126 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. St. Louis CITY SC lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Célio Pompeu is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Kyle Hiebert was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Simon Becher trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. MyKhi Joyner has moved up it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Célio Pompeu is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Roman Bürki is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. St. Louis CITY SC know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at St. Louis CITY SC. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at St. Louis CITY SC, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at St. Louis CITY SC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Célio Pompeu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Louis CITY SC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Simon Becher has written the date down.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at St. Louis CITY SC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Roman Bürki is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Simon Becher trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. St. Louis CITY SC know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Portland Timbers kept coming because nothing stopped them, and St. Louis CITY SC will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Position 14 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Two goals and a mark of 8.83 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
12 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 2‑2, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.