero shots on target is incredible. But each set of teams, each team has their star players, DP strikers, DP tens.
So each game comes with its own set of puzzles and that's what we do every single day to work against. And we go again from Tuesday, planning four days in a row, and then play Sporting KC. So the next puzzle is just before us, and we have to solve that one, too.
Q. How close was Löwen to being in the lineup today?
BRADLEY CARNELL: I think, you know, Löwen, Edu, always wants to, and sometimes, you know, he's just such a great character, good guy on and off the field and sometimes he puts his body in harm's way, and all of the sudden he has a setback or a break down. We are just trying to manage him wisely in the right way.
I think with a push and a shove we could have got him on, but yeah we didn't want to put him in that predicament.
Q. What was the situation with --
BRADLEY CARNELL: For me, the focus today was on the players who were here, you know, on the roster, and emptied the tank for each other.
Q. We were talking about it up there but we're pretty sure that was your first yellow card --
BRADLEY CARNELL: I said that just in the locker room.
Q. Was it you were arguing too much?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Sometimes, you know, if I can't play the game, if I put it in my hands and I can play, I can put it in my hands and try and help the boys out. But I can't play. So what am I doing to try and help the boys with that performance and try and help off the field to get us in a winning position?
So I ask questions. I pose situations and I poke holes, right. And we've seen it over time now how teams manage the game here at CITY PARK. So it's always just a reality check to the officials to just keep a little bit of accountability, and yeah maybe I pushed it too far, and for that I apologize. But yeah, it's all in a competitive day's work.
Q. Thought you might get another yellow with that confusion when Kyle is hurt and comes off the field but they don't let Joakim go on, and so you're a man down there for a little bit?
BRADLEY CARNELL: And credit to Kyle because he's like, I can't go but I'll go. He went for another 25 seconds and that just showed the mentality of the group today, which you take that one moment, I think we had so many moments of that today for sticking up and being great teammates with each other.
Q. In the closing minutes, you guys were going to goal constantly there, and almost got goals. Was there a point you're like, take it to the corner?
BRADLEY CARNELL: Sure. Got to go left, not straight through the middle, left or right to the corner flag. Again, we have a hungry group of guys, and yeah, we want to not just win the game. We want to score a goal. We want to put ourselves in the best position to succeed.
So with a young group like this, it's moments like this where we have to learn and grow, and for sure that's one of the talking points on Tuesday's video, yeah.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports