CITY flexed its muscles last night, overwhelming visiting Toronto FC and shutting down native son Josh Sargent in his first match ever at Energizer Park. Let's take a look at the goals that enabaled St. Louis to stretch its unbeaten streak to 18 matches across all competitions and 16 straight in MLS play:
Carlo Holse - Goal (41')
What can I say about Alex Mățan that I haven't said in the past couple of weeks? He's gone from an interesting free acquisition that most CITY fans viewed as a depth piece to serve as a backup 10 or 8 to an absolutely vital part of this club, the engine from which a lot of the CITY attack originates.
Mățan receives this ball out on the left wing, and as he makes his move on Toronto defender Richie Laryea, Sang-bin makes a crucial run from the center out to the left, clearing out space behind him. Mățan cuts towards the center of the pitch with the ball, squaring off and sliding parallel to the box.
As Laryea closes down on him, he makes a no-look pass between Toronto's Alonso Coello (#14) and Matheus Pereira (#3) into that space vacated by Sang-bin, which looked to be for Rafa Navarro, who had been kept onside by Benjamin Kuscevic (#13) - but out of nowhere, making a streaking run from the center right channel came Carlo Holse. Holse, on his stronger left foot, had the better body position than Navarro, who backed off the ball at the last second - enabling Holse to take the shot back across his body for a 1-0 CITY lead.
This was excellent movement from both Sang-bin and Holse, but full credit to Mățan here. His on-ball skill, pitch awareness, vision, and the pure skill needed to put that pass in an absolutely perfect position with the correct weight are just another example of how much of a game-changer the little Romanian has become for St. Louis.
Tomas Totland - Goal (54')
This was about a "team goal" as you can ever hope to see, with 4 CITY attackers contributing to the second goal of the match after Jaziel Orozco played a nicely curved ball to Simon Becher, who, with his back to goal had vision of Conrad Wallem making a run centrally to his right.
Becher makes a cheeky overhead flick of the ball that Wallem runs on to at the top of the box, and has a couple of options here - an immediate shot or a pass to the cutting Alex Mățan, who was making a rare (for him) trip into the penalty area on his left. Unselfishly, Wallem lays the ball off for Mățan, who also could have taken a shot.
Instead, he makes an incredible, subtle touch with the outside of his right foot that stops the ball dead - please, please watch this at 1:00 of the clip because the skill shown here is unreal. This enables Mățan to then flick a soft pass along the ground to Totland, who had moved to fill the empty space in behind the play. Totland hammers it home for a 2-0 CITY lead.
On MLS 360 last night Dax McCarty initially expressed surprise that neither Wallem nor Mățan took a shot here, both choosing to pass to a teammate, calling CITY the "most unselfish team in the league," and this play is the perfect example of that.
Simon Becher - Goal (68')
CITY's third goal was a direct result of their pressing - as we've seen this season, CITY doesn't press recklessly or too high up the pitch, they force you into the spaces they want and limit your options to create turnovers. That's exactly what happens here, as the initial step up from Holse and Becher forces Toronto's Nickseon Gomis (#15) to play the ball back to goalkeeper Luka Gavran.
As Gavran settles the ball, Holse makes a great read and sprints directly at Gomis. He arrives just after Gavran's pass back to the Toronto defender does, and as Gomis turns upfield with the ball, the onrushing Holse clearly forces Gomis to panic. His pass out to Matheus Pereira (#3) to his left is poorly struck, with neither the right pace or angle.
Gomis' pass was cut off by Wallem, who made a nice step up into the passing lane as Gomis turned, and this put the CITY man in the perfect position to intercept and hit a first-time pass to a wide-open Becher. Becher played an awkward touch with the outside of his right foot, but had plenty of time to pick a spot and hammered it past Gavran for CITY's final goal of the night.
Again, the selective pressing that we saw lead to a goal in Colorado produced again, and the willingness to work hard despite the brutal weather conditions last night speaks to a team that's fully committed to Damet's system and each other.
Theo Corbeanu - Goal (90'+7')
Sadly, the clean sheet that CITY and Roman Bürki wanted last night slipped away at the death, off a curled free kick to the back post from Alonso Coello that Theo Corbeanu got his head to. Poor marking by Damion Downs and especially Fallou Fall, who seemingly gave up on the play, let Corbeanu slide into space by himself - something that shouldn't happen with 6'4" Downs and 6'4" Fall standing on either side of him.
As the ball curled in, Downs slows to turn to watch the ball right as Fall inexplicably stops running, and Corbeanu makes a nice header past a frustrated Roman Bürki to give Toronto their only goal of the night. Certainly this will give Coach Damet something to talk about in training after what was otherwise a pretty positive effort top to bottom against their Canadian visitors.
