MINNESOTA UNITED | ANALYSIS
Five games ago, Minnesota United made an unexpected change, switching from playing four defenders to five. Since then, the Loons are undefeated, with four wins and a draw.
Minnesota (7-2-3, second in the Western Conference) visits Colorado (6-5-3, sixth) on Saturday night, and it’s likely the Loons will keep rolling out the new formation, especially against a team that some numbers suggest is one of the top teams in the West.
On paper, the formation switch is as simple as the removal of a central midfielder, and the addition of a center back. In practice, it demands more from a number of different players — none more so than the two outside backs, Joseph Rosales and DJ Taylor.
In fact, in soccer parlance, they get a new name: no longer “fullbacks,” as they’d be in a back four, but now “wingbacks.”
It’s a lexical representation of the hybrid nature of the role. When the Loons are defending, the two have to defend like fullbacks; when they have the ball, Rosales and Taylor have to play as wingers, providing both the width in the attack as well as being a threat to cut inside.
“I think you really need to have the mentality of a winger in the way that we want to play when we’ve got the ball,” coach Eric Ramsay said. “We want the wingbacks to be on the last line [the attacking line], and we’ve created a load of chances through the wingbacks getting on the last line quickly.”
It’s meant that both players have had to adapt this season. Rosales has been a midfielder, and even sometimes a forward, since arriving from Honduras in 2021. Taylor, meanwhile, has been a traditional fullback, making 69 starts there over the past three seasons.