Minnesota United are feeling good heading into their final home game of the regular season.
On Saturday evening, the Loons (15-7-10, 55 points) will take on Sporting Kansas City (7-19-6, 27 points) in Saint Paul, Minn. The match will take place a week after Minnesota United held on for a 1-1 draw at Colorado.
Typically, a draw would not bring much excitement to either team. But it represented something greater for Minnesota United, who remained perfect in their goal to avoid back-to-back losses throughout the course of the season.
Loons coach Eric Ramsay said the achievement mattered to his players, even if it did not come with a trophy or any special designation.
“The fact that it allows us to preserve that record of not having lost back-to-back league games with only two remaining is no small achievement in any way,” Ramsay said. “That’s what I (wanted to leave Colorado) with, that sense of pride in the group’s reaction.”
Minnesota United sit in third place in the West, but they are just two points behind both San Diego FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps, so the conference’s top postseason seed still is in play.
Sporting Kansas City have not been able to find the same level of consistency. The team will play its road finale at Minnesota before returning home for a final match against the Houston Dynamo on Oct. 18.
The biggest news for Sporting Kansas City in recent days involved the team’s leadership in the front office rather than on the field. On Tuesday, the organization announced that David Lee would take over as the president of soccer operations and general manager.
Lee most recently worked as the sporting director for New York City FC. NYCFC won the 2021 MLS Cup and reached the playoffs seven seasons in a row at one point during his tenure.
One player whom Lee could build around with Sporting Kansas City is Dejan Joveljic, a striker who leads the team with 18 goals. That is more than twice as many as the next-closest teammate, Daniel Salloi, who has seven.
“It’s a pleasure playing with him,” Sporting Kansas City forward Mason Toye said of Joveljic. “As I always say, he’s one of the best strikers in MLS, and he shows it every week. You just see it in the stats, but also in training.
“I know he’s always going to find good spots, so I’m always looking for him, and I know he’s going to finish it off.”
Minnesota United have been led by the trio of Tani Oluwaseyi (10 goals), Kelvin Yeboah (nine goals) and Anthony Markanich (seven goals). Joaquin Pereyra has a team-high 10 assists.
However, the organization is short-handed after allowing Oluwaseyi to move to Spain’s Villarreal CF in August and watching Yeboah sustain a season-ending hamstring injury in September. To fill the void, Bongokuhle Hlongwane stepped into the role of striker for Minnesota United’s most recent game.
“The squad does look very different to how it looked when we were at our very competitive best and threatening to really make a push for the Supporters’ Shield and everything that went with that,” Ramsay said. “We don’t now have two powerful, athletic, aggressive (players) at the top of the pitch, so that is going to require us to look slightly different in certain moments of the game.”
–Field Level Media
