Lowen returns in City loss in Cincinnati

Saturday night's St. Louis City matchup with FC Cincinnati featured changes in the starting lineup, as well as the return to the field of Eduard Lowen.

It also featured STL City's second consecutive defeat, 3-1 at TQL Stadium in Cincinnati.

Cincinnati's Luciano Acosta scored a goal and had a pair of assists to help his team to its its sixth consecutive victory. 

Saturday's game was STL City's third in eight days. Partially because of that, Coach Bradley Carnell adjusted his lineup from the one that dropped a hard-fought 2-0 decision Wednesday to LAFC at CityPark and a home win over Chicago Fire last Saturday.

"I think the team itself is moving in the right direction because we're always critical of ourselves," Carnell said. "You know, even after the win against Chicago, we were still critical of ourselves and always trying to try to learn and look for what we can do better.

"And I think paying attention to details, having discipline, having respect - those things will start slowly building up and paying off throughout the season."

There was an emotional moment late in the game when Lowen entered as a substitute. He hadn't played since March 9 because of injury but also because he has been with his wife, Ilona Lowen, who battling brain cancer.

When Lowen entered the game, he received an ovation from the crowd at TQL Stadium.

"Everything else is secondary," Carnell said. "You could see Edu is a little bit away from fitness, but the only way to get real minutes is in real games. And that's really good for Edu."

FC Cincinnati players and head coach Pat Noonan wore white armbands. The armbands were marked with "IL" in honor of Ilona Lowen,

"You know, hopefully he can use this as an outlet," Carnell said. "Sometimes, players are seeking for an outlet and soccer could be the outlet. It was great to see Edu out there. You saw some good touches.

"But again, I'm not even looking to comment on Edu’s game today. That's for me, secondary."

St. Louis dropped to 3-3-7 on the season. Prior to the Wednesday home loss to LAFC, STL City had been undefeated in five games.

Saturday, Cincinnati outshot STL City 15-11 overall and 8-3 in shots on goal. Cincy also scored City's goal, when Matt Miazga scored on own goal in the 54th minute, which for the time being narrowed the Cincy lead to 2-1.

Acosta scored on a penalty kick in the 26th minute after was ruled to have been fouled in the penalty area. It was his fifth goal in the last six games.

With that goal, Acosta became the 15th player in MLS history with at least 150 career goal contributions. Acosta, who has 65 goals and 87 assists, joins Kei Kamara as the only active players to achieve the feat.

In the 49th minute, Yuya Kubo made it 2-0 for Cincinnati when he scored from an assist from Acosta.

Acosta faked a pass to freeze the defense, then played a ball to Kubo,who one-timed the ball into the goal from the right corner of the goal area.

STL City's goal came after high pressure forced Miazga to play the ball back toward Cincinnati goalie Roman Celentano. 

But Celentano was off his line and was unable to race back in time to make the save on the pass and the ball rolled over the goal line.

But that was all the scoring for St. Louis, which came within a few inches of scoring goals on its own, but did not.

"I thought we worked for the game plan," Carnell said. "I thought in the first half, I thought at points in the second half, we got a rhythm of the flow of the game and we had numerous transitions.

"I thought, in a couple of these moments, that's been a little bit of the critical moments that we have given up in the last few games.

"So critical moments that we gave away the ball too quickly transition and it gets away from us a little quickly, especially against an active Cincinnati team."

That "active" Cincinnati team added an insurance goal in the 80th minute when Sergio Santos took an assist from Acosta and slipped the ball inside the right post.

STL City will return to action at 7:30 next Saturday against Seattle Sounders FC at CityPark.