Minnesota United opens with a familiar result: a loss in Los Angeles

Minnesota tied for the best road record in the Western Conference in 2024, with eight victories in 17 games — but in Los Angeles, they lost three times in three trips.

Saturday they started the 2025 season the way they finished the 2024 season: with a loss in Los Angeles.

Jeremy Ebobisse scored in the 78th minute for LAFC, and the Loons lost 1-0 in a game in which they tallied just one shot on target before the 91st minute.

The Loons had two great chances in the first 15 minutes, but Tani Oluwaseyi shot wide on the first and Kelvin Yeboah blasted the second off the post. As the game wore on, Minnesota was content to restrict LAFC and look for counter-attacking chances — but few materialized.

“We’ve obviously had a couple of really clear-cut big chances early on in the game, that I think when you come to somewhere like this, you’re pretty reliant on taking the relatively few chances you’re going to get over the course of the game,” Loons manager Eric Ramsay said. “I felt like we certainly had enough to have come away with at least a draw, [but] that hasn’t been the case.”

Minnesota did its best to keep LAFC out of the penalty area, but eventually, Ebobisse bypassed the need to use the final 18 yards entirely.

The Loons prevented the home team from getting in behind the defense for 78 minutes — including on the play that led to the goal, as Carlos Harvey did a good job getting back to track powerful winger Denis Bouanga. But Bouanga played a pass across the top of the penalty area to Nathan Ordaz, who found Ebobisse with a bit of space at the top of the box, and Ebobisse curled a shot around Dayne St. Clair for the opening goal.

“We should have at least got a point; on another day we might even win that game,” Loons defender Morris Duggan said.

In 2024, five teams finished ahead of Minnesota in the Western Conference standings, including champ LAFC — and if you count their penalty-shootout playoff wins against Real Salt Lake as regulation draws, the Loons had just one win in 14 games against the quintet.

Losing at BMO Stadium is no great shame, as LAFC is the most successful home team in league history. But it meant that, once again, against a team that’s expected to be among the best in the West, the Loons came away with zero points.

Just 12 minutes into the game, Yeboah picked off a terrible pass and drove toward the goal. He managed to squeeze off a shot that beat both his defender and keeper Hugo Lloris, but the shot rebounded off the inside of the left-hand post and caromed just wide of the right-hand post.

Sang Bin Jeong hit the crossbar with three minutes to go, but in between the two shots off the woodwork that came 75 minutes apart, the Loons created few good chances.

The Loons played a very conservative game, much as they did in many of their games down the stretch in 2024. Though Ramsay spoke about the need to become a more complete team, the Loons almost completely ceded possession in this game — and ended up completing only 244 passes, against 515 for LAFC.

LAFC left winger Bouanga has eaten the Loons alive before, especially in Los Angeles. But right wingback Bongokuhle Hlongwane, not naturally a defender by trade but defending more deeply than usual as part of the Loons’ game plan, was able to keep LAFC’s most dangerous attacker under wraps for most of the game.

The Loons come back to St. Paul for their home opener, next Saturday night against CF Montréal. Gametime temperatures are predicted to be in the mid-20s — a far cry from the balmy mid-70s of Saturday’s game in Los Angeles.