St. Louis CITY SC Fall To San Diego FC at Home, 1-2

St. Louis CITY SC came out with a very strong 70 minutes, only to come away with literally zilch to show for it at Energizer Park in front of St. Louis fans. CITY fell 1-2 to San Diego FC in their second ever meeting--the first a 0-0 draw on the road in SDFC's first ever home match. We are at DEFCON 2. Let's break it all down.

Scoring Recap:

STL 0 - 1 SDFC, 79' | Milan Iloski capitalized on a defensive breakdown after an onslaught of chances from San Diego, as St. Louis began to crumble around the 70th minute after dominating the whole first half and parts of the second up until that point.

STL 0 - 2 SDFC,  87' | Anders Dreyer punished a very tough to watch Josh Yaro mistake on a rather harmless play, beating Ben Lundt, who never really had a chance. This was the back-breaker.

STL 1 - 2 SDFC, 90+1' | Kyle Hiebert brought the match within one goal with about 5 minutes to go, but it was to no avail. This opportunity was created after Célio Pompeu did "Pompeu things," dribbling 50 yards down the left channel and creating a corner which started an attacking sequence leading to a foul; the resulting set piece was a chaotic pinball which saw Conrad Wallem head the ball off the post and right to the feet of Kyle Hiebert, who buried it.

Key Takeaways:

CITY cannot seem to score in the biggest moments. Despite creating tons of chances and having one of the most attack-heavy halves of the entire season, CITY were unable to capitalize on any of those numerous opportunities and force San Diego's hand. To their credit, SDFC stayed alive and eventually found a way to break through. This has been a common theme through the majority of CITY's 12 MLS matches thus far. For me, tonight's moment was the João Klauss header that he drilled into the ground and bounced up over the goal. Klauss--who otherwise had a very, very strong performance--would love to see that hit the back of the net. Had CITY taken a 1-0 lead then, I am 100% confident this article would have an entirely different tone.

Defensive errors continue to haunt this club. Without Henry Kessler, as I have mentioned previously, this club hurts. Tonight, Kyle Hiebert ended up with a goal and zero mistakes that upset me too badly, which was a breath of fresh air, but Josh Yaro directly cost the team the second goal and played a large negative role in the first. When a team is struggling to score, those types of mistakes just cannot happen. I can live with it if an opponent comes through and earns a spectacular goal, just outright outplaying or outclassing our defense, but my hair starts to gray strand by strand every time I have to watch a preventable mistake result in a match-altering goal. Many of those mistakes have come from Hiebert and Yaro; tonight, it was Yaro. Specifically, it was in a winnable, close match. The good news is that Timo Baumgartl had a good match and further proved his ability to handle and progress the ball to be exceptional. Jannes Horn also looked fantastic, playing in the LWB role with Kyle Hiebert behind in the LCB role. This could be the situation going forward, as it was significantly more successful than previous setups from Olof Mellberg.

Eduard Löwen is no longer back. After competing midweek, he was absent again due to personal reasons. Thankfully he is not injured, but missing him in the midfield really hurts this club's ability to create. It leaves Marcel Hartel with his hands full. Thankfully, Tomáš Ostrák is healthy, and although not fit for 90 minutes, he put in a very strong shift and was a key contributor to the buildup that generated so much dominance in the first half.

Injured players are making their way back. Hopefully Löwen will be back soon, but Chris Durkin and Roman Bürki are expected to be available for Wednesday's match, and Henry Kessler, Tomas Totland, Rasmus Alm, and Joakim Nilsson are hopefully not far behind. Alfredo Morales will also likely not be out too long. Players like Jay Reid, Jake Girdwood-Reich, and Jannes Horn have already returned from injury. Reid made his season debut tonight, while JGR picked up his match day squad season debut but did not feature. In other news, fitness is an issue. Great!

Betting Recap:

Eric Sontag's pick of San Diego -105 hit with the visiting team picking up all three points.

Looking Ahead:

Again, we're at DEFCON 2. Wednesday night features a derby match at Energizer Park, where St. Louis play host to Kansas. That is a must win. Failure to get all three points will result in me finally smashing the panic button. A dominant win could help reroute the ship and potentially make way for a season turnaround as the team gets healthy and the roster is adjusted in July, while anything less would almost certainly derail the season, causing CITY to miss the playoffs. That would deem the entire season a failure.