A pair of Americans suited up together for the first time in Barnsley colors on Tuesday night.
Gabriel Slonina made his club debut for the English League One club while defender Donovan Pines scored in Barnsley’s 4-2 penalty shootout win over Wigan Athletic. It marked Slanina’s first appearance since joining on loan from Chelsea while Pines made his fifth overall appearance and first competitively since August 5.
The teams were level 1-1 after 90 minutes at the DW Stadium.
After Thelo Aasgaard propelled Wigan Athletic in front after 35 minutes, Pines equalized for Barnsley with his third goal for the club. Pines rose high to head home Georgie Gent’s cross at the back post for a 1-1 tying goal.
The former DC United defender now has three goals in five appearances for Barnsley.
Slonina stayed busy throughout the match, denying Joe Hugill in the first half before also repelling Aasgaard and Luke Chambers after halftime.
The U.S. men’s national team goalkeeper also played a huge role in the penalty shootout, diving right to deny Aasgaard in the first round before diving left to repel Josh Stones’ effort in the third round. Slonina finished the match with five saves in total.
Barnsley scored four of their five shootout attempts to book a spot in the second round of the competition.
“Definitely not,” Slonina said to BBC Sheffield when asked if his debut could’ve went better than it did Tuesday night. I think that was part of my job to come here and help us win games. Extremely happy, but more happy knowing that the team will be going into the next round.
“I was feeling super excited, being back on the field is what I wanted to do,” Slonina added. “There was a bit of nervousness there, but I think that just shows how important the match was and being able to play was a great feeling.”
“[The goal is] to get promoted to the Championship with Barnsley,” Slonina said. “They were very close last year and I know they are very motivated to get there this season. We are ready to push towards that.”
Both Pines and Slonina will be eager to retain their starting lineup places for when Darrell Clarke’s squad travels to Lincoln City on Saturday.
I’ve always really liked DuJuan Jones and I’m shocked the Revs were willing to let him go; he’s one of the top six or eight fullbacks in our senior-team pool right now and he’s an absolute steal at $786K a year. If he’d been just a hair younger when he started breaking out he’d have been in a Top-5 league in Europe and I suspect he would have stuck. I do think losing Morris hurts a fair bit more than people realize; he won’t wow you with his athleticism but he’s good-to-great everywhere else and I particularly like his engine and his shot from distance. But MLS is a selling league now, I guess…though it does make me grate my teeth a bit to see him have to make what’s essentially a horizontal move – or slightly worse, IMHO, since I think Columbus would thump Middlesbrough good and proper – just to get on Europe’s radar.
LA with Greizman would be interesting, for sure, but I do think one of the things that’s baked-in with Inter Miami is the age of their four ex-Barca guys. What usually gets older players is they start breaking down physically and they are going to miss a fair bit of time. Sure, at full strength they’re a nightmare…but how often have they really been at full strength since Messi arrived?
Also, WTF…I was watching Colorado take down Toluca last night and the guy who was really jumping off the field at me was Zach Steffen. He started rough with a bad distribution and got beat from distance early and saved by the crossbar and someone would have been forgiven for thinking: “same old Zach”. And then he started standing on his head, and for the rest of the game it was the guy who got (justifiably) noticed by Man City. You see how good he is with his feet, how he can drop the ball eighty yards downfield on a dime, the way he moves and covers the net like no other keeper in MLS, and it’s like: damn. Which wasn’t a one-off, I’ve seen him a couple times this year and he’s sort of raised my eyebrows because he’s moving differently than he did the last several years. I dunno if Steffen’s healed up or just recovered his confidence but the guy I was watching last night was the best keeper in our pool. It’s worth keeping an eye on; it’d be a Godsend for us if he recovers his old form from before Man City did whatever they did to break him.
Whoops…sorry, this was supposed to be a response to Johnnyrazor below.
the “wave off” lines for the copa 24 roster were (a) we were trying to win — which didn’t happen — and (b) we still have another summer tournament to pick for. but i was looking at the tourney dates for club world cup and gold cup 25 and they look almost the same.
we have several guys on club world cup teams, including junior prospects. if someone is wanted for both the first big club world cup and our NT regional tournament, do we get release or not?
National grams take pre edence ove club with Fifa sanctioned international dates.
And European teams
/ UEFA are pushing hard to shut down the Club World cup. They dint want it.
It is in an international window so we can call anyone, but it also kind of sounds like it would be up to the player which tourney they choose. The players union is threatening legal action to block the tournament. Apparently the Gold Cup will be on the West Coast and CWC mostly on the East Coast. The rumor is also though that Concacaf is trying to invite big name countries like France and Spain because the 3 WC hosts need better opponents to prepare.
It is in an international window so we can call anyone, but it also kind of sounds like it would be up to the player which tourney they choose. The players union is threatening legal action to block the tournament. Apparently the Gold Cup will be on the West Coast and CWC mostly on the East Coast. The rumor is also though that Concacaf is trying to invite big name countries like France and Spain because the 3 WC hosts need better opponents to prepare.
That’d be awesome. We could basically try to re-create the Confederations Cup. We could badly use a do-over after blowing our chance in Copa America. If we can get sixteen quality teams in from CONCACAF and around the world we absolutely should.
Also – and I really wish Ives would cover this tournament because it is International – we’re down to 8 teams in Leagues Cup…and only two Mexican teams are left. Tigres went down last night. And I’m sure you saw what Columbus did to Miami…that was fairly epic. I do think Columbus and LAFC are the two best squads left in the competition.
Next year we need to think about maybe getting the J-League involved.
Q: the question would be how many top players would be missing from international duty to play Club World Cup. Would Mbappe or Nico Williams play with their club or country. Of course you’d think the France and Spain Olympic teams would make a good run at Gold Cup.
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That was ‘23 Columbus last night. They’ve haven’t needed one of those types of comebacks much this season. Rossi and Cucho are finally getting on the same page and the additions of Chambost and DeJuan Jones look to be good ones. Not sure we can match a fully fit Inter Miami or LAFC if they get Griezman.