ÁńÁ«ĘÓƵ

The last few days have moved pretty quickly for Fallou Fall, St. Louis City SC’s recently acquired center back. On Sunday he arrived in St. Louis, on Monday he had his medical testing, on Tuesday he practiced and on Wednesday he suited up for his new team in a friendly match against a team from the English Premier League, the top league in the world.

He’s loving it.

“Before, when I was young,” he said Thursday after a light practice, “(America) was, like, my dream country. And yeah, when I signed here, and I was so excited to come here. And my first first time, my first day in the airport, it was nice. I now have my dream, and I complete my dream now, and everything is nice.”

Of course, Fall’s reason for that dream may be different than that of others.

“We were kids and we were talking, �Which country do you want to live in?’ ” he said. “ �Which country is your dream country?’ And we were playing GTA and everything. That’s why I love America.

“I was joking with my friend yesterday. Everything I see in GTA, I see it when I walk.”

The fact that Fall’s love of America has roots in the video game Grand Theft Auto is a reminder that he turned 21 years old in April and despite the significant investment the team made in him, he is one of the youngest players on the team.

Fall came on at halftime of the Aston Villa game, his first game ever against a Premier League team (Fall said his soccer dream is to play in England), and he played 40 minutes. “Yesterday was amazing,” he said. “I really like it.”

“Difficult game to come in for,” said interim City SC coach David Critchley. “Not often do you come over to the MLS and your first game’s against an EPL team. I was really happy with him. He got himself comfortable after a couple of minutes, it seemed like so, yeah, good impressions. Good first game.”

“I am the guy who wants to play,” Fall said. “The first thing I see here is like, I can say, I can bring more for the teams. To play more and to play for the long ball. If I get fit soon and I have the rhythm I can, I can bring more for the teams.”

Critchley may soon have plenty of options at center back. After playing 40 minutes on short notice against Aston Villa, Fall should be able to start when City SC returns to Major League Soccer action Aug. 9 against Nashville.

That’s the game the team is pointing at for Henry Kessler’s return to action. Along with the healthy Timo Baumgartl, Critchley soon will have three center backs to choose among for two spots.

Fall already fits in well as a City SC center back. He played Wednesday with a brace on his right arm, protecting the thumb he broke in his last game with Fredrikstad in Norway.

“I tried to take the ball, and I forget my finger behind, and it was like, broken,” he said, “but now it’s like, �OK, I have to wear this one, but I can move it.’ I just want to protect it for two weeks more and after that it’s done.”

On a team that had three center backs on the team injury report last week, the origin of the injury is something Critchley took time to stress.

“The injury was caused several weeks ago, not at St. Louis City,” he said Wednesday night, smiling. “He already had it.”

Kids’ chance

Critchley used 26 players Wednesday, 11 starters, 11 who came in at halftime and then four more who came in with five minutes to go. Among the players who didn’t get in were Jayden Reid, Xande Silva, Akil Watts, Homegrown player Caden Glover and No. 3 goalkeeper Christian Olivares.

Among those who got in were Brendan McSorley, Mykhi Joyner, Miguel Perez and Tyson Pearce, who have played the bulk of their time this season with City2. For Perez, it was three days past the day two years ago he made his last appearance with the first team.

“Very, very proud of them,” Critchley said. “I spent a lot of my time with them in the early part of the season. So Coach (John) Hackworth and his staff are doing a fantastic job keeping this development high for these guys. And I thought all the younger ones, all the City2 ones that came into the environment tonight, done a very, very good job. Brendan was fantastic.”

Like its parent club, City2 is off this weekend. It plays twice next week, first at Vancouver on Wednesday and then at home on Sunday against Colorado.

St. Louis City SC

St. Louis City SC holds its own against Aston Villa in 2-1 defeat

• Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch

St. Louis City SC

Late goals are the undoing again for St. Louis City SC in 2-1 loss to Minnesota

• Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch

St. Louis City SC

Pete Sorber, who built soccer powerhouse at Florissant Valley College, dies at 95

• Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch

A feel-bad loss for City SC to Minnesota, a feel-good loss to Aston Villa

City SC beat writer Tom Timmermann and co-host Beth O'Malley discuss a pair of 2-1 losses for St. Louis City SC, a devastating defeat on two late goals by Minnesota and an encouraging one to English Premier League team Aston Villa, plus the arrival of Fallou Fall and a badly needed goal for Cedric Teuchert.  

• .

ÁńÁ«ĘÓƵ

City SC beat writer Tom Timmermann and co-host Beth O'Malley discuss a pair of 2-1 losses for St. Louis City SC, a devastating defeat on two late goals by Minnesota and an encouraging one to English Premier League team Aston Villa, plus the arrival of Fallou Fall and a badly needed goal for Cedric Teuchert.  

Through the first 15 minutes of St. Louis City SC’s friendly match with Aston Villa of the English Premier League on Wednesday night at Energizer Park, it had all the makings of a very long night for the home team.

Aston Villa pressed, and City SC kept turning the ball over deep in its own end. The Villans had chance after chance, eight opportunities in the first 12 minutes, and only the play of Roman Burki in goal for City SC and Villa looking very much like a team still in its preseason kept the game from quickly getting out of hand.

As the half went on, even after City SC gave up a goal, something seemed to click, and City SC hung in, even getting some scoring chances and, in the second half, actually finishing one. So the final score, a 2-1 loss by City SC, was an improvement over what might have been.

“I look at that performance tonight collectively from the group,” said City SC interim coach David Critchley, “and we got better as a team against a really good opponent. I always want to win, but sometimes you have to look at it and say, �Hey, we had a good performance against a really top-, top-level team in Europe.’ We’re happy with it, and we move on.”

Of course, the game means nothing in the standings, and its effect on the team might well be the same. City SC has had good performances before that didn’t lead to another good performance, but for a team with precious little to celebrate at any point this season, a one-goal loss to a definitely superior team should provide a little boost to a team that has not had much to celebrate this season.

The recent Club World Cup drove home the size of the gap between MLS and European teams. It’s large. And Aston Villa is an above-average team in the world’s best league, while City SC is in 28th in Major League Soccer. Critchley felt his team respected the caliber of the game it was in, even if it ultimately didn’t matter.

“One thing we spoke about is to try and enjoy this occasion,” he said. “You’re going against world-class players that I’m sure a lot of these guys watch weekly when they’re watching the games. So there’s always going to be, as much as I could say �guys don’t be nervous’ going into the game, they’re always going to be some nerves there, and I want that in the players. It shows excitement as well. Once we got past 15 minutes, the nerves started to settle a little bit, and we started to find some success. So I was really happy with that.”

“It was a special moment for all of us,” midfielder Eduard Lowen told the crowd at halftime.

There were two significant milestones in the game. Defender Fallou Fall came on in the second half, making his City SC debut. He arrived Sunday in St. Louis, had one practice with the team Tuesday and played 40 minutes before being subbed out. And City SC got a goal from Cedric Teuchert, who last scored a goal on May 14. It may be too late for this season, but City SC needs to get Teuchert going.

Critchley used two groups of players, the same 11 who started against Minnesota in the first half and then 11 different players in the second half (plus four late subs for a total of 26 players). The team played differently in the second half, moving its attack higher up the field and being more dangerous overall, with a lineup that included youngsters Mykhi Joyner and Brandon McSorley. And it worked. Teuchert got his goal in the second half.

“They play well,” said Aston Villa coach Unai Emery. “And of course, we try to share minutes with our players, playing everybody, and the result is not important now. And I think the environment as well was good. The people enjoyed the match. I think it’s positive.

“I think they played differently the first half, the second half. The second half, they were pushing more higher, and we needed our buildup to be better than we did even because we lost the ball and was a goal that we conceded. But of course, everything we are practicing and playing and everything was happening is positive to analyze and to try to get better.”

A somewhat predictable City SC turnover in the moment led to the first goal, in the 14th minute, by Morgan Rogers, and the second was an example of how good Aston Villa can be, with a perfectly placed ball from Matty Cash into the box that was headed in by Ollie Watkins. Aston Villa’s two goalscorers were the same players who had scored in a 2-2 tie with German club Eintracht Frankfurt on Sunday in Louisville, Kentucky.

“I want to add more players scoring goals,” Emery said.

Three minutes after Villa went up 2-0, a turnover led to a pass from Simon Becher to Teuchert for the City SC goal from the top of the penalty area.

“That’s something we spoke about a lot lately,” Critchley said, “is when we concede a goal, how do we respond over the next five minutes? We’ve had a couple of times this year where we’ve actually scored the first goal and then kind of let the team come back into it, but when we concede a goal, how do we respond? And the response from Cedric and the team tonight was good. It was great pressure high up the field. You have to be brave to put that much pressure on an EPL back for to try and strip them of the ball in that moment. And I think we did that.”

City SC has this weekend off and returns to action Aug. 9 against Nashville (which faces Aston Villa on Saturday).

“I think we took a lot away from this game,” Critchley said. “We know they’re in preseason. We know that they’re probably not at their most sharpest as a group, but again, these are world-class players, and we went on the field and actually competed with them today. It wasn’t like we just sat deep and absorbed all this pressure for 90 minutes and got away with a lucky 2-1. I thought it was a pretty competitive game. Both teams had chances. So we’ll take a lot of positives away, for sure.”

St. Louis City SC

Premier League visits St. Louis as Aston Villa faces City SC in friendly at Energizer Park

• Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch

St. Louis City SC

Late goals are the undoing again for St. Louis City SC in 2-1 loss to Minnesota

• Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch

St. Louis City SC

Pete Sorber, who built soccer powerhouse at Florissant Valley College, dies at 95

• Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch

Photos: City SC comes up short against Aston Villa

St. Louis City SC stepped out of its league, both figuratively and literally on Wednesday night, facing Aston Villa of the English Premier League.

Aston Villa is the best City SC will play this season, a solid team in the EPL going up against a team barely out of last place in Major League Soccer.

So with the potential for the game to get messy, it didn’t. Yes, Aston Villa is in its preseason but City SC is in the middle of its season, but the talent discrepancy even at that level is still significant. And while it’s foolish, if not impossible, to take anything from this game other than it being a good experience for the City SC players, a 2-1 loss for City SC is a respectable showing.

Fallou Fall, who arrived in St. Louis on Sunday, made his debut for the team, coming on at halftime. City SC’s goal came from Cedric Teuchert, snapping an 11-game goalless streak over all competitions. City SC used 25 players in the game,

City SC has the weekend off and won’t return to action until playing Nashville at Energizer Park a week from Saturday.

It looked like the game might get messy in the first half, as Aston Villa started to press, pinned City SC deep, and kept taking the ball away. But a good save by Roman Burki four minutes bought City SC some time.

The inevitable happened in the 14th minute when a City SC turnover in its own end led to Donyell Malen passing to Morgan Rogers, who beat Burki from about 6 yards out to make it 1-0.

As the half went on, City SC seemed to get its legs under it and while it didn’t have any great chances, it actually got the ball in positions where it could score. Meanwhile, Aston Villa looked like a team still in its preseason and missed lots of shots and missed opportunities on corner kicks and set pieces to keep it a one-goal game.

Both teams switched their lineups entirely at the half, and a header by Ollie Watkins from 5 yards out off a long ball into the box by Ezri Konsa made it 2-0.

And then Teuchert scored, taking a pass from Simon Becher and beating goalie Marco Bizot from 18 yards out.

St. Louis City SC

Premier League visits St. Louis as Aston Villa faces City SC in friendly at Energizer Park

• Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch

St. Louis City SC

Late goals are the undoing again for St. Louis City SC in 2-1 loss to Minnesota

• Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch

St. Louis City SC

Pete Sorber, who built soccer powerhouse at Florissant Valley College, dies at 95

• Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch

Photos: City SC comes up short against Aston Villa

For St. Louis City SC and English Premier League club Aston Villa, City SC’s opponent in a friendly match on Wednesday night at Energizer Park, both are searching to find themselves, trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t, who’s in and who’s out for the games that lie ahead. The difference is Aston Villa is doing it in its preseason and City SC is doing it two-thirds of the way through its season.

With the Leagues Cup starting up for much of Major League Soccer, City SC finds itself with no MLS game this week, so it scheduled a game with Aston Villa, which is making a three-game tour of the Midwest as part of its preparation for an EPL season that begins on Aug. 16. It brings a good, though lower-profile, team from the world’s best league to St. Louis, and even if Aston Villa is still in its preseason and will use much of its roster, it will still be the best team that City SC will face this season.

“That’s an excellent team,” said City SC coach David Critchley. “They’re going to have a large majority of the ball on Wednesday. They just have such high-level individuals on the field.

“It’s going to be exciting to come up against these guys. We know where they’re at in their season. They’re just trying to get fit and get sharp for their upcoming EPL season and campaign. But we have our own objectives as well, to try and get the entire roster feeling a little bit fit, a little bit sharper, and continue to work on our identity in this game. So we can use it as a platform for that.”

There will certainly be lessons to be learned for the City SC team, and those lessons will come in a game that won’t count in the standings, good news for a team that has won just two of its past 20 games and will almost certainly miss the playoffs for the second season in a row.

“(It’s) an opportunity to get better, but for many different reasons,” Critchley said. “We want to compete. We want to perform. To win the game is not the end outcome for us. We want to put on a good product on the field for the fans, but it’s about giving opportunity to a lot of these guys as well. Trying to keep the squad in shape and sharp is super-important to me. So utilization of a lot of the players will be important.”

Aston Villa, based in the Aston section of Birmingham, England, finished sixth in the Premier League last season, which qualified it for the Europa League, the second-tier European competition. The club was formed in 1874 and has won seven First Division championships, all from the period before the Premier League was formed, and is fifth in the all-time English top flight standings, dating from 1888.

The club, which has been based in Nashville during its time in America, tied German club Eintracht Frankfurt 2-2 in Louisville, Kentucky, on Sunday and will play Nashville on Saturday. Aston Villa coach Unai Emery used 21 players in that game, making four subs at the half and six in the 65th minute, and with only two days between games and the generally unpleasant weather of the past weeks, you can probably expect to see the four Villa players who didn’t see action in that game and the later subs to see more of the playing time in this game.

Critchley plans to use at least 22 players himself, and one of them is expected to be new acquisition Fallou Fall, who arrived Sunday in St. Louis and trained with the team for the first time Tuesday. If anyone plays more than 45 minutes, it would likely be midfielders Chris Durkin and Conrad Wallem, both of whom will be suspended for City SC’s next MLS games, Durkin for a red card and Wallem for accumulated yellow cards. With no game this week, that means they won’t play again until Aug. 16 at Chicago.

“We have to make sure that these guys stay sharp in training for the extended time that they’d been out,” Critchley said. “But right now, I’m also thinking about giving everyone on the team the opportunity to feature against an EPL team.”

When the game was announced in May, Olof Mellberg was still the coach of City SC, creating a natural local angle because he played for Aston Villa from 2001 to 2008, appearing in over 260 games over all competitions. But Mellberg was fired on May 27.

It’s the second international club exhibition at Energizer Park, after the stadium’s inaugural game, against German club Bayer Leverkusen in 2022. But this isn’t the first time an English club has come to St. Louis. Liverpool played AS Roma at Busch Stadium in 2016, and Manchester City and Chelsea played at Busch in 2013. Prior to that, Coventry City faced the St. Louis Stars of the NASL in the 1970s and, in the days before professional soccer in St. Louis, writer Dave Lange has compiled a lengthy list of first division teams to come to St. Louis, dating to 1909. Eleven games with English teams facing St. Louis clubs were played from 1948 to 1965, including Manchester United twice, Liverpool three times, Everton, Wolverhampton and Man City.

St. Louis City SC

Late goals are the undoing again for St. Louis City SC in 2-1 loss to Minnesota

• Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch

St. Louis City SC

St. Louis City SC to play Aston Villa of English Premier League in friendly match

• Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch

St. Louis City SC

Pete Sorber, who built soccer powerhouse at Florissant Valley College, dies at 95

• Tom Timmermann | Post-Dispatch