The first story of Saturday’s game between Atlanta United and Minnesota United was the weather.
No snow to match last season’s opening 6-1 defeat, but a bitterly cold 23 degrees at kickoff and 15 degrees as Minnesota walked off the pitch 1-0 losers in a frustrating evening at TCF Bank Stadium.
The stage was set within the game’s first three minutes. Minnesota had a free kick and a yellow card on Atlanta’s Leandro González Pirez within the game’s first minute, and Atlanta had the game’s only goal within three minutes.
A corner for the team in white and peach resulted in a Matt Lampson save, a hit off the crossbar and a bounce off Minnesota’s returning captain Francisco Calvo that went straight where it needed to for Atlanta, and they were 1-0 up.
The game had barely had time to breathe at that point, and the pace of attack by both teams was frenetic. Minnesota started to control possession as things settled down, with Atlanta both content and dangerous on the counterattack. It seemed impossible that the game would not feature more goals.
This became even more striking with the game’s second most impactful moment, as González Pirez made a head-scratching decision in the 38th minute, shoving Sam Nicholson down after the ball had already gone out of bounds.
The referee did not take long to consider giving out a second yellow card and sending González Pirez to warm up in the locker room for the rest of the game. Minnesota had a man advantage, all the possession they could want, and an enormous opportunity to get three points from their MLS Class of 2017 siblings.
Minnesota immediately ramped up the pressure and had several half-chances before halftime, but the suspicion was there even in those first seven minutes of opportunity: Atlanta had already been content without the ball, and was very solid defensively.
Minnesota had to find a way through.
As the second half began and continued, the pattern of play remained very clear. Minnesota had the ball, passed around in relatively tame areas of the pitch, and could not find ways to challenge the Atlanta defense or Brad Guzan. The possession numbers went higher and higher.
Adrian Heath tried to find the magic formula, first subbing off Abu Danladi’s pace for Christian Ramirez’s size in the 61st minute, then adding Mason Toye to the attack in place of Marc Burch in the 81st minute. By that time, Atlanta had already begun to waste time and do what they could to push the clock.
Between an injury to Atlanta’s Jeff Larentowicz — which took about four minutes to resolve — and various other knocks and stoppages of play, when the referee’s assistant showed seven minutes of stoppage time.
The thought was that it might not even have been enough.
By that time, Minnesota’s pressure had become its most potent. The troubling thing on paper is that two of their best opportunities came from the feet and head of Calvo, who has attacking qualities at times but remains the team’s center back. Ramirez had no moments of threat.
The attacking trio behind the forwards did their job decently, with Nicholson in particular always seeming to find ways to create space to send in crosses from the left, with no one finding the final touch. Ethan Finlay had moments, but also missed a pass here and a shot there that could have made the difference.
Miguel Ibarra had the most difficult night of the three, and as the Loons’ new designated player Darwin Quintero watched the game from the stands, Ibarra’s position will likely shift back to the bench as soon as Quintero is cleared to play. Ibarra has not found the same magic the last two weeks as he did in the first two games of the season.
Atlanta defended admirably and was well-organized even after dropping to ten men. That said, for Minnesota to play against ten men for more than fifty minutes and spend large chunks of that time unable to do more than send in a hopeful cross signaled exactly why a player like Quintero was signed.
Minnesota desperately needed Quintero’s creativity on a night like tonight, to take advantage of the opportunity that González Pirez’s poor decision afforded them. Instead, Atlanta leaves Minnesota with all three points and the Loons are left with no reward and a cold night out.
