When Celio Pompeu scored three minutes into stoppage time on Saturday night, volleying in a pass from Tomas Totland to earn City SC a point with a 2-2 tie at Austin’s Q2 Stadium, all you could see was happiness. Players mobbing Pompeu, coaches mobbing Pompeu, team staffers mobbing Pompeu.
But there was something else lurking there as well.
“Joy and disappointment together,” said midfielder Eduard Lowen.
Under the circumstances, City SC was thrilled to go on the road and get a tie, but a win was not out of the question. It was a game that City SC dominated in pretty much every category — shots were 17-4 in City SC’s favor, shots on goal were 8-2, corner kicks were 12-5 — but needed some last-minute heroics manage to come away with one point. City SC didn’t give up many scoring chances, but the two it did left goalkeeper Roman Burki essentially helpless to stop.
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It was a winnable game that City SC didn’t win.
“We played a great game, by far the better team I think,” said Lowen, whose 49th minute penalty kick tied the game at 1-1. “We had a lot of chances, we concede two easy set-piece goals, which disappoints us because that’s not who we are. Usually we defend set pieces very well, we always get the first contact and then we got caught sleeping wide. But the mentality of the team was incredible and to come out with the result in the end and get one point here is still so huge for us.”
“I thought for 60, 65 minutes out of the 90-minute game that we had total control of the game,” City SC coach Bradley Carnell said. “I thought we controlled the game in many moments. … I don’t think we deserve to walk away with zero points. So credit to my boys. They fought till the bitter end. Everyone who came in made a big impact in the game. The two critical moments that we gave away (goals) we have to look at that, which is unfortunate because a performance like this deserves three points.”
City SC is undefeated after three MLS games, but two of those were ties. In both City SC has rallied to get the result, and it had to come back twice against Austin. Pompeu’s 93rd-minute goal, which took a slight deflection off an Austin defender, was the team’s second this season over all competitions to come in second-half stoppage time; Hosei Kijima scored in the 91st minute against Houston in a Champions Cup game. Of City SC’s seven goals over all competitions this season, five have come in the final 30 minutes.
Coming from behind was not something City SC did well last season. The team allowed the first goal 14 times last year and won just three of those games. This season, it’s allowed the first goal twice and gotten a tie each time. Also, City SC got the tie while having an edge in time of possession; last season, it had a win, three losses and a tie when it had the ball more.
The high times continue for Pompeu. He made his second straight start as Carnell stuck with the same starters as the New York City FC game, a rare event for him, and he scored for the second straight game to match his goal total for last season. Carnell stuck with Pompeu all game, keeping him in while subbing every attacking player other than Lowen out of the game.
But it was clear why. Pompeu throughout made dangerous attacks on the left side, taking on opponents and playing the ball in the box. One of the few times his teammates returned the favor produced the game-tying goal. Totland came forward from his right back position and was practically on the end line when he crossed the ball back to Pompeu on the left side.
“This comes from a lot of communication between me and ‘Tots’ during practice,” Pompeu said. “Tots loves those crosses. They’re very good crosses. So, he always tells me, ‘Celio, always go to the second balls, always go to the second balls. One ball is going to come to you.’ So, during practice, he played some balls, and I wasn’t there. So, this communication is the relationship between me and him. And then trusting that one ball is going to pop up, like it happened in the last minutes. A ball came to me, and thank God I could score, I could have a good finish.”
“He didn’t only score a goal,” Lowen said. “He made so much pressure on them, especially like in the last 15, 20 minutes. He was winning almost every duel on the on the left side.”
Austin went ahead 1-0 on a corner kick finished by Matt Hedges in the 14th minute, and City SC tied it on a penalty kick by Lowen four minutes into the second half, his first goal of the season, after Aziel Jackson was tripped in the penalty area.
But just 44 seconds after play resumed, Austin went back ahead on a play that began with a long throw-in and ended with City SC leaving a player unmarked in the goal box. Julio Cascante scored Austin’s go-ahead goal.
All of that might have been a moot point if City SC had taken some of its chances better, or gotten a better bounce. Lowen had the ball in the box and the goalkeeper out of the play in the 36th minute, but he blasted his shot over the crossbar.
“I was very disappointed with myself,” he said. “I just saw two or three guys on the line. So, I was in a rush because I think I had somebody on my back, so I needed to shoot it first touch. But then I was leaning a little bit backwards. So that’s why the ball went high. Looking at it afterward, I could have taken the right short corner, like a low pass into it. But it’s always easier to say it afterward when you can press replay and watch it over and over again.”
And then it’s possible he did score two minutes later. On a free kick, he hit the right post and the ball bounced back across the face of the goal. Austin goalkeeper Brad Stuver stuck out his hand and blocked the ball, which landed squarely on the goal line, and it kept moving. It looked as if the ball had gone over the line after the bounce — Tim Parker, standing a few feet away, leaped in the air in celebration — but Stuver reached back and swatted it out of the way.
The ball has to completely cross the line to be a goal, and MLS does not utilize goal-line technology used in the World Cup and in some European leagues that can determine if the ball fully crossed the line. With no replays that showed a conclusive angle, the video review was brief and play continued.
“For me it seemed at least very, very close to the ball might have been in,” Lowen said. “I don’t know. I honestly was waiting for the referee. I was thinking he can check it on his watch if it was in or not. But, yeah, in the end of the day, he said they checked it, they said it wasn’t in. We still don’t know. We are still arguing about it if it was in or not.”
There was no arguing about how much better a tie is than a loss.
“It’s good to have this point away,” Pompeu said. “One point is better than nothing. But yeah, we’re a little frustrated because we think we should get away with the three points.”