The offense — or lack there of — was a contributing culprit in Minnesota United’s defense allowing two first-half goals in a 2-1 loss to the Chicago Fire on Saturday.
Moments before Kei Kamara opened up the scoring in the 24th minute, Loons striker Luis Amarilla’s poor touch led to a turnover in the middle of the field and the Fire striker capitalized with a goal on his former team.
Before Kamara scored his second goal in the 35th minute, Robin Lod’s errant pass in the center circle gave the ball back to Chicago. The Fire then put together 17 consecutive passes — an indicting number on its own — to set up Arnaud Souquet’s assist to Kamara’s header goal.
Loons manager Adrian Heath told his players Tuesday morning why he thought their five-match unbeaten start to the season came to an end. “I thought we didn’t compete enough,” he said. “(We) were second in every phase of the game, whether that was with the ball or without the ball, transition.”
Minnesota (3-1-2) gave up two goals in a match for the first time all season, with captain Wil Trapp issuing a reminder Saturday.
“I don’t think it changes much, other than in the sense of, it’s a long season and you can’t bank on winning every single game,” Trapp said from Solider Field. “… To do what we did up to this point is good, but we have to continue to get better. We have to continue to learn.”
Window closing
The Loons are not expected to make another international roster addition before the primary transfer window closes April 24.
MNUFC is still awaiting a development on the future of MLS All-Star midfielder Emanuel Reynoso, a Designated Player who has been holding out in Argentina since January and who was suspended by MLS in February.
The summer transfer window (July 5-Aug. 2) appears to be a more likely opportunity to see a new foreign player join the club.
Fresh air
The Loons are training outside on grass in Blaine this week for the first time this season.
“We are the last ones to do it (in MLS); we’ve rang around a few places,” Heath said. “It’s just nice to be outside. People don’t realize we have been inside (in Minnesota) since January.”
Tuesday’s summery weather — sunny and high 70s — aren’t expected to remain for Saturday’s match. It is forecast to be a dreary spring day, 53 degrees, cloudy and with a 50 percent chance of rain in St. Paul.
MNUFC is still searching for its first home win, and getting all three points Saturday against Orlando City (2-2-2) is more important with a road match at the first-place Seattle Sounders (5-1-1) looming on April 22. The Loons are 0-8-0 in all MLS games in Seattle since 2017.
Strong enough
After Seattle, MNUFC will play at Detroit City in the third round of the U.S. Open Cup on April 25. Detroit plays in the USL Championship, a second-tier league behind MLS, while Union Omaha, the team that bounced United out of the national tournament a year ago, resides in the third-tier USL League One.
“We’ll go there and treat the competition with the respect that it deserves — we did last year,” Heath said Friday. “People say, ‘Well, you changed the team.’ We had two DPs on the field and seven first-team players and we just didn’t play on the day.”
Though the Loons didn’t start Reynoso, Robin Lod, Dayne St. Clair and Will Trapp in that game, they still ran out DPs (Luis Amarilla and Adrien Hunou) as well as Michael Boxall, D.J. Taylor, Franco Fragapane, Bongi Hlongwane and Kervin Arriaga in the XI. That should have been enough to beat a minor-league side. Instead, MNUFC suffered one of its worst losses of its MLS era.
Briefly
Before his 30-minute shift as a substitute Saturday, Sang Bin Jeong had played only 13 minutes for his Swiss club team Grasshopper since January. Heath said staff will make a decision later this week on whether the South Korean will be able to make his first MLS start on Saturday. … MNUFC2 improved to 3-0-0 in MLS NEXT Pro league with a 2-1 win over L.A. Galaxy II on Sunday in Carson, Calif. Emmanuel Iwe and Tani Oluwaseyi scored for the Loons. … Former Loons draft pick Nabi Kibunguchy is with Orlando City B in MLS NEXT Pro. … MNUFC academy Under-17 and U15 teams didn’t advance out of the group stage of the GA Cup in Bradenton, Fla., last week but did better latter stage of the tournament. They each went 3-1, with four total games reaching penalty kicks. The highlights were the U15s beating Arsenal 2-1, and the U17s besting Pumas 6-5 in PKs.
