6/18 GAME NOTES: Minnesota United Fall Late to Real Salt Lake 1-0

History repeated itself again on Saturday night as Minnesota United continued to flounder on the road, eventually falling late to a Real Salt Lake side punching well above its low standing in the table.

United have yet to earn three points on the road this season and the 1-0 loss to RSL caps a miserable three-game road tour that saw two shellackings at the hands of Sporting KC before the team traveled to Utah this weekend.

It’s difficult to pin down just one thing that went wrong for the Loons because so many different challenges cropped up during the 90-minute match that will undoubtedly haunt players and coaching staff alike.

Last minute roster shifts

Mere minutes before kickoff, the Loons’ official Twitter account revealed a lineup that was mostly expected, save for a few last-minute changes.

Francisco Calvo and Brent Kallman remained locked in at center back to be the team’s defensive core. But further outside, Jerome “Jerry” Thiesson swung from his usual spot at right back to a left back role in place of an absent Marc Burch.

To fill the gap that remained on the right in Jerry’s absence, Kevin Venegas – a NASL hold-over that has been waiting on the bench for his time to shine – got his second MLS start.

Venegas was long talked about as a possible recruit the team would take with them when they made the leap to MLS over the offseason. That rumor came to fruition, along with fellow NASL players like Ibson and Kallman, as Venegas was called upon to join head coach Adrian Heath’s inaugural squad.

Venegas has been a depth piece all year, so the start shouldn’t come as a total surprise. But Justin Davis was the name that leaped to many minds as the presumptive stop-gap in Burch’s place.

Additionally, the team only had five names listed on their bench. Some assumed it was a clerical error while others chastised the team for poor decision making.

Eric Durkee, the club’s Director of Public Relations, soon offered some clarification on the unusually shallow bench.

The tweet from United’s spokesman at least sheds some light on an awkward situation. Teams like bringing a full bench of players to give their coach as many different skillsets as possible. In the event of a sudden injury or unexpectedly poor performance, a full bench gives a head coach options to tailor his substitution to a game plan that needs shoring up or even a change in formation.

In any case, even if the team did want to add a few more players to the bench due to Marc Burch and Johan Venegas’ absence, they were out of luck.

55.1’s Jeff Reuter soon clarified that the club rarely travels with more than the 18 men that make its gameday roster.

Roster moves be damned, the match was soon underway. Despite a short bench and a few surprise shifts in the lineup, there was still plenty of reason to feel the match would ultimately tilt in the Loons’ favor.

Unfortunately, road points for United were not in the cards.

First Half

United’s performance in the match was split into two parts: the first 20 minutes, and the subsequent 70.

While little of the Loons’ play on Saturday night was a textbook demonstration of exceptional control, possession and pressure, there was at least a glimmer of hope early on as the Loons showed some spark.

An early shot on United’s net at 3′ left goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth on the hot seat as he broke up a dangerous approach, but the ball was out of play quickly enough and the onus was back on the Loons to make a push for an early lead.

Six minutes in, Ibson made another fun highlight-worthy move when he flicked the ball deftly to a teammate while he was still laying sideways on the ground. Though it didn’t develop into anything, it looked like the squad was at least playing with some oomph.

But just sixty seconds later, an error by Francisco Calvo left an RSL attacker with the ball and no defenders between him and Bobby Shuttleworth.

As we would see many times before the match was over, Shuttleworth was in absolute beast mode during this one, and he left his line to come out and clear the ball before it grew into a more serious threat.

Chalk one up for Bobby.

By the 23′, things were clearly deteriorating. Brent Kallman was awarded a yellow card for his part in a slide tackle. Not the end of the world, but it’s never easy having a yellow card hanging around your neck as a center back in a heated game.

At the 23′ mark, the Loons drove upfield into RSL’s third and put a dangerous cross into the box, albeit a bit too high. But rather than letting the ball drift out of play as any other player would if a ball came in too high to reach, Ramirez leaped and stretched his arms to the sky as he grabbed the ball out of the air.

It was a bizarre moment for spectators and the commentary team alike. No one seemed quite sure what he was thinking. A visibly frustrated Ramirez marched away from the spot of the foul without further incident, though the lapse in judgment did set a tone for the striker’s effectiveness the rest of the game.

Shuttleworth was under fire once more before halftime as he made a stunning save at the 33′ mark to shut down yet another promising RSL volley.

Second Half

I have no idea what Adrian Heath is like in the locker room at halftime, but I have to imagine that someone as passionate and frank as he is would tend to put it bluntly: United was completely outplayed in the first 45′ and needed a quick turnaround to prevent another loss on the road.

Well, just three minutes into the second half, United’s defense once again collapsed and allowed RSL a quality shot on net that fortunately pinged off the crossbar instead.

At this point, everyone was honing in on the fact that Shuttleworth was single-handedly giving United a chance to stay in the game. He was consistently making snap-reaction saves that were impressive to watch and undoubtedly required quite a bit of courage to pull off for someone that only recently got out of wearing a face mask after sustaining a broken nose against Sporting KC (anyone else noticing a pattern of bad things happening to the Loons at the hands of SKC?) a number of weeks ago when they traveled to Minnesota.

By the 53′, the wheels were fully off the United offense and more weight than ever appeared to rest on the shoulders of their keeper.

Shuttleworth made two spectacular saves nearly back-to-back in the 53′ and 58′. The save at 58′, in particular, was incredible to watch in real time. Faced with an RSL counterattack that looked all but sure to score, Shuttleworth sprinted out to his right and slid to send the ball out of play.

Though it doesn’t make up for the lack of defensive shape and cohesion on the play, Shuttleworth’s performance, on the whole, adds to a growing body of work that proves he is the right person for United to have in net. If Alvbage departs this summer after losing his starting spot to the former New England Revolution backup, United surely won’t be worse for it.

Then, at 83′, just minutes shy of escaping with a point on the road, United’s defense seemed to freeze in place after a choppy defensive effort inside their own box. A chip went into Shuttleworth’s arms and bounced back a few feet toward several RSL players standing near the six-yard line.

A chip went into Shuttleworth’s arms and bounced back a few feet toward several RSL players standing near the six-yard line. Why a Loon or two didn’t immediately mark up or try to step between a live ball on the ground and the net is beyond me. It looks like the most fundamental of errors.

“Obviously Bobby is really disappointed because he’s had a great time and every time we’ve asked him to come up with a save, he’s done it,” Heath said. “Cruelly at the end, he makes a mistake and it’s the difference in the game. He had kept us in it with some really important saves at important times.”

Yura Mavsisyan, a substitute forward that came on at 69′, chips it just above a squatting Shuttleworth and gives RSL the lead they needed. With an anemic offense for over 80 minutes, there was little chance United would suddenly rally and make up lost ground.

“It’s tough to look back on it and think about the positive right now,” Shuttleworth said. “Giving away a goal like that so late in the game, it’s hard to take the positives, but that’s the life of a goalkeeper. If you put in a good performance and do something like that it’s pretty gutting.”

By the time referee Marcos de Oliveira blew the final whistle, it was clear from a lackluster 90 minutes that Minnesota could have been riding home under the dark cloud of a multi-goal defeat.

“When I look back at the 90 minutes, I don’t think we caused them too many problems,” Heath said. “I can’t fault the effort but tonight we just weren’t good enough.”

The only silver lining I see in a tragic late concession like this is that Real Salt Lake only managed to notch one ball in the net on 29 shots, 9 of which were on target.

Granted, you should never scoff at three points. But if I were an RSL fan, I’d want to know why my offense just had such a difficult time converting such a high number of possible goals.

So, what do you think: did the Loons show some positive signs amidst an anemic offense and a tragic late concession by Shuttleworth? Or, is there more reason to be concerned about the team at this point than optimistic?

Let me know in the comments below.

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