St. Louis City SC center back Josh Yaro says he feels fine, and has always felt fine, including when the league’s concussion spotter ordered him off the field for further inspection in the first half on Sunday.
“Everything was fine,†Yaro said Wednesday. “I was feeling great.â€
But the concerns were well-based. Yaro had taken a ball to the head blocking a Columbus cross in the 23rd minute and then spun to the ground, laying on his back, motionless, with his arms outstretched. Referee Rosendo Mendoza immediately called for trainers to come on the field and told Yaro’s teammates to stay back.
But if it looked to many like Yaro had fallen to the ground unconscious, Yaro insists that was not the case.
“The way I fell was dramatic,†he said. “I should probably take some acting classes and be an actor. But when the trainers came on, I was telling them answers to questions I knew they were going to ask already, and so I mean, immediately, they thought, ‘No, he’s fine.’ But I guess they said I wasn’t moving, which I didn’t actually notice, because for me, like, when I fall, I don’t roll around. I just lay there.
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“Everything is fine. It’s just a misunderstanding, I guess.â€
What made the situation confusing was that Yaro got checked by the concussion doctor on the sidelines and then returned to play. But that doctor had apparently not seen how Yaro had fallen to the ground. When the replay was seen elsewhere, the message came back to St. Louis to stop play and take Yaro to the dressing room for further testing. Yaro and coach Olof Mellberg both looked puzzled by the request after Yaro had been cleared to return.
“That was confusing because I didn’t know where it was coming from,†Yaro said. “And then I went in and they gave me the test right away. Fifteen minutes later, they were like, ‘Yeah, you’re OK, you’re good.’ So I could have, literally, if I wasn’t subbed out and we had to use it, I could have come back in, back in and played.â€
Yaro didn’t have to come out of the game for the check, but City SC would have played a man down until he came back, which Mellberg obviously didn’t want to do.
“It’s a balance,†Mellberg said. “You want him to stay on, obviously, but also having respect for that protocol. ... He said he was perfectly fine in the moment also. But I know myself. I also told everyone else I was perfect, I just wanted to play on. And then you come off afterwards and I basically lost years of my life in memory. It comes back, but you need to have a respect for when that happens.â€
Comeback trail
City SC had eight players listed as out on last week’s league availability report, more than any other team in the league. That list should get shorter this week.
Right back Tomas Totland and left back Jannes Horn both practiced with the team Wednesday, and Mellberg said they’ll be available on Saturday. Roman Burki had gloves on in practice for the first time since suffering a fracture in his right hand, though he didn’t do the full session. Still, Mellberg has said that, as a goalkeeper, Burki would be back quickly once cleared to play. Joakim Nilsson, who hurt his knee two weeks ago, trained separately from the team, but Mellberg said he couldn’t be ruled out for Saturday.
The return of Totland and Horn would be big for City SC. Part of the problem for the offense has been the lack of support from outside backs.
“It’s a position we don’t have that many options,†Mellberg said. “So it would be really nice to see them back.â€
What’s hot?
While Major League Soccer considers whether to shift from a season that runs from February to November to one that goes from August to May, it seems like center back Timo Baumgartl would be all in favor of avoiding the summer.
Asked how it felt to make his first start with City SC on Sunday, his first response was, “Pretty hot.â€
It was only 79 degrees at kickoff, which as anyone who has been in St. Louis for longer than four months will tell you counts as a pretty nice day.
“For me, it was hot,†Baumgartl said. “I know it’s getting hotter in summer, but for me, it was hot. ... My dog as well. In the morning, he was like, ‘Oh, it’s too hot for me.’â€
Notes
The draw for the U.S. Open Cup’s round of 32, which is where City SC and other MLS teams will enter the competition, and round of 16 will be held Thursday at 8:15 a.m. on the CBS ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Golazo Network. City SC will host its match at Energizer Park on May 6 or 7.
- City SC has lost four straight MLS games, a first for the club. It did lose four consecutive games in its first season, but one was a U.S. Open Cup game and the streak didn’t become a four-game streak until well after the fact.
City SC had a game at Dallas interrupted by thunderstorms after 50 minutes and it was restarted a month later. City SC lost that game, but the result goes into the books as having happened on the day the game started, rather than the day it finished. So that turned a three-game losing streak into a four-game losing streak a month after the fact.
- City SC announced it will be working with MERS Goodwill to further its mission of creating career opportunities for adults, including the Excel Center, located near Energizer Park, an accredited high school that gives adults the chance to earn a high school diploma and college credits.
