Minnesota Update, 7.13.2023
The Loons play their perfect game, while the Lynx are perfectly awful.
Along with “goals change games,” one of the things that MNUFC manager Adrian Heath says most often in postgame press conferences is, “I’ll never turn down a point on the road.”
This is pretty much accepted wisdom everywhere in soccer, that a draw away from home is a good result, but in MLS - with long flights and weather variability and an overall style of play that tends to reward energy alongside, and even sometimes above, skill - even getting a point on the road seems like a tall ask, sometimes.
This is why Minnesota United has usually stuck to a road playbook that starts with the headline “first, you must defend.” The Loons tend to cede possession to the opposition, focus on defending first and foremost, and then try to pick a few opportunities to go forward - one opening for a fullback to get forward and cross the ball while the defense is disorganized, say, or an opening for a midfielder to launch a long pass to a striker who’s running in behind the defense.
I’m not sure this plan has ever worked as well as it did on Wednesday, when the Loons scored twice in the first 20 minutes, and cruised to a 3-0 victory against Houston.
Fifteen minutes into the game, the Loons - with basically their first extended possession of the game - found an opening for fullback DJ Taylor to get forward and cross, leading to a penalty-area scramble and the ball falling to Bongokuhle Hlongwane. Bongi, showing more composure than I thought he possessed, took a moment to gather himself, let a defender fly by, and poke the ball into the top corner, and it was 1-0.
When Minnesota signed Teemu Pukki a few weeks ago, what they no doubt envisioned was some version of their second goal, which came just five minutes later. Defending, the Loons got the ball to Emanuel Reynoso, who turned one defender and - almost without looking - launched a long pinpoint pass to Pukki, who’d already started his defense-splitting run even before Reynoso had turned the defender.
Then - and this was the shock for Loons fans, who have watched striker after striker come and go - he actually put the ball in the net on a breakaway, thus bringing Minnesota’s numbers as a team to 1-for-85 over the past few years.
The Loons had 70 minutes of defending to do, after that, but they took care of that pretty confidently. And then even got a third goal, a classic end-of-the-game counter-attack that saw a rebound from a Hlongwane shot fall right to Izzy Tajouri-Shradi, who made no mistake.
Minnesota had four shots on target, and three goals, and I’ve described them all for you. For a team that has been unable to finish chances all season, “we had three chances and scored three goals” is about the sweetest music of all.
It does feel like things are turning around a bit for Minnesota, in that they’ve had a pair of three-goal wins in their past three games, but the third game in that trio was a three-goal loss. Saturday, they have star-studded LAFC at home, in their last MLS game for a month, as the league takes a break to play its revamped Leagues Cup competition.
If the Loons want to really give fans hope for the fall, they need to get more than one impressive result in a row.
The Lynx also had an impressive result on Wednesday, but not in a good way. For the second consecutive game, they allowed 100 points, the first time in 16 years that they’ve given up triple digits in back-to-back games. They also didn’t score much, and the whole thing added up to an astonishingly bad 40-point home loss to Dallas, 107-67.
Dallas had only nine healthy players, and gave all but 41 minutes to their five starters, every one of whom was at least +30 on the night. Meanwhile, not one of the Lynx’s players was better than -13 in the box score, and Napheesa Collier led the entire team with 11 points.
Minnesota has allowed 90+ points in four of their last seven games, and is averaging giving up 85 points a night, which is not really a recipe for winning basketball. They’re 8-2 against the four bottom teams in the WNBA standings, and 1-9 against everyone else.
The Lynx are exactly halfway through the season, and now are off until next Tuesday, for the league all-star break. Whether that gives them time to work on their defense, or just to think about their defense, they probably need the reset.
TODAY’S SLATE
Nothing again. This baseball All-Star break is about three weeks long.
ON DECK
TWINS at Oakland, Friday
SAINTS vs Durham, Friday
LOONS vs LAFC, Saturday
LYNX at Atlanta, Tuesday
I get that teams don't like to tank, but I have not heard a good reason why the Lynx shouldn't be trying to get a high draft pick in next year's draft.