Top-seeded San Diego FC will try to continue defying expectations when they host No. 4 seed Minnesota United on Monday night in a conference semifinal.
San Diego became the second expansion team in three seasons to finish atop the West standings, and in the process set an MLS points record for a first-year club.
Anders Dreyer scored 19 goals and assisted on 19 more to earn MLS Newcomer of the Year honors.
Amahl Pellegrino joined in a summer trade from San Jose and has since scored six times, including three MLS Cup Playoff goals.
Even so, head coach Mikey Varas is well aware that his team has few experiences in matches as big as Monday’s contest. He’s even grateful that his side needed all three matches to defeat Portland in its round one series.
“I think in the long run that was very beneficial because it’s our first time doing that together as a group,” Varas said. “And now we know who we are going into these kind of matches.”
Dreyer will be returning from representing Denmark in World Cup qualifying over last week’s international window and should be available, Varas said. The same goes for Mexico national team winger Hirving “Chucky” Lozano, who has moved past off-field issues that made him unavailable for San Diego’s first postseason match.
Minnesota will present San Diego with its tactical opposite, an opponent that purposefully concedes possession to deploy vertical counterattacks.
In a setup initially built around the talents of strikers Tani Oluwaseyi and Kelvin Yeboah, Minnesota had more than half of possession time in only five of its 34 regular-season matches. Selling Oluwaseyi to La Liga side Villareal this summer only made the Loons double down on that pattern: They held no more than 41% of the ball in any of their three round one series matches against the Seattle Sounders.
After previous stints as an assistant with Manchester United and the Wales national team, it’s an approach for which head coach Eric Ramsay makes no apologies.
“I’ve really learned as a coach in that sense, that I won’t stray too far away from being very pragmatic in the real, truest sense of the word,” Ramsay told MLSsoccer.com. “In terms of just squeezing the most out of the capabilities of the players that you have in front of you, and being very adaptable and being very flexible.”
–Field Level Media
