Minnesota United Struggling to Cope with MLS, Lose Big Once Again

Photo Credit: Brian Curski

“I would be hopeful if the right player became available that we think we need, I would be hopeful that we’d do that. At this moment we are looking for one or two. Whether [they become] available I don’t know.”

That was Minnesota United head coach Adrian Heath at practice prior to his team’s trip to Colorado a few weeks ago. His inference that the team could use possible personnel reinforcements was slightly eyebrow-raising but understandable considering the Loons were setting Major League Soccer records for goals conceded.

Those words, at the time thought to be potentially knee-jerk, now seem like a considerable understatement.

Never mind the fact Saturday’s match against the New England Revolution finished in a lopsided 5-2 scoreline with Minnesota on the losing end, but consider that this team knew its primary deficiency heading into the match and with that still managed to allow a goal withing the first five minutes.

“I’ll have to see it again, but obviously the first half was really, really poor defensively, every time they attacked it looked like they were going to score and that’s why we made the change,” Heath said after the match. “We had to put an extra body in there just to shore it up a little bit and it seemed to have the desired effect. I thought we were a lot better [in the] second half, but it was a little bit too little, too late and as I’ve just said to the guys, we’ve got to take a serious look at what we’re doing because we can’t keep conceding goals the way we are at this moment in time, it’s too easy for the opposition to score.”

“…every time they attacked it looked like they were going to score…”

Even this clear omission that the team is enduring some serious problems feels, again, to be a bit of an understatement. The most goals ever conceded in an MLS 34-game season is 67. At present, United is 27 percent of the way to that record having played just four games, per Andy Edwards of NBC Soccer.

If you attempt to make excuses for United the case goes like this: the team is an expansion franchise that had to configure itself while still operating in the second division and retained more than a handful of players from that roster. And for this specific match, the squad was left shorthanded due to multiple injuries and four of its players being summoned to play internationally.

But it doesn’t take a mathematician to tell you that the math still doesn’t add up to much substance. This team isn’t just bad; right now, it’s not even competitive.

One of the few silver linings from the match for Minnesota was right back Kevin Venegas getting his first MLS start after being with the team for six years. But he, like most United fans, had more questions than answers after the match.

“Yeah first half was, like Adrian said, pretty embarrassing,” he said. “We were just chasing shots, shouldn’t matter who is playing, you know? We’ve built a squad and the level shouldn’t drop, doesn’t matter who’s in there, you know?”

personnel changes seem to be a mandatory at this point

Heath sounded perplexed with pondering the possible changes that are available to him.

“A mentality, formation maybe, personnel, but we assume we have to make some decisions, some really hard decisions and important decisions in the next few months because we can’t carry on like that,” he said. “We have to either change personnel, shape, or maybe both, but as I said that wasn’t good enough today.”

As the opening quote suggests, personnel changes seem to be a mandatory at this point. Heath’s options are fairly limited at present and the team captain Vadim Demidov, a defender, has seen Minnesota allow goal tallies of five, six and five in his three starts this season.

If the Loons make some new player signings in the coming days and/or weeks, don’t be surprised.

It’s telling that at halftime Heath made two substitutions and changed the formation

Heath said that the team focused on defensive shape during this week’s practices, but actually that revelation is only further disconcerting. New England scored nearly half a dozen but, as Heath quite rightly said, looked like they might score every time they attacked.

It’s telling that at halftime Heath made two substitutions and changed the formation, both relatively rare occurrences in professional soccer.

Brent Kallman, a Woodbury native, has been United’s best player the last two games and scored his first MLS goal on Saturday.

“We’ll watch film and see what we did wrong in the first half,” he said. “Whatever we come to, whatever we decide, it’s going to have be everybody. Everyone’s got to buy in.”

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