St. Louis City SC finally gets a road win, beats San Jose 2-1
The way this season has gone for St. Louis City SC, if it was ever going to win a game on the road, you could be pretty certain it wasn't going to be easy.
City SC took a 2-0 lead 13 minutes into the game on goals by newcomers Cedric Teuchert and Marcel Hartel and then held on for dear life, beating San Jose 2-1 at PayPal Park in San Jose, California, on Saturday night. San Jose applied plenty of pressure over the final 70 minutes of the game and only the play of Roman Burki in goal for City SC preserved the win as City SC went to 4-0 all-time against San Jose.
While City SC avoided moving two games away from being just the 11th team in league history to go winless for a full season on the road, City SC moved to the brink of being mathematically eliminated from a playoff spot. Ninth-place Minnesota beat Sporting Kansas City 2-0, which means the only way for City SC to reach the playoffs is for it to win its final four games and Minnesota to lose its final four games. The win also means that City SC won't finish in last place in the Western Conference.
City SC jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the fourth minute for the second straight game – and the fourth time in the past five games City SC has scored in the first 10 minutes when Teuchert scored. Jannes Horn crossed from the left wing and Rasmus Alm let the ball run, taking two defenders with him and leaving Teuchert open in the box to score his fourth MLS goal (and sixth over all competitions) from about 10 yards out.
City SC made it 2-0 in the 13th minute on a penalty kick by Hartel. Hartel had gone down in the box shortly before, but referee Ricardo Montero didn't call anything. But VAR Carol Anne Chenard did and had Montero go to the monitor, where he saw San Jose defender Rodrigues had come in late on Hartel and caught his foot. Hartel took the PK and rolled it inside the left post while goalkeeper William Yarbrough went the other way and City SC was up 2-0.
Nothing is safe for City SC this season, as proved by its 1-1-1 record this season when going up 2-0 in a game. Sure enough, after going up 2-0, San Jose began having dangerous chances and Burki had to make two diving saves to keep the Earthquakes off the board. But in the 40th minute, Carlos Akapo crossed to Jeremy Ebobisse in the box and he put the ball in to make it 2-1.
Chris Durkin, who left the Minnesota game at the half with a knee injury – it turned out to be only badly inflamed – was in the starting lineup, but came out in the 24th minute, replaced by Akil Watts, when City SC led 2-0. Durkin was sitting on the field right before the substitution was made, but walked off the field on his own.
Eduard Lowen was not on the game-day roster as the team gave him a night off for load management reasons. Henry Kessler, who had been in concussion protocol all week after also leaving the Minnesota game at the half, was not on the game-day roster and Tomas Totland returned to the starting lineup at right back after being on the bench the past three games. Rasmus Alm made his first start since returning from his knee injury and Simon Becher started the game on the bench for the first time since he joined the club from Denmark.
Soccer reporter
