Saturday afternoon’s contest was always going to be seen as one thing: a full-blooded Major League Soccer litmus test for Minnesota United.
The Loon’s struggles early in the season have been well-documented but the team’s improvement has been stark as of late and they’ve found their way back to a respectable place in the table.
However, Toronto FC provides an entirely different challenge with it’s first-place record of 6-4-1 (now 7-4-1) and a gluttony of star talent, including United States men’s national team members Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore.
After 90 minutes, even in a loss, United proved once again, it is ready for everything the U.S. soccer top division has to offer. The Loons went tit-for-tat with the league leaders and only narrowly lost 3-2. In fact, Johan Venegas missed an open header that would have likely seen Minnesota walk out of BMO Field with a draw.
Not to mention, MNUFC’s head coach Adrian Heath felt his side actually underperformed on the night.
“I’m a little bit disappointed. I don’t think we showed enough belief at times that we could cause some trouble,” Heath said.
Nevertheless, Heath saw a lot of positives from the match and can feel confident in the growth of his squad up to now.
“We have come to the best team I think, I said before the game that Greg (Vanney) is doing a great job, they are incredibly well organized, well coached team so for us to put this type of performance in from where we were a couple of weeks ago it bodes well for us moving forward,” Heath said.
The ZoneCoverage staff took in all the action and broke it all down in the latest episode of the Minnesota Soccer Podcast.
