Minnesota United will try to rebound from a disappointing end to their Leagues Cup campaign on Sunday when they host a Colorado Rapids side moving on from one of its best players.
Minnesota (12-5-8, 44 points) lost 2-0 to Atletico San Luis on the final day of the first phase of the tournament Wednesday, when a multiple-goal victory might have kept the Loons alive.
The Matchday 3 defeat came after MNUFC gave back the lead three times in a 3-3 draw with Club America on Matchday 2.
Now Loons manager Eric Ramsay faces the challenge of learning from those uneven performances while keeping confidence high within a team that currently sits third in the Western Conference.
“What I don’t want to happen is any bad feeling to seep into how we feel about MLS, how we feel about Open Cup,” Ramsay said after the San Luis match. “We have to really look at ourselves hard around some of the themes across the three games. But ultimately I want to preserve that feeling of this being a group that is moving in the right direction.”
Tani Oluwaseyi and Bongi Hlongwane each scored twice in the tournament, while Oluwaseyi and Kelin Yeboah each have nine league goals.
Colorado (8-11-6, 30 points) has two players on nine MLS goals. But one is Djordje Mihailovic, who was dealt to Toronto FC this week for a cash trade worth up to a $9 million fee.
The other is Rafael Navarro, who scored three more times in Leagues Cup play, including once in Thursday’s 2-2 draw against reigning Concacaf Champions Cup winners Cruz Azul.
While Mihailovic will clearly be missed, manager Chris Armas will be looking to make up for his absence collectively. And he took encouragement from the draw with Cruz Azul, in which he fielded a significantly rotated squad against arguably the best team on the continent.
“A really good example of what a real team looks like,” Armas said afterward. “A team that doesn’t really break, but we bend and take some blows along the way.”
–Field Level Media
