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Happy, happy Labor Day, everybody. But yeah, happy about the win and three points that were a mass. Mass have three points, or I think we will be very sad this morning, talking probably about the real season that, yeah, still mathematically, you will have probably still been it, but it will have been too difficult. So now these three points and the team are just looking at the schedule, some games that the team could win, has to win them first. But yeah, just thinks looking a lot better than last week when we were talking about the drug in Portland. And I'm super glad to be back with you, Santi, after you and Phil held it down with our guest Tom Franklin last week on Fly Over, and we get to recap everything you guys look forward to. It's the the Hardell versus Royce battle as far as the incoming transfers. It's Berkey Royce on the friends and the battles that they had. But let's start it all off like we usually do on Fallout with our starting 11 because there's some, there's some things to dive into on this one. Roman Berkey and Net, obviously, and let's start off saying just Jake Nerwinski had his, had a start, finally got back into the starting 11 and we will dive deep on Jake Nerwinski here in a little bit. Jake was on the right side, Henry Kessler, Kyle Hebert, central defenders, Janice Horn, left back, Chris Durkin, Edouleuven, central midfield, Indiana Vasilev, Cedric Toykert, Marcel Hardell were the attacking mids and Simon Betcher remains our striker up top. All right, so first thoughts of the starting 11. That was surprising starting 11 when I saw the lineup. I was like, oh, first I thought we forgot to do our consensus lineup. And then I also thought, well, we will have not been close. Or maybe you already had some thoughts about it. And maybe we will have been a little bit closer. On Thursday during fallout, when we did our predicted starting 11, one thing I mentioned, I knew, like, I had a feeling that one of Thoughtland and Jayden Reed wasn't going to start. And I mentioned Kill Watts. And then yesterday, I saw Lance like, oh, I didn't even think about Nerwinski being part of that competition. And he had a great game. He did. And I don't think I would have, I would have pegged him. I do like the fact that we went back to a more, what I would call traditional St. Louis city defending style, where you do have that two way attacking fullback on one side and then you have more of a defensive minded on the other. You can't really, I think it's correlation maybe without causation necessarily on the defensive struggles that we've had this year, where both of our fullbacks have been more of those modern two way fullbacks who like to press high and get into the attacking third more often than not. I do think that the goal of the galaxy scored that we'll get into was at least partly predicated on the fact that our left side fullback was pressed higher. And it kind of left Kyle Hebert out on an island really deep into our zone. But there's, I mean, there's a lot you can take away on different aspects of what this formation really did. Jaker Winsky, I think is one of the brightest spots in a very bright game for St. Louis city, not just for the fact that he had a good game. He started, he had a fantastic performance against Joseph Pencil, one of the galaxies top attackers. But I think he provided some stability on the back line. He kept the shape really well for St. Louis and he had some good passes. I think that went unnoticed with the work he did on pencil, but he had seven passes into the final third, second most of the team to Edu Louvin. And the work that he did just cumulatively, especially leading into the first goal for Cedric Twinkert that we'll talk about. I mean, you can't say enough good things about Jaker Winsky on this one. And I was going to save it for later on when we talk about our players. But I mean, let's spend, let's just spend a couple of minutes here on Jaker Winsky while we're talking about him. I mentioned some of the stats he had, two blocks, two clearances, three interceptions, six recoveries, three of four ground duels, one completely shutting down Joseph Paintsill, who was the worst rated galaxy player, according to Fopbob, and was dispossessed five times. Stellar job. Jaker Winsky earned more than the 7% of the fan vote for man of the match in my eyes. I voted for him because I was just so glad to see the performance that he had. And yes, part of it is the intangibles that led into this. Santi, you mentioned you weren't expecting him. You weren't even considering him as the second option for right back based on what we had seen so far. So let's look at the quote that Jaker Winsky had postgame. And let's talk through that for a second. Jake said on his limited playing time, yeah, I mean, to be completely honest with everyone here, this has been easily the most disappointing and frustrating year of my career. You know, I don't think I've necessarily gotten the chances that I think I deserve in training. So it was great, you know, hack, you know, really believes in me. We had great talks. You know, he gave me that chance today and I just took it. You know, when you have two kids, that's, that's all the motivation you need to play as hard as you can to provide for them. And let's also take this moment to congratulate Jake Newinski on the birth of his second daughter, Charlotte, this past Thursday. This going into everything he has in his mind this weekend, hack talking postgame about how he just wanted to make sure that Newinski was getting enough sleep coming into this game. Right. Talk to me a little bit about Jake. Yeah, Jake, obviously last year at the end of the season, he was the starting right back and he was doing a great job. Then after the team had a bad stretch, there was a game. It was the game against San Jose where it made a wholesale changes and Jake Newinski was part of the players that came out. And then after that, Bradley Karan decided to keep a similar lineup. But yeah, I agree with Jake. I had a chance to talk to him a few weeks ago and he was saying, well, it hasn't been the season I expected the season to be. Like I think last year I did a good job when I had opportunities. So I was expecting to have a bigger role this year be on the starting lineup or having significant minutes. And he was a little bit frustrated about that. That was around the time he had played a couple of times at center back. So he was like, yeah, I have played some games, but I haven't really played any minutes at a right back. So he said it was a little bit frustrating for him to not be considered. And then when he was, he was kind of out of position. But he had a great shift yesterday. He's going to give John Hackworth a lot to think about thinking about the games that are coming up. So we'll see. We'll see if Hackworth stays with Norwinski or goes back to Thomas Stockland. But I think Norwinski deserves to be in consideration ahead of future games. And he gives us that different kind of a look too. You're not going to necessarily want to go with this defensive minded right back or have the same exact personnel lineup on games going forward. But it could be match up based also. So knowing the attacking prowess at the Galaxy 3. I mean, this was the perfect opportunity. So can't say much more about Jake on that. One thing I will also say, and I was, this is a proud dad moment for me in this one year. Prior to the game, I was asked, our family was asked if one of our kids wanted to do it. If one of our kids wanted to do the player pal walk out. And so Maddie, actually my oldest, going, she's in second right now. She got to walk one of the players out. And so we didn't know that you don't get assigned a player beforehand or anything. It's not like it's not, you could even go with a Galaxy player. I know some, some of the kids are doing that. Guess who she walked out. No. Are you serious? Jake Norwinski. I saw him before the game and I looked down and I, cause I didn't know who she was walking out either. I don't get to go down there with her. So I was watching from afar. I think she's with Jake. Jake, I mean, going into that game, great guy. Awesome dude. Was excited for that chance. But I wasn't as, I wasn't expecting to have this kind of a takeaway where I was like, this was, this was the match where you're pointing to Jake Norwinski and saying, you couldn't have asked for more on that. So it was just a hilarious, uh, wholesome type moment where, uh, Maddie's met Jake before getting autographs and things like that. And one of, one of her favorite players. But I just found that to be so funny going, taking away from this. And it was, I can't stop smiling. Thank you about the fact that she got to do that for a guy who was, has been going through this. We know the, the struggles that he's had that he talked about post game, the success he had, this game, the birth of his second child. I mean, so much positive to say that I'm, I'm glad we get to start the show off. Looking at that kind of a thing in context of this two, one win. Yeah. I'm happy for, for Jane Norwinski that he was able to put together a good performance. I know it's been a little bit of a frustrating season for him. I remember, um, I went to a city game, city two game. My team was back in May, June and, and he played and I had a chance to, um, speak to him for a couple of minutes afterwards. Um, because I was with our, our Gatsun and we were trying to get out of grass for him. I was like, yeah, just trying to get some minutes. Uh, uh, be ready for whenever the coach needs me. Uh, so that shows, um, also how humble he is that even though he's an experienced guy, he's willing to, uh, go play with this second team to, just to, uh, uh, stay fit and, uh, be ready for whenever the, the coaching staff needs him. I'm really glad you mentioned that because that shouldn't go overlooked. Uh, we, we've talked a lot this season about some players and their choices and hacks mentioning that he can't force players to play for city two and Jake, the fact that he's started there twice this season really shows his commitment and dedication to improving himself, staying fit, staying ready, always hungry, fighting for a job, doing whatever he needs to to prove himself, desiring that spot and ready and capable. So fantastic. Some other notes, Santi, on the lineup itself before we get into the match, I think bench-wise, best depth we've had possibly all season. So much so that it finally happened where Klaus and Allm returned to the bench, knocking Jose Kajima and John Klein off of the match day roster. And so you're looking at needing that mix between defenders and attackers and the pendulums shifted and swung so far now to where we have Klaus and Allm as second half sub options, along with Indiana Vaseline, Nipi Thorsen, those kinds of players. And now we're seeing a little bit of that elevation and overall quality that really mattered in the second half of this game. And also a fun note, it wasn't just Jake Nerwinski who had his start and first started city park in a while for city. A familiar face made his return as well to a starting lineup for in city park rather, John Nelson got the start for the LA Galaxy. Our old friend who has more than a few of us blocked for an unknown reason on X, but who knows to John Nelson for breaking into the starting lineup for the galaxy. I've heard various levels of good things that their fan base has said about him, but overall positive aspects of what he's brought this year to their team. And so, you know, he's a good guy. I'm glad to see he was able to get a start and that's one of those fun revenge matches that I'm glad we were on the right side of it on this one. Yeah, good guy. And I was good to see him with another team getting time. He's like, when you think about what he went through, like his career was almost over, then he came back with Cincinnati, was able to do good things with city at the end of the season last year. Same thing, one of the, like he got a red card and the team when we got here left back and that was kind of over for Nelson. But yeah, he had some interesting duels with Basileve yesterday and I haven't looked at who won the most, but I felt like it was 50-50. Sometimes Basileve will get the best out of him and all the time, John Nelson, like the players know each other, so they know their tendencies and he was able to win some of those duels too. At one point, I think it was at the beat, either at the end of the first half, beginning of the second half, when Indy's mask came off and he was standing there running around the field with his mask in hand, I was just waiting for that to accidentally find somebody's face. And I was like, knowing the luck, it's going to be John Nelson that gets back in the face with Indy's mask as he's running around. Also kind of surprised that the rest of him play on holding his mask, carrying that kind of weapon type thing around. So yeah, I mean, it was a good battle. It was a fun battle to watch Indy and Nelson who know each other pretty well. So that was another interesting 1v1 matchup. Let's look overall, frame this match before we get into the goals and what went on to it. So looking at the stats, you had possession of the overall match, 41% to St. Louis, 59 to the Galaxy, not unsurprising. St. Louis, right in their bread and butter of the low 40s, Galaxy, more possession-based, that's not surprising. One of the surprising things was the expected goals and subsequently expected goals on target. It was a very low game as far as those go. 0.68 for St. Louis, 0.75 for LA Galaxy. And the expected goals on target, I found this fascinating watching this progress. St. Louis, there weren't very many shots on target overall. weren't very many shots in general compared to previous matches. You had St. Louis with 11 shots, 6 on target, Galaxy with 10 and 6 on target as well. So pretty similar there, but the biggest thing for me was the expected goals on target. And what this number is, is we've talked about it on flyover before. It takes the XG to expected goals, the place on the field and the type of shot that you have and how you expect that to go in, and you add on to it the location on goal that your shot goes. So a shot right in the middle of the goal is going to have a very low addition to the XG. Basically, I put those two together, whereas a shot in the corner or a shot near the crossbar type thing will be a little higher. It'll add on a percentage to get a better picture, both pre-shot and post-shot of the expected goal that you'll have. Cedric Toyhert, for instance, on his first goal, it was a .9 expected goals on target. So that based on where he shot the ball, plus his position on the field when he shot it, it was as surefire of a thing as you could expect. And so very difficult to block. All that said, the expected goals on target for St. Louis in this game were 2.98, and the expected goals on target for the LA Galaxy was 1.59. Very much in St. Louis's favor. The quality that went into this match in the shots and the opportunities, there weren't many. So this was very different compared to a normal St. Louis city game. It was fewer shots, fewer volume chances, but the quality of the chances in comparison, especially, was much higher than it had been usually for St. Louis. Yeah, chances were hard to come by, but CD took advantage of the ones it had. And same thing, Galaxy, you talk about the possession of Galaxy with almost 60%, but they were very ineffective creating chances. And a part of that is the great defensive work that St. Louis did yesterday afternoon. They won the tackle battle, interceptions, blocks, clearances. And to me, you paint this picture, right? So you're not just saying they won the defensive battle because volume-wise, that's not necessarily unsurprising. A team that possesses the ball 60% of the time, you would kind of expect the other team to be being hammered a little bit more and have more defensive opportunities to the ball. But taking that number, the winning all of those defensive numbers, along with the Galaxy having the ball, but also the number of shots. The Galaxy were ineffective at generating some of those chances. And I think coupling all these things together, the dominance of the Galaxy with their possession numbers, having only 10 shots, it paints the picture of a quality defensive performance top to bottom for St. Louis. It allowed St. Louis to play holistically and say, now you just have to mitigate those small individual moments, one of which they didn't, but I think all of the other ones they did. And so this is the kind of defensive performance that you need to replicate going forward. You can see possession. You can win defensive numbers, but you keep the opposition from getting high-volume shots on target, and you're really going to be pushing them into that middle third of the field by and large, where you can win your dual battles. You can then take those defensive numbers, and when you win them in the middle third of the field, they mean a whole lot more than winning them near your own goal. Yeah, and the other thing, obviously, we don't see it on the possession numbers, but St. Louis, when he had the ball, showing what it has shown the last few games, being patient with the ball, not abusing of the long ball, not afraid to start the plane again, go back and pass it to the defense, pass it to the other side. So that's something I am really liking the last few games, and so it only looks up too. The team is basically trying to play a different way if it needs to. If it needs to complete a lot of passes, that's okay, and you can see it on the number of passes completed. It was more than 400, which if you think back about earlier in the season that that's unheard of. It is, and that's a very, I mean, we've done it before, but it's incredibly rare and it's usually accompanied by higher possession numbers where we're playing outside of ourselves and their low quality passes, more passes in the defensive third, trying to figure things out and not really making progress. But last night, thankfully, yesterday, Sunday, rather, wasn't that case. Before we go into the goals, let's hear from John Hackworth, let's see what he said post game to start things off because he sets the tone in his post game press conferences. And I think this sets the tone for the kinds of goals and the things that we're getting ready to talk about. Hack saying, I just told the boys in there, I'm really proud of them. Coming off of last week, their coaching staff really did put the team through a lot of work, but it wasn't like the kind of work that's punishment. It was just what we needed collectively to fix things and whether Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you guys know it's incredibly hot, incredibly humid, and they didn't flinch one bit. The group believes in themselves and we continue to make improvements. I'm proud of their performance today. I don't think it means we're back. We still have areas we have to improve, but at the same time, I want to celebrate this and then get back to works. We can hopefully have another good performance in New England next week. That's that frames this game really well in the positive aspects, the way that they took away from this game. So let's look at how it started. And thankfully, it started very early. Full disclosure, I didn't get to see this goal. I think the first goal I've ever missed live at City Park in an MLS game. And it's because when you have those player pal things, you don't actually get the kid back until after the game starts. So I was walking the conference is back to our seats when the goal was scored. So looking back on the replay, I got to see this. One thing to note, though, we like to talk about the leadups to these goals. You have to go back to the possession right before we scored to really understand the how this not just how this goal was manufactured, but to really appreciate it. Because it started off with the typical St. Louis high pressing Marcel Hartle pressing very intelligently on the left side, forcing the galaxy to push back to their keeper to John McCarthy. John McCarthy had the ball and he was trying to get it a longer pass trying to break through that deep city press. And what he did is he passed it right to a galaxy player that was immediately dispossessed by Jake Newinsky. Jake Newinsky gets the ball into the attacking half to Indiana Basilev after breaking it up. Basilev recovers it, takes it into the right channel, feeds it quickly to Marcel Hartle at the top of the penalty area where Hartle quickly turns his body, protecting the ball, finding Simon Thatcher, waiting in the middle of the penalty area near the top, better hold the line, he's got a couple defenders on him, protects the ball well in tight spaces, manages to get it back just to Toikard who had a ton of space over there, gets a shot off, has it blocked, recovers his shot, and finishes his own second chance It's passed McCarthy with, like I said, that high percentage chance, really good quality touch from Senator Toikard here, putting city up one another. Yeah, and great touch, he just found the space and just did a slight touch and it was enough for McCarthy to not get to it, but yeah, just one of those plays were city presses and then just has the right numbers on the opponent box and great job by Simon Thatcher holding the ball and then Toikard glad he got that second chance after that first shot was blocked and it was great for him to get that finish and get his second goal in MLS for goal in all competitions So the new signings keep showing their quality and keep showing how important they have been for the team and how important they will be in this road to the playoffs that we know requires a great performance and the team to go on an undefeated streak in the next few games Great performances individually find margins that we're playing with and we need this quality to be consistent. The first half I thought you had quality on both sides of the ball. I enjoyed a little moment at 38 where Senator Toikard had a yellow card and I called it a professional foul. That's a great fall on egg and that's that's the kind of value you need to and I think that's kind of the awareness that we've probably been missing from some of the players on our team with the experience and the just mindset of who's behind you and where you are in the field. That kind of foul is not going to be one that you look at two, three, four weeks from now but you never know what might have happened if they had been on the break in that moment. That's one of those individual moments that I mentioned earlier on that city did a good job of mitigating whether it was a defensive recovery or a block or a tackle or something like that, or just this moment of needing to make a smart foul to prevent a break. That's the kind of thing that we have with Senator Toikard and Marcel Hartle that they bring from this experience with the quality, not just on the touch but off the ball as well. I loved saying that I was really encouraged by that individual moment. And then in the first half in general, I felt the St. Louis was very comfortable looking with the ball and they were composed on defense. They didn't allow these quality chances from the galaxy. They played the ball in the middle third of the field allowing the galaxy to stay within those lines by a large. Berkey had a couple great saves. In a match like this, he doesn't get a lot of flowers, he doesn't get a lot of love, but it's a typical Roman Berkey performance. He showed up big against his pal Marco Royce and that's what he needed to do in this and he started it off in the first half of the couple really good saves, allowing St. Louis to be more comfortable and aggressive with the ball. And I think that they, in the first half especially, they definitely looked like the better team, which is something that you had more dreamed about than anything coming into the league's cup break. Looking at the galaxy on the other side, as in my opinion, one of the two top teams that we'd be playing in this back, final third of the season, Galaxy and LAFC being those two teams, we passed this hurdle and I think we looked the better team especially in the first half. Yeah, great first half, but then obviously second half, DNS start great and a lot of the second half, and I know we're going to talk about the goal too, but a lot of the second half was a lot of Galaxy. Yeah, they didn't create a lot of chances, but at times they will just have the ball for extended periods and then CD will clear it and back to Galaxy, but still didn't allow big chances. But it was just like, oh, no, they got this early goal and now they may run with it and kill all of our hopes. But obviously Marcel Hardill had something different to say. But let's talk about the Galaxy's goal. I started quick too. I've talked about in the past three moments in a soccer game that really drive large portions of the game. It's the beginning, it's right before half, where you have to sit with yourself at halftime and deal with what just happened, and then it's the beginning of the second half that can set the tone for the entire second half. And this was one where the Galaxy really hit you in one of those moments, created almost entirely by Gabriel Peck. Taylor Twalman gave him his appropriate love on X, and I couldn't agree more. This was a very intelligent play by Peck. Good awareness of where he was and what he needed to do. And it was more like he was just pulling the strings of those around him. Miguel Barry and otherwise in what he was doing. But it did start off before that because the play, I mentioned the full back play by Janus Horne, the positioning. Horne didn't do anything wrong in this play. It was just his positioning higher up on the field. That once Gabriel Peck made it past the, made it past Horne, he was in City's left corner, very deep, very much towards the touchline. And the problem here is it was Kyle Hebert, that was guarding him. So Hebert's pulled all the way up to the left wing in the corner, guarding Peck one to one. And Peck starts to play, give and go a couple of times. And he just continues to move closer and closer quickly to goal. And he finally ends up with enough space after Miguel Barry pass as that holding striker up there with the give and go to power at home as he's pulling Hebert in. And he's kind of one step ahead of him. And so this lack of defensive structure that occurred in the box orchestrated by Peck's positioning and play is really what led to this. And so that's an example of how LA Galaxy with their high quality players are able to use the intelligence on the field to position themselves where they need to be to get in position for this goal. And it was one of those moments, because this wasn't an overall bad positioning. I think if I had to point out one other thing on this play, it was the fact that Chris Durkin and Edu Louven in the midfield were very high. And so as the ball was played to Peck before he received it, Louven pressed, he pushed up into what would become a 4141 formation into that attacking midfield and tried to be one of those first pressers. When Louven did that, which again is fine. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. But when he did that, Chris Durkin kind of followed suit. So we know that city's press is contingent upon the players off of the ball following suit in their positioning. So you have one top player who pushes up and presses, then everybody follows to cover spaces and cover the players that they might pass the ball to. It's kind of what Chris Durkin looked like he was doing in this. So again, nothing necessarily wrong with it, but it opened up a lot of space on the back line side. And I think that space was exposed and taken advantage of by Peck. I think city learned from this though, in later instances of this 4141. But was this, do you think I'm right here that this was just mostly Gabriel Peck doing Peck things, or was this just a breakdown by city. I think it was a little bit of a bug, but Gabriel Peck, a great player. I remember during our pregame show, I was talking about him as the player to watch for LA Galaxy. And for a moment, it looked like Kyle Heaver was going to win that duel like that. They were like pushing and grabbing each other and was like, okay, Kyle Heaver got this, but then Peck got the best out of Heaver and was able to find spaces. But yeah, a lot of that player is credit to Gabriel Peck for winning the battle with Kyle Heaver and then quick touches and finding spaces and he kept following the play. Like if you think about it, that the ball was in the corner and after he won it, he was able to do a couple of touches and move into position to get that pass just to put it away in front of Berkey. And I think the defensive, not mistake, but the defensive shape that I mentioned earlier is something that I made note of for the second half after this goal, it became a little more prevalent to me. And I guess looking back on it, I realized that they might have actually been doing this in the second half entirely, but Louven pushed higher, a great majority of the second half. So, the not just the subs, but the goal from Hardell and everything. This was all with the foundation of a 4141 shape. You had your back line that you're used to, you had Chris Durk and a single pivot staying closer to the defense. And then in your attack, you had Toikert, Hardell, Louven and Vasilev up in your attacking mids with Simon Betcher at the top. The subs happened at 65, you bring in Jay Reid, you bring in Klaus and Thor in Foryana's Horn Betcher in Indiana Vasilev, you keep that shape mostly intact. Vasilev, Thor moved over to the left side, so it pushed Hardell to the right, which was a welcome, I think, thing to see for Hardell, giving him that opportunity to just move around in the attacking third on that side. But the shape of the 4141 on the defensive side mostly remained intact. And I mentioned the defensive side because I think it's noteworthy, if you watch the offense, you watch transition, things sort of get more fluid. And so when we talk about, at least when I talk about formations, I mostly talk about it in the sense of how we're setting our shape up off the ball. When the galaxy have it, when it's a goal kick or they're playing it out of the back, how did we set up to initiate our press? It really was that more to really wide lines that we set up. And I think it worked out well, I think it mitigated the wide attack, probably one of the things that helped Jake Nurensky handled Joseph Painsel so well. But it mitigated the wide attack that the galaxy really are relentless with and took advantage of right there at the beginning of the second half, they didn't do that the rest of the second half though. So, 65 minutes, read Klaus and Thor come in, you get the return of Klaus, first time that he's played at City Park, I think since April, if I had my games right, but it's been a long time, we haven't seen Klaus in a long time. So getting him, knowing he was the first of the three, who was kind of ready to go, worked his way back into fitness, that's fantastic to see, gives us the type of second half adjustment and change that we've been missing. When you have Betcher as your single striker, you have Nupi Thorsen, who consistently says when he's playing the nine, he's playing out of position. You're seeing new energy, continuation of quality in the second half with Klaus, and that's something that was a difference maker as this game carried on. How great was it to see Klaus back? It was great, because that gives you another option, and Angel Hakwar mentioned it mid-week, Simon Betcher has done a great job, but I want to have the possibility of having a striker to finish the game, and he mentioned Nupi Thorsen that he had to play as number nine, even before Simon Betcher came in. And then last game, Bass 11, they have in that position, so just having that possibility, even if Klaus is just coming back to me, it's great. And I also said it on Thorsen, like just right, Betcher, if he keeps scoring, that's your guy, and then you can start inserting Klaus on the second half when Betcher is tired, or when you need fresh legs or a change. And you don't have to push for having to start Klaus right away, just because you need his quality and you need points, and I still think that hasn't changed for me. I think he needs to get his fitness back, and a little by little start getting minutes, and just for now I start with Betcher, but yeah, when he came in, I really like what he did, the way he held the ball, and he stopped at number nine position. And one of the issues we saw before his injury was that basically he wanted to do too much and try to create a place too, but now he was more into that number one, number nine role holding the ball, also the quality around him has improved too. And you can see that now he's more willing to just do his job as a number nine instead of just trying to go back to match and get the ball trying to build plays which should be done by someone else. I'm going to ask you an off the cuff question here when you think of the style of play, do you see differences between what Betcher has shown us versus what an ideal Klaus would do as far as, either a holding striker in play, coming back to the ball, being a target for a cross. Betcher's had some success on corner kicks, but that's not quite the same and what I'm talking about more of in the run of play and I'm kind of leading you into what happened in the second goal, but how do you see the differences between better and class or at least some of the differences. And when we're looking to build either in transition or quick build up in possession, sending the ball in, because I have some thoughts on where Klaus is best positioning is but I'm curious how you see better differences. Obviously, Betcher is a less experienced player, he's great at holding the ball, but I think Klaus is there at not only holding the ball but finding the right space, the right place to receive the ball or to tell his teammates to send the ball to if he finds a space or sees a place where he can either hold the ball on the 1b1 or 2b1 and I'll touch it with another teammate. But I think in terms of holding the ball, both of them are similar, Betcher has done a great job, but obviously Klaus has more experience and he knows where to find spaces and if he needs to pause and wait for someone else to come, he will do that. Betcher does that too, but Klaus has more experience and Betcher will get there, but obviously Klaus has that advantage about finding the right spaces and positioning himself a little bit better. And I want to at least pause at this beforehand, preface it by saying I'm not saying one is better than the other necessarily, I want to give context to what I saw in the second goal, so that helps me because it definitely builds the story I'm trying to tell. Second goal comes at 68 minutes, Marcel Hartl from Jay Reid and Edu Louvin who gets the hockey assist on this one, St. Louis had a throw in to start this one, but it was lost in possession a little bit, Marcel Hartl had the ball and was doing some good things with it but a couple passes it was quickly dispossessed and then recovered by Edu Louvin quickly in that final third, so St. Louis losing the ball in possession quickly gaining it back high up the field, Galaxy I think were caught a little off guard when they did this, and so Louvin passed the ball over to Jay Reid. Jay Reid finds Marcel Hartl with tons of space inside the box, and it was a magnificent one touch shot that Hartl put in this that caught me the quality of shot I don't want to overlook the quality of shot in what I'm getting ready to say but that has to be appreciated. This, I don't think St. Louis had, I would even maybe go as far as to say single player on the roster who I would say I would be comfortable saying you could make this kind of a shot. You don't need, because how many times have we seen this year, whether it's Nick B. Thorson or Indiana Basilever, anybody else up there, when they get this kind of a pass, they have to settle it first. It's right. The first touch. It's the second, possibly third, and you're relying on them playing the ball to themselves with this first touch. Marcel Hartl just receives the pass and immediately chips it in. I mean, this is, this is the quality. If you go back and watch this, there's not a single player that St. Louis had previously that I think you could say would make this shot, and that's another aspect that Hartl brings to this team. Yeah, great quality by, by Hartl, and you can see it on the replay when, when Reed launched the pass, you can see Hartl positioning his body, like getting ready for that first touch. And you said it perfectly, like all players, like, yeah, they have to settle the ball and at times, and when you try to do that, you have a defender on you and then you're not able to get the shot. So, great job by Hartl, just positioning himself and also great shot, like even if you position yourself, like opening your right foot and getting the shot where it needs to go, that's, that's a talented player right there. Mm hmm, absolutely. And then let's go into why he had so much space. There you go, because this is important to Hartl didn't just manage to create space himself. This was a team effort in how this happened and Hartl said it best post game. He said, I was hoping that he, being J Reed, saw because Nooki made a very good one at the first post and then I was hoping that J would see the 11 point where I was standing, when you cut the field out that's the 11 point right in the box, and it was a good ball and a good finish. Hartl spot on with this assessment because it wasn't just and when I went back and looked it wasn't just Nooki Thorson, though Thorson, where he helped draw the closest defenders. You watch Thorson's positioning and Klaus's positioning after Louven recovers this ball and the attacking third, they were so high up the field, and they successfully drew all four defenders with those two near goal, opening up all that space that Marcel Hartl had to receive the ball. It's fantastic work in the sense that they see where the ball is, Louven has the ball, J Reed's over there, so what are the probabilities of their actions, crossing the ball into the box. If you're outside the corner, I'd leave it to either Eddy Louven or J Reed to send a cross in, and you're having Thorson and Klaus as those top level strikers and striker rolls, draw the defense, try to go towards goal, whether you're going to receive a cross or not. And then when that doesn't happen, you've got quality attacking mids underneath Marcel Hartl to receive the ball. This gives St. Louis so many different options in the attack and ways in which the midfielders and the full backs can deliver service and who they deliver service to, that you just have to be aware of the spacing. Hartl calling out J Reed, seeing what was happening and sending the ball to the right location versus trying to force it into where Klaus and Thor were just because they were closest to goal. This is one of those individual moments that you can say needs to be replicated going forward and is a viable way. These multiple different options St. Louis has in the attack and the way that they're forcing and dictating the pace and dictating the positioning of the defense. That is why you have confidence going forward that this group may be able to do something special. You could even see that the play before that Reed also tried to send the ball around the PK spot, but Galaxy was able to clear it. That one didn't work, but I'm glad he tried to do the same, and Tori Son and Klaus were able to draw the defenders and just Hartl being in the right position to make that first shot. It was really a team goal, Kudos to Jayden Reed too, just because he went with the same play, tried to find somebody at the top of the box and Hartl with the right finish. At that point, City Park was crazy, still a lot of time to go, but you could feel that these three points were coming to St. Louis's side. We didn't even mention the timing of the goal, right? We talked about the beginning of the second half having the Galaxy jump out. How many times has St. Louis made a substitution, hoping to dictate, change the pace, manage the flow, and they're immediately sucker punched. They are caught off guard, they allow a goal, and it just takes the air out of the entire sales of the operation. This was the opposite. We send in fresh legs, we've got the momentum, we've got the confidence of Reed and Klaus and Thor. And we score a goal just a couple minutes after those subs occur. That's game changing in and of itself is the ability for St. Louis to make these substitutions and then immediately score a goal, come back on top, and carry that momentum. So you now have your reinforcements of Reed, Klaus, and Thor, they're playing 30 minutes, they're coming into a tie game, they immediately make a difference, and now they can play within themselves more comfortably with that lead. That is a huge piece of what ended up happening in the second half, and then you get Rasmus All making his return at 75 for Cedric Toykert. The Galaxy make their subs in their attempt to reinvigorate their attack at 77, and it just doesn't work for them. St. Louis has a final sub, 90+4 with Jake Gerwood Reich entering for Eddie Louvin, giving a little bit more fresh legs in that last minute defense as you had, I think, six minutes of stoppage, if I recall correctly. And so J.G.R. gives that cover. He didn't have a whole lot of activity on the ball, but I think you saw in that last instance of him coming in the game, a few spacing where you enjoyed what he was doing, you saw some quality in the decisions he was making and the disruptions he was having. So that is a difficult position to come into, cold in the dying minutes of the game where you just need to kill it off, but the other thing that I noticed in the second half, especially into stoppage time, city never really stopped pressuring. You had Klaus leading the line at this point for the last 30 minutes. They didn't drop back. They used their subs to keep these fresh legs with this higher quality, and you had Klaus as a machine leading the line for 30 minutes. Doing what Klaus does best, it was just like riding a bike for him and seeing Klaus get the crowd fired up in a stoppage time. Oh, I love that. That's what we've been missing. I mean, I get goosebumps thinking about that and watching the video replays of him just firing the crowd up, knowing that we need City Park behind us. We need the sellout, 22,500 on our sides, loud as possible, firing up this team. Klaus leading that charge just as much as he was leading the line on the field is something I've been sorely missing for these past few months. And I think that is another reason that you're excited for this game going forward. Yeah, having Klaus definitely is great. Having him back is great for the team down the stretch, needing to have different options, needing to get points. He definitely comes at the right time, and Rasmussen also got some minutes. I mentioned the beginning. To me, I don't know if he was timing or lack of game minutes, but he looked a little bit off. To me to an extent like he wasn't still 100% and I know Coach Hock where I had mentioned, yeah, he will go when he's playing free and maybe he is, but to me, he looked a little bit off. Agreed. There was definitely some timing issues, couple offside, and there's some, I think continued work. So I just, I wanted him to get game minutes in, and I think the timing of his sub coming in at 75 gives a little of that cover where you're bringing in the difference makers earlier that guys who were coming in during a tie game, when you need to create some kind of spark and you successfully do that with Reed, Klaus, and Thor, and then you give all them a little bit more cover. So coming in for Toikert, when you already have the lead, you're not playing with house money because you still have to defend that lead. Something St. Louis has not been good at doing lately, but I didn't think all him did anything. He didn't need anything overly positive. He didn't do anything negative, but he really had a chance to get a good run out, and that's what my takeaway for Rasmussen is on this is getting the good run out. And I thought when you look at some of these stats, some of the takeaways on this, the second half was pretty similar to the first half in the sense of St. Louis still had 39% possession. The shots on target shots were four shots with three on target by both teams. Low volume, high quality. One other takeaway that you have to have from this game is that difference in the shift of quality versus quantity that St. Louis has been working with in the past. And looking at individual performances, the goals added that our friend at MLS stat on X posts, you had some real quality numbers on here, consistent guys, a lot of guys in positive goals added. Then I think the stat for goals added can be deceptive if you're looking at that graphic or try to reiterate it as much as we can, but it looks at every single touch, offensively and defensively, trying to see value added for every single kind of play. So you're not just counting the shots, you're not just counting the passes, you're counting all the shooting activities, all the receiving of passes, the passes themselves dribbling, interrupting, tackles, interceptions, blocks, et cetera, and fouling. Good or bad, fouls committed, fouls received, positioning on the field. Do you make a pass that moves the ball towards the goal? Do you make a pass that moves the ball away from goal? Those things play into it. And so that's why you see, like, Nuthi Thorsen have negative, because some of his passes and actions were to move the ball away from goal. You do have some real high quality from Jake Derwinski from Marcel Hartle, Edu Louvin, Indiana Vasilev, Henry Kessler, Janice Horn, Seder Toikert, Chris Durkin, Jay Reid, all positive quality goals added to the point two or above, which is a pretty good metric when you're taking all those things into account. You're going to have a lot of individual negatives, a lot of individual positives, and so you look holistically, a team that has a starting eleven, basically, in positive goals added, not something St. Louis, I think, has ever done so far this season, and definitely is a rarity if they have. Yeah, yeah, we haven't seen that in a while. Great performance by the team. Just looking at this goal added, I wanted to mention the great job, like, defense did great yesterday. I started with Nuthi Thorsen, but also Henry Kessler did a great job yesterday. And he's settling into that centre-back role, more confident with Kyle Heaver as the games go by. And I know we have talk about Joachim Nielsen, but I wouldn't force Joachim Nielsen. I think Kyle Heaver and Henry Kessler are doing a good job, and Kessler had a good performance yesterday. Clearances, recoveries, he was there leading the defense with Kyle Heaver, and I wanted to mention that he had a great job. When you don't talk about your central defenders, and you don't talk about your centre-defensive mid, that tends to be a good thing. And so I like that you called that out for Kessler. I mentioned Durkin a little bit earlier, but when he fell back into that pivot, the single pivot of the 4-1-4-1, I thought he played well, his positioning was good. He got better over time, Chris Durkin did. Henry Kessler, Kyle Heaver proving to be a pretty quality centre-back duo, honestly. I know we're looking to get Joachim Nielsen back, and that will only add once he's back fully fit, and we have him alongside presumably Henry Kessler. But for now, I'm confident with a Kessler Heaver duo, and I like how they're progressing going forward, and this was a dangerous Galaxy team, right? Like, this isn't, I mean, I know they didn't have Ricky Pooge, but you had Marco Royce stepping into that attacking midfield role. When Marco Royce steps in as your replacement for the best player on your team, I don't know what more you can really ask for from a depth perspective. And so the Galaxy had Dejan Yovalich coming in as a sub at 77 minutes. You're bringing him in as reinforcements to try and find a tying goal. This is a dangerous team, so we love what we're seeing out of St. Louis, but the quality of the opponent really adds to this whole narrative of what we were able to accomplish here, and doing it at home is something that has not been a given for St. Louis. We haven't had just our fifth win this year. We've not been a given that a city park is a fortress this season, so getting back to that as well. This gives you probably the best opportunity for a springboard that you could ask for going into a comparatively very weaker New England team next week. And then you start to look in the future. You start to see two matches against Minnesota, a match against Sporting KC, a match against the San Jose earthquakes. You still need to find that first away win, so that's the thing we're honing in on right now. But this match right now gives you everything you need going forward that St. Louis is looking for from the Galaxy. Yeah, in terms of confidence, it's great. When I was getting ready for this game, one thing I started to think about, so Galaxy first place and started to look at last season, earlier this season, and City usually hasn't done well against top teams in the conference. Last year, it's been Cincinnati when Cincinnati was in that great winning streak and wasn't defeated, wasn't first place, but since then there had not been a win against a team at the top of the conference. So it's great for the confidence and also a first win against L.A. Galaxy, one of the three teams in the conference that City had yet to beat. Now it's down to L.A.FC and Seattle, hopefully we'll have a chance against L.A.FC later in the season, which could be one of those games where it could be a make your break for the season. But it's great to see that City can compete against top teams like Galaxy, Galaxy, and you mentioned the quality Galaxy had, and they kept making substitutions, making adjustments, and that's what being at the top of the table gives you. It gives you a lot of flexibility, and also knowing that they are playing for support and shield, like they kept going for it, trying to find solutions to tie this game and see this defense responded really well. Before we get out of here, we need to touch on some of the individual stats. Marcel Hartle was named Man of the Match, one goal, he had 0.94 expected goals on target and 0.19 expected assists, so he was doing it both himself and facilitating for others. Two chances created, four touches in the opposition box, three passes into the final third, and five of five on his ground duels one. This isn't just an offensive threat of high quality. This is a guy who can play both sides of the ball, he can win it defensively, he can take on opposing defenses, and scoring his first career MLS goal, exciting to kick things off an MLS match for Marcel Hartle, but this is a good indication of what we can expect from our new designated player going forward. We talked about Jake Neuinski's impact on this team earlier, Cedric Toykurd had a goal on 1.59 expected goals on target with three touches in the box, netted his second career MLS goal, fourth goal in the last seven across all competitions, and yeah, those are all seven of his appearances with City, he has goals in back-to-back matches, Jay Reid come on and had 13 touches in just 25 minutes, two of two on his passes, logged his third career MLS assist, Roman Berkey, five saves, facing 1.59 expected goals on target, three diving saves, Janice Horn, Henry Kessler making their City Park MLS debuts, Kessler playing in his 100th career MLS match, so congratulations to Henry Kessler on that accomplishment. You have St. Louis City remaining unbeaten against the LA Galaxy, like Santi said, 1.03 now in four matches, St. Louis's home record across all competitions improves to 18, 8, and 7 all time, and City has now pushed its unbeaten home streak to four consecutive matches across all comps, recording their second straight home win in MLS play. So Santi, as we look forward on this one, do you have anything you want to last thing to say about the Galaxy or any final words from this game before we look forward? No, three points was needed yesterday, the team was able to get it done, and now we have a pivotal game against New England on Saturday, and I know we're going to talk about it on Thursday, on the next spot, but this is another mass win game. If you get three points and then you have nine play Minnesota, which you have to play twice, I think the team will be able to get the points it needs, but I think it starts with getting that first away win against New England. It has to, and we've got a little bit of a shortened week this week, so St. Louis remains in, well, they're tied for 12th technically, picking up a point on the 9th place team, so we're now just nine points back last week, we were 10, nine points back from the 9th place team, which is now Minnesota United again, having retaken that 9th place with a win, while Austin FC fell this weekend, the picture for the last few playoff spots, it's a log jam in the MLS West. There's one point that separates the 5th to the 8th place teams with Portland, Houston and Seattle all tied with 40 and then in 9th place you have Minnesota United on 36 points. In the NFC 10th with 34 FC Dallas 11th with 33 and SKC and St. Louis City are tied with 27 points. There is a realistic path forward to making the playoffs, though I would not say yet that it is a realistic chance. We have to prove, I think Santi said it absolutely perfectly you can't get any more clear than this. You have to prove that you can win on the road if you want to make the playoffs. You have to not make the playoffs without a road win in MLS, pure and simple. I can't be any more clear than that. We have three road games, four road games left this season, four road games. The most difficult you can argue is LFC on October 2nd, but you still have to get through New England, you have San Jose, LFC and then Minnesota United Minnesota is a, it's a 12 point match as you would say. Yes, 12 point match ups against Minnesota on the horizon, and they are in the crosshairs as the 9th place team right now. So it doesn't get any more clear than that. That New England is one of the two most winnable games on the road that we have New England and San Jose. You could have a path forward where you lose to LFC and still make the playoffs if everything else shakes out. You could even look to say you could possibly make the playoffs where they lost against LFC and a draw against Minnesota United on the last game with you win out every other match. It is possible to take all but four points and by our math still make the playoffs. There's no margin for air at this point. You're talking about as close to a must win game against New England as possible while still having some confidence in the rest of the season. Yeah, the way I'm seeing it and I look at this every week and it hasn't changed. City has to be undefeated until it goes to play LFC and then you may even be able to lose that game and still have options but I think the team has to be undefeated the next four games because before facing LAFC. And the performance against the galaxy. You just need to continue that and more against New England. And it's going to be a little bit more so. It's not just a regular game. It's New England anymore. It's a revenge game. It's a reunion of sorts. Henry Kessler facing his old team and Tim Parker facing his old team. We'll see if Parker gets the start but expect Henry Kessler to get the start against his old team. Any parting words as we wrap this one up on this Labor Day weekend, Santi? No, no, I think that's all we have for today. I'm looking forward for that. I guess we have a name for this Parker versus Kessler game or maybe we're going to come up with something on Thursday. We've got a few days. Yeah, Thursday. We'll be back to preview that game. So if you have any ideas on what to call this matchup, Kessler Parker, Reb City, let us know. Always interested in trying to name some of these some of these matchups. Santi, thanks for joining me. My name is Matt Baker for Santiago Beltran on Flyer Footies Fallout looking at the 2-1 St. Louis City win over first place LA Galaxy on this Labor Day weekend. We really appreciate you watching, listening, tuning in wherever you are. Have a great week. Have a great holiday and we will talk to you later. Bon mous sédé. ♪♪ At your job, do you ever have to deal with a nose roller? How about a snub bully? Well, if you're installing a new conveyor belt system, dealing with the different components can sound like you're speaking a foreign language. Luckily, you've got a team ready to help. Granger's technical product specialists are fluent in maintenance, repair, and operations. So whenever you want to talk shop, just reach out. Call, click Granger.com, or just stop buying. Granger, for the ones who get it done. Bingo. Alright, Phil, we're recording now, so it's live. Go ahead. Pick on me the way that you want to. Did I say that? I would say that to my son. Man, I mean, come on, man. Just go. This isn't CBS. No, be quiet for a few seconds. Why would people want to listen to the Sims Complete Podcast? Well, a couple of things. One, if you like to see sons pick on their father, this might be the place. If you want to see a place where the father just kicks the **** out of his son, this will be the place. What do you like about it, Matt? Ditto. Father, son, dynamic duo, talking about the game of football that we love and share and appreciate together. And, you know, hey, it's an extension of what we did, right? Growing up, I was able to watch my father play football, then obviously watch him as a broadcaster, and then he taught me the game of football and share the wisdom that he learned throughout his playing career. And, you know, hey, sometimes we're full of it, and sometimes we actually know a thing or two. Well, we do do a lot of research. At least I do. You're a little spotty, but you know, you hang in there. It's fun. I love doing this, and it's been awesome. Sims complete. Check us out. Wherever your podcasts are available on the Believe Network. Appreciate it. See ya. If you liked the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. 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