A bright start was undone by lapses, as the New England Revolution lost 3-1 to St. Louis CITY SC on Saturday night.
The game started positively for the Revs, as the visitors had several dangerous attacking moments.
Alhassan Yusuf found Carles Gil, who played a centering ball that Ilay Feingold just barely missed after making a darting run from deep.
Feingold made amends in the 14th minute by finishing Luca Langoni's cross to etch his name on the scoresheet for the second straight game.
Four minutes later, Yusuf played Dor Turgeman into space, but the striker's shot was narrowly off target.
The Revs were successfully finding seams while avoiding the St. Louis press.
“I think we had a clear idea with the ball what we wanted to do and what the spaces were that we can expose," head coach Marko Mitrovic said. "I think we had some very, very good moments on the ball breaking their pressure."
He later added, "I really appreciated the way the guys built up in the spaces that we were thinking were going to be given to us, and we executed those things. All those situations came from really good ball circulations and movements from the guys."
St. Louis found an equalizer in the 29th minute after Daniel Edelman won the ball from Brooklyn Raines. Edelman earned the assist on Simon Becher's first goal of the year.
The home side gained the lead deep into first-half stoppage time on a corner kick. Chris Durkin was offered plenty of space, allowing him to beat Matt Turner.
St. Louis put the game out of reach in the 83rd minute when Marcel Hartel intercepted Brayan Ceballos’ pass before hitting a stunning shot.
Mitrovic was asked to reflect on the first and third goals during his post-game presser.
“When you play, there is always a risk that you are going to lose the ball and have a counterattack,” Mitrovic said. “I would say on the first goal, definitely, we could have done a better job. The third goal, Brayan wanted to break the lines, and it was an exceptional goal. If we don’t allow our players to lose the ball, then it’s going to be very difficult for us to play and to play with confidence.
“One thing that we have to do is to have good counter measures behind the ball. Maybe on the first goal, besides losing, for me, a simple ball, it was also our counter measures. We could have done a better job in that moment. I really want to watch it again before I put any statement there.
“However, again saying if we want to play and if we want to control the game with the ball, we have to understand that we will lose the ball. It is always going to be teams that have possession are exposed when they lose the ball for a counterattack. Teams that are defending are not exposed to those things.”
