6/3 GAME NOTES: United Crushed By Sporting KC in Early Season Rematch

You would have forgiven Minnesota United for entering Saturday’s match versus Sporting KC with a fair amount of confidence considering the team’s recent string of strong performances, among them a 2-0 win against SKC.

But as was clear to everyone wearing a Loon logo, this game was essentially dead on arrival. Minnesota United head coach Adrian Heath said he saw it immediately and knew the team was in trouble.

Sporting KC, a squad that is in blistering form at home as it is unbeaten in its last 15 matches at Children’s Mercy Park, amassed 27 total shots (9 on target) to Minnesota’s paltry 7 (1).

You can find the match highlights here.

“We were second best from the very first minute to the 90th minute,” Heath said. “We were out-fought, out-played and out-run. There was no desire and no enthusiasm. This was as bad as we have been since the second or third week of the season. Forget the scoreline, I was more disappointed with the amount of determination that the guys showed.”

Usually a team can muster a few politically-correct if not disguised answers when it comes to why they truly loss, but not in this case as, like coach, players were upfront with their poor performance.

“It felt flat,” said Brent Kallman, who was named team captain in place of Francisco Calvo while the Costa Rican is away on international duty. “We definitely started the game flat. I just kept thinking we were going to snap out of it and that we were going to get ourselves going a little bit. We didn’t come out of that, so yeah, I would agree lack of energy. We did not win our individual battles all over the field and I think that cost us today. I’m thinking we get back and we start training, we have to go really hard at each other because that can decide a game. It felt like we lost every single one today.”

Heath said Kallman deserved the captaincy because it means a lot to him to play for the club, ostensibly referring to the fact that the 26-year-old is a native of Woodbury, Minn.

“I was excited for the challenge,” Kallman said. “I was happy to be named captain but I wish we would have preformed a little better.”

In addition to Calvo, the Loons were without regular starters Abu Danladi, Johan Venegas and Sam Cronin on the day, due to injury, international call up and suspension, respectively. This lack of depth become an even larger issue when Miguel Ibarra needed to be substituted in the 8th minute due to a calf injury.

Christian Ramirez, the team’s leading goalscorer and often recipient of Ibarra’s passing, said the team had to adjust rather drastically with the injury since they were without a similar replacement.

“I think we had to change the system and it took us a little while to get used to that when we weren’t playing with a natural 10 anymore,” Ramirez said. “It was more like a 6 and two 8s. That was difficult because there was space behind their line of midfield that we couldn’t get the ball into because we didn’t have somebody there. So that was frustrating. That was the majority of the reason, but at the same time, we didn’t perform the way we are accustomed to.”

As an expansion franchise, United is already a team severely low on quality depth in its roster. Even though the team gave an honest assessment of the events that took place, the truth of the matter is it didn’t have enough talent to replace its missing pieces — and it showed.

For Heath, though, the primary culprit was lack of effort and he’ll be looking to correct that quickly.

“We will find out [why] and I am not putting up with that,” Heath said. “I guarantee it.”

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