After nine consecutive matches without a victory, something had to change in the St. Louis CITY SC group dynamic. That’s the business of soccer, and CITY players understand as much.
But even after the club rebounded with a 2-0 win over San Jose in interim head coach John Hackworth’s first match last Wednesday, players emerged from the victory with heavy hearts. They recognized it was their own play, as much as anything, that led to former coach Bradley Carnell’s sacking.
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“For me, individually, it’s been tough,” CITY’s Indiana Vassilev said after logging two assists in the team’s long-awaited fourth win of the season. “That’s the first time I’ve lost a coach midway through a season. For me, it’s been difficult. But at the end of the day, it’s part of the job and, in situations like this, you kind of have to compartmentalize and move on to the next game.”
By dealing with such a major organizational shakeup mere days before a must-win home match, CITY players should be commended for their ability to compartmentalize Carnell’s ouster and focus on the task at hand. Moving forward so quickly and performing so confidently only 48 hours into the coaching transition from Carnell to Hackworth demonstrated a maturity that could serve this group well as it strives to claw back into the playoff picture.
Even so, as players made efforts to focus on game-planning for a midweek match on a quick turnaround, they were also wrestling with their emotions knowing they played a part in the upheaval.
“I told the guys [that] this is the result of us, the players, failing over and over again to perform on the field,” CITY captain Roman Bürki said. “Maybe we did not have the right focus or concentration, and we are responsible for that.”
Bürki has been through this sort of transition period before, having earned his starting role at Borussia Dortmund as Thomas Tuchel took over the BVB reins. All told, Bürki played under seven managers during his career in Germany. It’s a reality that CITY’s European players understand is simply a part of playing for a club with serious ambitions.
“I think Roman said it pretty well after Bradley got fired.” Eduard Löwen said. “Not only Bradley in that season was failing, if you want to put it that way. But it was like all of us together, because there’s a difference if we haven’t been, in the last couple of weeks, a team that was playing bad. We were in almost every single game as the better team, but we just couldn’t win.”
Vassilev took that sentiment a step further.
“I feel a little bit of guilt,” he said. “There’s only so much a coach and his coaching staff can do to prepare the players. … I feel like in certain moments we just weren’t good enough. That’s all I can say. We weren’t good enough this season so far under him. That’s how I feel personally. You guys can ask anybody else the same question. Maybe they have different answers, but that’s how I feel. So yeah, there is guilt and that does drive me.”
Luckily for St. Louis CITY SC, Hackworth appears to be the right man for the moment.
“I’ve had Hack for a very long time,” Vassilev said. “He was probably the one person that you could have put there right now for me, to where I can go in there and I can give everything for him. So that made it easier for me to play for him, because I’ve known him, and we have that.”
Hackworth’s appointment does represent a measure of continuity. Although he may bring a different voice, he’s preaching many of the same, consistent values that are central to the way CITY wants to operate technically and organizationally. The hope, however, is that a change in leadership can spark and motivate a group that has underperformed—and knows it.
“I think Bradley was a fantastic coach for this club,” Vassilev said. “I think he set so many records for us. I think at a certain stage, players have to respond and back their coach up. Sadly, that came a little bit too late for us.”
