Game Story: MNUFC 2, San Jose 0

Analysis

Minnesota United is focusing on its first Leagues Cup game in Seattle on Friday night, but Robin Lod has a stop to make on the way — at Wednesday’s MLS All-Star Game in Columbus, Ohio.

Not that the Finnish midfielder would ever display an excess of enthusiasm about anything, but he did allow he is excited about one thing: being in a team with former Barcelona (and current Inter Miami) stars Luis Suarez, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets.

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Transfer News

Minnesota United is closing in on another summer signing. A source confirmed that forward Kelvin Yeboah is expected to arrive in Minnesota this week for medical testing, in what could be one of the final steps toward one of MNUFC’s most consequential acquisitions of the summer.

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For more than a month, Minnesota United waited to get many of its current players back from international duty. With the opening of the MLS transfer window on Thursday, the team finally can add new players, too — and now with fewer restrictions.

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Everyone knows what Minnesota United is capable of on the counterattack. The Loons have three players — Sang Bin Jeong, Joseph Rosales and Tani Oluwaseyi — among the 20 fastest players in the league this season, and so much of Minnesota’s offense is based simply on letting those players kick things into high gear.

San Jose comes to town Saturday, having lost three-quarters of its games this season (4-18-2). Minnesota might display that higher gear again, but the Loons are still struggling to find a lower gear to balance their attack. It’s rare to see them stringing together a bunch of passes to move down the field, slowly building up through possession, keeping the ball moving and making the other team chase.

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There’s no getting around it – set pieces are killing Minnesota United.

After Saturday’s draw at Houston, manager Eric Ramsay noted that the team’s own numbers ranked Minnesota as “one of the worst” teams in the league at defending set pieces. Wednesday against DC, the Loons got even worse, giving up goals in the 90th and 91st minutes, both from set pieces, to turn what looked like a win into perhaps the worst loss of the team’s now-nine-game winless stretch.

“I don’t think you could lose a game in a worse way,” said Ramsay.

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There was something of a back-to-school air to Minnesota United training on Tuesday morning.

For the first time since the first week of June, zero players were away with their national teams. Tani Oluwaseyi and Dayne St. Clair were present and accounted for, having finally returned from their Copa América sojourn with Canada.

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Khaled El-Ahmad, Minnesota United’s first-year chief soccer officer and sporting director, knows what he wants for his club.

Specifically, the total elimination of disposable plastic water bottles. He wants those gone. Yesterday, if possible.

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Over the past seven games, Minnesota United has been in a free fall down the Western Conference standings. The Loons, in third place after defeating Sporting KC, have dropped all the way down to the 10th spot, out of the playoffs.

Since he took over the Loons, coach Eric Ramsay has mostly gone game-by-game with his approach. He rarely mentions the team’s spot in the table, or whether they might be in the playoff places — but that doesn’t mean he’s unaware. And he’s setting his goals for the rest of the season realistically.

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Minnesota United dropped a sixth straight game in Los Angeles, a continuation of a streak of “relentless disappointment,” to quote manager Eric Ramsay.

Here’s my game story for the Star Tribune; here’s the extended analysis.

A month ago, Minnesota United was one of the hottest teams in MLS. With 28 points in 15 games, they were sailing along at a pace that would have won the Western Conference in three of the preceding four seasons.

The Loons’ record since then, though, shows just how much of a hole has been blown in the side of what was a promising voyage: Six games, zero wins, just one point.

read the rest at StarTribune.com…

I was back covering the Minnesota United game for the Star Tribune, and the Loons made the wrong kind of history, losing their fifth consecutive game for the first time since the club joined MLS.

Here’s the game story; here is the analysis / notebook, with some extra postgame quotes.

In 2023, Minnesota United had four goalkeepers on its first-team roster – overkill, perhaps, but an acknowledgement that no team ever wants to run short of keepers.

This year, the Loons went with a different plan: two goalkeepers on the MLS roster, two more signed to their MLS NEXT Pro roster.

Though they knew that starter Dayne St. Clair would likely miss some time with the Canadian national team during Copa América, they had MLS veteran Clint Irwin ready to fill in, plus Alec Smir and former Homegrown player Fred Emmings signed with MNUFC2 and eligible for short-term backup duty.

All that could go wrong was a few poorly-timed injuries – which, in this month of cascading roster disasters, is of course exactly what happened.

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