And… exhale.

Connor Tobin scored with effectively the last kick of the match, bulling a deflected cross into the nett with his shoulder, to give Minnesota United a 3-2 win over the San Antonio Scorpions. Pablo Campos scored the other two goals of the match for United, which sent the Scorpions to their fifth loss in five fall-season games, and their first under interim coach Alen Marcina.

This was a game that Minnesota had to win – not only to get back into the NASL race, but to stave off more questions about how one of the more talented teams in the league had ended up in seventh place after four weeks of the fall. The win moved them up to third place, one win away from first-place Carolina.

Walter Ramirez opened the scoring for San Antonio in the 14th minute, a goal that came from – once again, for United – a set piece. Ramirez latched on to a partial clearance, and had time to set himself and hit a looping shot into the far corner of the net, one that goalkeeper Matt Van Oekel had no chance to save.

Campos, though, equalized before halftime, using his imposing presence to create a goal out of nothing. Scorpions defender Kevin Harmse appeared to have walled off Campos from a ball that was rolling towards San Antonio keeper Pat Hannigan, but Campos managed to hurry Harmse and get a touch on the ball that rebounded off Hannigan. With the defender and Hannigan thus colliding, all Campos had to do was poke the ball into the net to make things 1-1.

Five minutes into the second half, it was Campos again scoring a solo goal, running down a long pass and smashing a powerful shot underneath Hannigan to make it 2-1. And when Scorpions midfielder Jeff Jennings was sent off in the 58th minute for a terrible two-footed lunge on Cristiano Dias, it appeared United could cruise to victory.

Of course, this being Minnesota, it’s never that easy. Twelve minutes from the end, San Antonio Tomasz Zahorski uncorked a goal of the season candidate, a 25-yard strike in the run of play that leveled things at 2-2.

United pressed for the final ten minutes, but it wasn’t until the fifth minute of stoppage time that Minnesota got the ball to the net – and Tobin popped up to save Minnesota’s season.

NOTE: **The NASL will likely be taking a look at some postgame antics between Harmse and Campos. The two came together after the final whistle, presumably because of some in-game disagreements. Harmse took the opportunity to punch Campos in the crotch; the Minnesota striker retaliated by karate-chopping Harmse in the neck. As Harmse went down like he’d been stabbed, San Antonio’s **Esteban Bayona sprinted over to give Campos an enthusiastic two-handed slap to the face, at which point all pugilists were separated by an onrushing cavalry of peacemakers from both sides.

Between Jennings’ terrible tackle and the post-game dustup, one would think that suspensions of some kind may be forthcoming from the league.

*NOTE: This appeared at SoccerCentric. *

NOTE: This appeared at SoccerCentric.

Minnesota United’s squad for tonight’s game in San Antonio includes 16 of the players who traveled to Carolina last weekend – plus three new faces, all of them midfielders. Sean de Silva, Lucas Rodriguez, and Kentaro Takada will make the trip to Texas, while Max Griffin (who will be in Los Angeles for his brother’s wedding) and Michael Reed miss out.

Rodriguez and Takada played with the second team in Wednesday’s scrimmage against Anoka-Ramsey Community College, while de Silva worked with both the first and second teams in either half. Though nobody with the team mentioned an injury, given that Reed started the past three games in central midfield, I’d speculate that he picked up some kind of an injury on either Wednesday or Thursday.

United has a 19-man travel list instead of the usual 18 for this one, possibly to provide cover for Miguel Ibarra, who did not practice Thursday after a minor injury Wednesday. The winger may be a game-time decision, with Rodriguez or de Silva ready to take a spot on the bench if Ibarra is unable to play.

Honors for Wall

Striker Travis Wall was named to the North Coast Athletic Conference (Division III) All-Decade team this week – along with siblings Tyler and Sarah. All three starred for the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops; Sarah graduated in ’05, Tyler in ’10, and Travis in ’11.

Wall was one of the most-decorated players in Division III soccer history; he was three times All-Conference, twice All-American, and was the 2011 National Player of the Year and won a national championship. Since joining Minnesota in 2012, Wall has made nine appearances and one start for the club.

The return of Altman

United captain** Kyle Altman**, now retired and in medical school in San Antonio, will be at tonight’s game in a different capacity: superfan. Altman tweeted this week that he’d be in attendance, saying, “Unofficially starting the SA Dark Clouds division this Saturday.”

He later clarified that he was willing to make it official, rather than unofficial, if only anyone would pay him dues.

Game details

Tonight’s game is a 7:30 pm start, at Toyota Field in San Antonio. You can watch online at MNUnitedFC.com. As always, the team will host an official watch party at Brit’s Pub in downtown Minneapolis, while the Dark Clouds will be watching at the Nomad World Pub on the West Bank (or, in the case of Altman, from the Toyota Field stands).

NOTE: This appeared at SoccerCentric.

For a large chunk of the spring season, Minnesota United could hardly find eleven healthy players to field a team. Injuries hit every position on the field except fullback, and for several games, the team had to ask for contributions from every corner of the squad.

Four games into the fall season, United has the opposite problem. Not only is virtually everyone healthy, but the team brought in five accomplished players over the summer while only two left the team. Suddenly, there aren’t nearly enough spots in the starting lineup to go around.

Said head coach Manny Lagos, “I think a big thing that I try to explain to the guys is that, no matter what our roster, we’re in an unfair business; only eleven guys get to play.”

Look down the United bench from last week against Carolina. Brian Kallman has played virtually every game at right back for Minnesota for years. Floyd Franks started every game for Carolina in the spring season while captaining the team. Mike Ambersley led the NASL in assists last year. Miguel Ibarra started almost every game for United for the past season and a half. Those are four guys who have been shoo-ins for the starting eleven in the past, and now find themselves in an unfamiliar role: coming off the bench.

“You approach it the same, because you’re a professional and you have to show up every day and put the work in,” said Kallman. “It’s Manny’s decision on who plays at the end of the day, and it’s good to have competition in training and everyone pushing each other. I think we all are working towards the same goals; it might get a little hard at times, but that’s what being professional is about, what’s best for the team. Sometimes you have to put your ego aside.”

Lagos says there are three factors that play into his lineup selections. “I really believe at times, a coach believes in certain systems he does well, and he wants the team to have that vision and look to it. I think other times, you have to look at the roster you have and say, how can I put the guys on the field that give us the best chance to win. Other times you look at the roster and say, I need to get these guys on the field, what gives us the best shape to do that. All those things have come into play.”

At the beginning of the week, the coach will identify how he wants the team to play that weekend – “both in terms of personnel and systems of play,” he said – and the rest of the week will proceed from there. The team’s training plan for the week thus is based off the plan for the weekend.

For Franks, while the weekend is the game, the weekday grind is the job – and that’s when the team improves. “[The competition for places] definitely helps the team,” he said. “It ramps up the competition inside the group and that’s always good and you’re pushing each other.”

According to the midfielder, the day-to-day competition doesn’t hinder the group spirit, either. “I guess it could, but I think all the guys out here have the right mindset,” he said. “If your mind is for the team, then it doesn’t matter that you have to compete with your teammates as well. You always put that first, and I think this group of guys does that really well.”

It’s a big game for Minnesota this week, something that Lagos reiterated several times. “It’s going to be big this weekend, because I felt like we had a rhythm of a game or two when we did well, but we really struggled in Carolina to really impose ourselves on the game,” he said. “Not that we played bad, and I thought there was a nice unity defensively, but I just thought we weren’t quite giving everything we could have, in terms of the organizational shape and structure and attitude about really pressing the game. Again, this week is really for us to regroup, and remind ourselves that we had – in terms of playing – a decent start to the season, and now we have to really build on that. This is a big game for us this weekend, no doubt about it.”

This week is also somewhat different than other weeks, in that the team played a scrimmage on Wednesday, against Anoka-Ramsey Community College – something that’s likely to give us some insight into the team’s setup for the weekend. Most of the team played 45 minutes, but the first team played in the second half, with a little bit different look to it than the first few games. Winger Max Griffin will not travel this week – he will be at his brother’s wedding in Los Angeles – and, at least for Wednesday’s scrimmage, it sounds like United may their 4-2-1-3 aside. Ambersley played up front alongside Pablo Campos, and Ibarra, Franks, Calum Mallace, and Sinisa Ubiparipovic manned a four-man midfield. (Ibarra, however, picked up an injury Wednesday and did not train Thursday; we’ll see if he travels with the team to San Antonio.)

Kevin Venegas also continued to hold down his spot at first-team right back for the scrimmage, something I asked the coach about – given that Kallman has been a stalwart there for years, and appeared to be set to take over as team captain in the fall. Said Lagos, “Sometimes it’s not necessarily black and white; we just think that Venegas has come in and done a really good job. I think Brian just had a baby, and he’s still getting back from [a one-game suspension for a straight red card against Atlanta]. [Also,] he had a little bit of a knock or an injury that maybe people didn’t realize, and that takes time to get back to 100%. I think Brian’s been around long enough that he understands that that stuff happens when you get a little bit of an injury. And certainly he’s also probably thinking, it’s a good job for Kevin Venegas to be ready to play, and now from that, we’ve got two good options at right back that we think are going to help this team get better in the long run.”

Regardless of the final starting eleven that takes the field in San Antonio, the one thing that seems certain is that Minnesota will have good players available on the bench. For them, it’s certainly an excellent problem to have, not to mention a weapon for the later stages of the game, when Lagos has the luxury of choosing from a number of accomplished substitutes. Still, United is in an interesting situation – too many guys for too few places, rather than the other way around.

NOTE: This also appeared at SoccerCentric.

The San Antonio Scorpions are in disarray. There’s no other word for it. After closing the NASL spring season with five consecutive wins, they were the trendy pick to win the fall title; instead, they’ve lost their first four matches of the fall. Head coach Tim Hankinson paid for the lapse with his job this week; he got the boot Tuesday afternoon, at what appeared to be a fairly hastily-called press conference. Hankinson has been replaced by his assistant, former Minnesota Thunder forward Alen Marcina, who played for the club briefly during the disastrous 2008 season

I communicated with two Scorpions experts this week; Chris Hockman covers the Scorpions for the San Antonio Soccer Examiner and is a columnist for Soccer Newsday, and James Hope is the president of the Crocketeers, San Antonio’s fan club. They both echoed the same theme: nobody has any idea what’s going on.

Said Hockman, “The short answer is, I don’t know.”

Said Hope, “It’s hard to point it to one thing.”

Both mentioned that the team has been wildly inconsistent, and Hockman suggested that the team had perhaps focused too much on shoring up the offense during the summer break, while ignoring defensive problems. San Antonio has scored six goals in four games, a decent total, but has allowed an astonishing twelve – including seven in one match.

The Scorpions still have the dangerous Hans Denissen up front, who is second in the league in goals this year, and they’ve added Polish striker Tomasz Zahorski, who has four goals in four games since joining the team. But the real problem is in defense; opponents have scored one, two, two, and seven goals against them, in four fall matches.

It’s hard to put a finger on any particular defensive problem for the Scorpions, either. They’ve given up goals direct from free kicks, from corners, from set pieces, from open play, off breakaways, through bad goalkeeping, from giving midfielders too much space – pretty much every possible way. If there was a defensive breakdown bingo card, they’d have a blackout in the fall season alone.

Their first game, a 7-4 loss to Tampa Bay, probably summed up their second half-season so far. The Scorpions scored three times in the opening 18 minutes, but incredibly, by halftime, they were down 4-3. After halftime, they got back within 5-4, before giving up two more goals in the final ten minutes. That’s the definition of disarray.

Since that loss, it’s been all downhill; 1-0 in Edmonton, 2-1 at home to Fort Lauderdale, then 2-1 last week in New York, when the Cosmos scored in injury time to beat a 10-man Scorpions side.

The worrisome thing, from a Minnesota standpoint, is that United has been in a very similar situation already this year. On June 1, the Scorpions were last in the NASL, having managed just one win and two ties in seven games. They’d lost to a PDL team in their previous home game (in the US Open Cup). And, despite what appeared to be a reeling San Antonio team, Minnesota went into San Antonio and completely laid an egg, allowing goals in the first minute and the last to lose 2-0.

The game set San Antonio on a late title push and a five-game winning streak. It helped knock Minnesota into a tailspin for the remainder of the spring. In other words: beware the Scorpions team that appears wounded.

Note: This appeared at SoccerCentric.

Minnesota United lost to Carolina 1-0 on Saturday, with Brian Shriver scoring his league-leading 12th goal of the year in the 52nd minute to decide the game. The loss got me thinking about the team, and where it’s at with four games gone in the fall season – which gave rise to a few questions.

1) When will Minnesota start converting its chances in front of goal? United had five shots on goal to Carolina’s three on Saturday, but couldn’t convert. Twice already this fall, the opposing team’s goalkeeper has been named to the league Team of the Week, both times for making a seemingly impossible number of saves. And for all those chances, United has only scored three goals in four games in the second half (with a fourth coming via own goal).

Minnesota is not the only team thus afflicted; Edmonton and Atlanta have also scored just thrice in the fall, New York has four, and Tampa Bay and San Antonio have scored twice apiece in three games after their 7-4 barnburner in the opening week. But United hasn’t kept a clean sheet since April 20, their second game of the spring season. This is a team that usually needs to score twice to win, and while they’re creating the chances, they’re not finding the back of the net.

2) Can we learn anything more about the defense from the goal that Carolina scored? It really didn’t fit into any of the narratives from this season. The goal wasn’t from a set piece, it wasn’t allowed early or late; it was just a case of the Minnesota back line running into what appeared to be generalized confusion of how to defend a Carolina attack.

You can see yourself on the video; what appears to be a fairly straightforward push from the RailHawks suddenly turns into a breakaway. Two defenders (Aaron Pitchkolan and Kevin Venegas) push up, while defender Connor Tobin drops back to cover; Michael Reed and Justin Davis mark players, while Cesar Elizondo runs free down the right wing. It’s a classic example of how a bunch of little things can turn into one big thing – in this case, the sight of Shriver, open in front of goal with no United defender within ten yards.

As head coach Manny Lagos would say about a goal like that one, that’s soccer. That’s how the game goes sometimes.

3) Who will start at right back this week? Veteran Brian Kallman started every game in the spring, then captained the team from his usual right-back spot in the fall’s first game. He was sent off (rather harshly) for a foul near the end of that game, though, and hasn’t played since, with Venegas retaining his place at right-back for the last three games.

On the one hand, it’s impossible to ignore that Venegas was the closest defender to the goalscorer both against Tampa Bay and against Carolina… but on the other hand, he was named the Man of the Match by the team for his performance against Carolina. Opinion is split, in other words, about his performance.

Kallman certainly has a wealth of experience in defense, while Venegas played mostly in the midfield until this season, when he was converted to fullback as cover for the two established starters. Minnesota seems quite happy with the central partnership of Pitchkolan and Tobin so far, but it’ll be interesting to see who starts on the right-hand side of defense on Saturday.

4) Are there changes coming in the midfield? Since joining the club on loan from Montreal, Sinisa Ubiparipovic and Calum Mallace have started every game in a re-worked three-man midfield, with Reed joining the pair for the past three games. But the group has yet to produce a goal or an assist, and most of the offense has been left to forward Pablo Campos and wingers Max Griffin **and **Simone Bracalello.

Neither Mike Ambersley nor Floyd Franks has started a game since the summer trades that brought them to Minnesota, veteran Omar Daley has yet to play, and youngster Miguel Ibarra has been relegated to a substitute role. You wonder how long Lagos will stick with the same midfield, with the number of experienced players he has at his disposal – all of whom are no doubt desperate to get a game.

United heads to San Antonio this Saturday to face a Scorpions team that’s lost all four games so far this fall. United needs to get a win to get back on track. Anything less, and there will be plenty more questions to ask next week.

We heard from a lot of people that this week’s podcast was really funny, but that’s mostly because it was completely, entirely inappropriate.

I can’t in good conscience tell you that this week’s Twinkie Town post makes any sense. If you think you’d like reading an article in which Joe Mauer’s agent pitches a sitcom based on Joe’s life, then I guess you’ll probably like this.

Note: This appeared at SoccerCentric.

That’s the number of fans that turned out to CenturyLink Field in Seattle for Sunday night’s grudge match between rivals Seattle and Portland in MLS. It was the second-best-attended game in MLS history; it was also the third-best attendance for any soccer game in the world over the weekend, just behind the 71,000 that watched Bayern Munich.

Many were there to see the home debut of national team star Clint Dempsey, whose first two matches for the Sounders had come on the road. Most, however, were there to see what has become the league’s best rivalry; Portland’s last visit to Seattle drew 40,000+ on a 40-degree night in mid-March.

Dempsey, to the disappointment of the Sounders supporters, did not score. However, striker Eddie Johnson, Dempsey’s USA teammate, did find the net, flicking a header just inside the far post from a Mauro Rosales free kick in the 60th minute. It was enough to give Seattle a 1-0 win, which lifted the Sounders into fifth in the Western Conference, just two points behind second-place Los Angeles.

The signing of Dempsey, which made “Deuce” the league’s highest-paid player, had the effect of adding some serious pressure for Seattle, which has languished in the bottom half of the conference standings all season – due mostly to their terrible record on the road. The Sounders have lost only once at home all year – but have an ugly seven losses in twelve away games. With Dempsey’s arrival, the time for excuses in the Pacific Northwest is over; the Sounders need to start climbing the standings.

Not even the visitors – Premier League powerhouse Manchester City – could dampen the atmosphere at Cardiff City Stadium. The Bluebirds crowd came ready to party, and were rewarded with a reason to celebrate. Aron Gunnarsson scored, Frazier Campbell scored twice with his head from corners, and Cardiff City – little Cardiff City, without a top-division goal for 51 years – ran out 3-2 winners against mighty Manchester City.

Elsewhere, Arsenal got its first points of the year, beating Fulham 3-1, and Liverpool beat Aston Villa 1-0 on the strength of another Daniel Sturridge goal. The biggest game of the weekend, though, is today, as Chelsea and Manchester United play this afternoon (2pm, NBC Sports).

In conclusion, Qatar is still a very, very dumb place to have the World Cup.

In France, uber-rich Paris-St. Germain got its first win of the season after a pair of draws to begin the year. PSG, with Qatar’s billions behind them, will likely win the French title again this year, so it’s entertaining to see them trip out of the gate, even a little.

The English Premier League has never been more popular stateside, especially now that NBC Sports is showing every game of the season in one format or another. TV ratings nearly doubled for the opening weekend, compared to last year, and three-quarters of a million people watched Swansea City and Manchester United on NBC – more people than watched several NHL games on NBC last season.

New people who are getting into the league quite naturally feel the need to pick a favorite team, something NBC Sports did its best to play up. This does, however, tend to lead to something I can’t quite figure out: fans that have adopted the rivalries of their new favorite teams. You need go no farther than Twitter, or really any message board where soccer fans congregate, to find Americans – with no connection whatsoever to any kind of local rivalry – abusing each other as a result of these long-held grudges.

When you think about it, this makes no sense. Obviously, local rivals – say, Manchester City and Manchester United – have a long. contentious history. But that contention has been caused by proximity, by the experience of a City fan that’s grown to hate United fans because he’s been surrounded by them at school and at work and so forth. It’s no different than Vikings fans and Packers fans in Minnesota; there wouldn’t be a rivalry if there weren’t Packers fans around, fulfilling their apparent destiny as the most annoying group of people on Earth.

I know you’re out there, Premier League fans. I understand that you quite naturally want to be as big of a fan as you can be, and that this may, in your mind, mean adopting the traditional rivalries of your club, but this makes no sense. Be a big of a fan as you want, but unless somehow you’ve become (for example) an Everton fan that’s lost in a sea of Liverpool supporters, leave the rivalries alone. Making fun of someone else for a rivalry that you’re not part of doesn’t hurt their feelings – it just makes you look like a moron.

*On with the links:

*At Twins Daily, Nick Nelson looks at the future of Twins catching prospect Josmil Pinto, whose development seems all the more important in the wake of Joe Mauer’s concussion.

* You really need to read Wright Thompson’s profile of Dan Gable.

*Chris Brown explains the reads that quarterbacks need to make in the modern-day passing game. (Basically: things are a lot more complicated these days than they used to be.)

*Also from Twins Daily, and Cody Christie, the kind of crazy speculation I like: could the Twins re-sign Johan Santana this year?

*And finally: Lourawls Nairn. There aren’t enough exclamation points in the world for that name. (And his nickname is Tum Tum!)