Analysis: Minnesota United set to begin season-defining stretch of six games in 22 days

MINNESOTA UNITED | ANALYSIS

Two weeks ago, Minnesota United played its best game for months, controlling long stretches of the 90 minutes and beating San Jose 2-1 on the road.

In a season that had a disastrous middle, in part because of players who were absent for international games, it only seems fitting that any momentum from the victory was again slowed by yet another international break.

Minnesota didn’t play last week and returns Saturday evening at St. Louis City.

The bye week is the silver lining for the Loons, in a sense; unlike earlier in the year, Minnesota didn’t have to play an MLS game while missing seven players. And the other blessing is that, for the most part, the missing players returned this week without severe injuries or tired legs.

Wingback Joseph Rosales was the only international player to play two full matches during the break. Robin Lod and Teemu Pukki, both of whom were on duty for Finland, both played less than 90 minutes — though they did have to endure a travel schedule that took them to their home country, then Greece, then England, then back to the U.S.

Both Canadian players, goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair and striker Tani Oluwaseyi, got to stay on the continent for games against the U.S. and Mexico — as did center-back Michael Boxall, who played the same two teams for New Zealand, starting one match and coming on as a substitute in the other.

The entire Loons squad is healthy, with the slight exception of Oluwaseyi, who hyperextended his knee against the U.S. — though not badly enough to prevent him from coming on as a substitute against Mexico.

The players who remained in Minnesota might have had the opposite problem: needing match time to stay ready instead of needing a break from the action. The entire squad played a 60-minute intrasquad game on Sept. 5, and eight first-team players saw additional action for MNUFC2 last Sunday — including attacking midfielder Samuel Shashoua, who scored twice in the intrasquad scrimmage and once in the MNUFC2 game.

Ramsay wouldn’t name any players who’d particularly stood out in that scrimmage, but he did say several players would make a considerable case for more game time with the first team.

“We had some really good performances from players that perhaps haven’t been around the starting eleven as much as they would like,” said the manager. “That’s the position that we wanted to get to. We wanted to feel like we’ve got a full group of men really competing for places, that are all to a man capable of playing in the MLS, and that’s what we’ve got.”

It was also a chance for the non-international Loons to get in some extra training time and to work on the things that needed work — including the team’s defense. According to midfielder Wil Trapp, it gave the team a chance to focus on their pressing triggers — basically, the spots the team can press to cut off central midfield and force the other team to the outside.

“Every exercise we were doing, the focus was stay compact, deny the middle of the field, and from there you start to see you’re using the lines as extra defenders,” he said. ”You’re using our ability to maintain and cut off space to help limit what they can do.”

The next three weeks are one of the season’s busiest stretches. The Loons have six games in the next 22 days and are currently clinging to the Western Conference’s final playoff place. The stretch will define the year — and with so many games, there won’t be much chance to make changes on the fly.

“We still want to be a team that makes use of its depth, but we’ve also got to find a way of again establishing something that we do really, really well,” said Ramsay. “Obviously I’m not going to make too many changes as we move through the coming weeks, because we haven’t got a load of time for trial and error. We’ve really got to hang our hat on doing something and doing something well.

“It’s crunch time now. We’ve got to make sure that we’re at our very best.”