After St. 不良研究所导航网址 City SC lost to Minnesota on Sept. 14, effectively ending the team鈥檚 hopes of a spot in the Major League Soccer playoffs, the players and coaching staff gathered to map out their future.
The team set goals for its final five games, which at that point were essentially meaningless as far as the standings were concerned. At this point, it was all personal.
鈥淚 would say (it was important),鈥 said defender Tomas Totland. 鈥淚t was a point in the season when we had to kind of get together and decide what we wanted to get out of the last (five) games. And we鈥檝e taken a huge step there.鈥
The team wanted to win three of its final games. It has done that. It wanted to get a win on the road. It has done that too. But others, like getting two shutouts 鈥 the team got one against Houston in its previous game 鈥 are still at stake as the team goes into its final game of the season on Saturday, facing Minnesota in St. Paul on Decision Day, as MLS calls it.
The only decision coming for City SC is where it will pick in the SuperDraft. For Minnesota, it needs just a point (or Vancouver to drop a point) to avoid having to take part in the play-in game between the eight and nine seeds in the Western Conference.
Interim coach John Hackworth led that meeting after the Minnesota loss, but he left it to the team鈥檚 leadership council, working with the other players, to set the goals. He was impressed by their decisions.
鈥淚 definitely think that some of the goals they put were lofty goals,鈥 Hackworth said. 鈥淭hey were goals of a team that was much, much better than where we are currently in the standings, but that kind of proves the stuff I鈥檝e been talking about for last month, which is, we feel really good about where we are and how we are performing. And that鈥檚 nice. And we鈥檝e accomplished the big goals already. So we have two more to check off, and we have one game to do it.鈥
With 14 points earned in eight games since the Leagues Cup, when the club鈥檚 new players began MLS play, City SC鈥檚 points per game is 1.75, which, if the team had been able to do it over the course of the season would be fifth-best in the league. Only five teams have more points over their past eight games than City SC. While the recent schedule hasn鈥檛 been the most demanding, City SC is finally getting the results that had escaped it all season. Its four wins in its past seven games are as many as it had in its first 26. If you include the Leagues Cup, City SC has six wins, five ties and just three losses in the past three months.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a way to end the good form that we鈥檝e had for the last three months, basically,鈥 Totland said of the season finale. 鈥淲e know Minnesota is a good team. They鈥檝e shown that, and it鈥檚 going to be a tough, tough game, but we have come from a 3-0 win here at home. We have everything to win and nothing to lose.鈥
鈥淲e鈥檙e in a good way, and we just want to try to keep as much momentum into the offseason as possible,鈥 Hackworth said. 鈥淏ecause I think everybody knows that if we can continue to perform at the same level, we鈥檙e going to be a really good team.鈥
In a great example of how things just haven鈥檛 worked for City SC this season, for the first time since Hackworth took the job on July 1, the team had all its players 鈥 except for Tomas Ostrak and Celio Pompeu, who had season-ending injuries 鈥 on the practice field. The minor injuries that were keeping Marcel Hartel out of practice or Chris Durkin out of the past three games were taken care of. Hackworth said that Durkin should be available on Saturday.
Once the season ends, decisions will happen quickly. With players about to head home, the team is expected early next week to announce whose options have been picked up for next season and whose hasn鈥檛. The team holds options on nine players whose contracts end this season: Durkin, Indiana Vassilev, Jake Nerwinski, Ben Lundt, Akil Watts, Hosei Kijima, Jayden Reid, John Klein and Michael Wentzel. Hackworth said that he thought the roster churn would be minimal, though some moves are inevitable.
In some ways, this season鈥檚 finish is a mirror image of last season. While City SC won the Western Conference in the regular season in 2023, it lost its last two regular-season games and then got swept in the playoffs by Sporting Kansas City. Add in the Leagues Cup and City SC had four wins, eight losses and three ties to close its inaugural season.
鈥淚 was just thinking about that after our last home game,鈥 defender Kyle Hiebert said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 fireworks, and we feel like we鈥檙e in a good moment, having won three out of four, but we know we鈥檙e building for next year because we missed out on this year鈥檚 goals, and last year鈥檚 just the opposite. We had lost at home.
鈥淲e鈥檇 been in a bad run of form, which ended up continuing to the playoffs, but we were first in the West. It鈥檚 weird, like you have a short-term memory, but what you accomplish through all the year, it really matters. So hopefully this can translate to a good start next year, and that can put us in a position where, at the end of the year, all the games are meaningful.鈥