There was a lengthy delay in the time it took St. Louis CITY SC interim head coach John Hackworth to exit the field after Saturday’s 4-1 home loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps and enter the media room in the bowels of CITYPARK.
Hackworth, however, had a good reason.
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“We had to have a little come-to-Jesus moment in the locker room there,” he eventually told reporters.
The club’s performance over the weekend was concerning for several reasons. Yes, it was CITY’s second three-goal loss in as many games. But it was also a window into the psyche of a team that looks frustrated and beaten down, as evidenced by the poor body language of players after conceding a flurry of goals.
“It’s not acceptable to our club, not acceptable with the city, not acceptable to the fans who invest so much time, energy, money into us,” Hackworth said.
And yet, CITY—stuck in 13th place in the Western Conference—is a team struggling for answers.
“We have to figure it out within the group, what the problem is—why we have performances like this.” said Eduard Löwen, who would go on to share that he thought the team was “caught sleeping” on two of Vancouver’s goals in the 4-1 defeat. Although CITY can point to injuries as a major contributing factor to its struggles in 2024, the club’s defensive lapses have been among the consistent themes during its slide down the conference standings.
And as noticeable as the on-field missteps have been to anyone watching, there have been some other fractures seemingly forming behind the scenes.
“I think we definitely need to have a sit-down with the guys, and we need to talk about their performance,” said Löwen, who lamented how the team has drifted from its principles. “[Saturday’s performance] is just not going to work out, and it’s just unacceptable. What we did [Saturday] is unacceptable.”
Some additional context could be gleaned from Chris Durkin: “You could see on the pitch right now it’s a fragmented group. It’s not a group that’s together. It’s frustrating to me, especially. We’ve talked about [how] it’s a sellout crowd, and to walk into the tunnel with a performance like that is frustrating and embarrassing for the fans. So, we need to do everything possible. Words are cheap right now. I think action is the most important thing. We can talk all we want, but it’s the action that counts.”
The combination of a recent coaching change and a lack of wins is bound to bring problems into the open, especially when some of the club’s most prominent voices have been taken away by injury. The absences of Célio Pompeu and João Klauss are especially noticeable during a time like this.
Even amid the turmoil, Hackworth is optimistic that the club can emerge from this tailspin.
“We are still a team that’s not at full strength,” Hackworth said. “I don’t want to make any excuses, but we’ll have more options heading into [this week] because we’ll have a couple players coming back from injury. Then we have a summer transfer window that opens, and we’ll have players that we already brought in that will be available for Saturday in Kansas City.”
The ever-improving Nökkvi Thórisson, who scored his second goal of the season on Saturday, offered some additional optimism after the match.
“It’s a bad performance, but now it’s time to stick together and problem solve,” he said. “I would not say the team is falling apart or anything like that. We got back into the game [Saturday], so that’s the positive. But now it’s just a matter of problem solving together and focusing on the positive and bouncing back from this.”
As good as that sounds, the reality is that CITY is running out of time. The club needs at least three points from this week’s road trip to Seattle and Kansas City. Have the players already made the mission of making the playoffs too difficult for themselves? Only time will tell. In the meantime, the arrivals of Cedric Teuchert, Jake Girdwood-Reich, and Marcel Hartel, along with the upcoming returns of Klauss, Joakim Nilsson, Kyle Hiebert, and Rasmus Alm, will give Hackworth additional options.
For a squad in desperate need of answers, it’s at least something.
“We have to get our mentality right,” Hackworth said. “These guys are good soccer players. There’s no doubt about that. But we have to bring them together, play collectively, and then try to go out and show our fans, ourselves, that this kind of performance is not acceptable.”
