It seemed impossible that Minnesota United could go yet another week without putting some goals in the back of the net after Friday’s ridiculous loss to FC Dallas. The Fourth of July let free the Loons offense, and three spectacular goals from Darwin Quintero keyed a 4-3 win over last season’s MLS Cup champions Toronto FC.
Toronto is a shadow of its former selves this season.
It entered Wednesday’s game lower on points than Minnesota, second-worst in the Eastern Conference. After setting records while winning the Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup double in 2017, a rocky start to this MLS season around the CONCACAF Champions League has never been solved.
Even with that said, Minnesota has been the tonic to many teams’ losing streaks, with a record of 0-4-0 against the three teams below it in the West — San Jose, Seattle and Colorado — so a measure of trepidation entering this game was merited. Toronto just needed a fresh start, and this could have been that game against a struggling United side which had not won in normal time since May.
The first 12 minutes put that dream to bed.
Quintero was on the board with his opener before the 10th minute, a curling chip that looped over Clint Irwin from between two defenders, a spectacular goal to break United’s scoring drought.
The two primary figures who did not play a part in the Dallas loss combined for Minnesota’s second. Francisco Calvo, back from Russia and Costa Rica’s World Cup run, found Miguel Ibarra — suspended for the Dallas game — on a beautiful through ball and Ibarra made no mistakes, burying a shot under Irwin and TCF Bank Stadium was in ecstasy.
United were dominant, as they have been in spells of each of their last two games, and Toronto was hapless. Former United States men’s national team captain Michael Bradley miscued several passes straight out of bounds and received boos from the crowd on every touch of the ball.
Bradley didn’t need the crowd’s help to have a miserable night. Quintero was his primary tormentor, once again providing the spark to United’s 3-5-2 formation, augmented in this game with Calvo joining the back three and Ibarra at wing back, a position not seen this season but one that made perfect sense for him.
The half could not be over without a traditional United defensive miscue. Toronto got the ball into the box and while the loose ball fell to Ibson, a clear turned into a short pass straight to the onrushing Justin Morrow and the halftime lead was just a single goal.
Toronto had to be desperate to get something from this game, and while the goal before the half may have put doubt into United’s collective mind, their Scientist put the game to bed in a devastating 15 minutes after halftime.
The goals almost felt like carbon copies of each other at the point of the shot. Each time, Quintero saw Irwin off his line, and each time the shot was inch-perfect to one corner of the goal, giving the Reds’ keeper no chance to recover. One would think Irwin would have changed his approach after the second, but the third was the most devastating of all.
“I always try to observe them — how they stop shots, if they move up, if they stay on their line,” Quintero said through translation of his approach to the opposing goalkeeper. “I noticed from the beginning that he took two steps forward to anticipate plays. In some games it works, in others it doesn’t. Today all of them went in.”
Quintero scored the first hat-trick of Minnesota’s time in the MLS, making the Portland Timbers the only club without a hat-trick scorer in the league. The celebrations were raucous, as Christian Ramirez grabbed a hat tossed from the stands and dropped it on Quintero’s head.
This got Quintero one of the more stupefying yellow card decisions of the season for something he didn’t even do himself.
The game finished 4-3, and some of the fear of previous lost leads came back as first Sebastian Giovinco scored a beautiful strike from outside the box, then Jordan Hamilton beat Calvo to a header with just a minute of stoppage time left after Bobby Shuttleworth made his most outstanding save of the day.
The minute was not enough, and the losing spree was over. United had cleansed their demons for at least one night, and Quintero was the hero of the hour.
“I said to the players after the game, I thought for 25-30 minutes we were outstanding tonight,” Adrian Heath said afterward. “It was as good as you’ll see in the MLS, it really was that good. Probably was as good of a hat-trick as I’ve ever witnessed and I’ve been doing this a long time.”
Quintero had a special dedication for his hat-trick on Wednesday.
“I dedicated it to my wife, it’s her birthday today,” he said. “I told her I was going to score a hat trick and that I was going to get her the ball. Thanks to God, I did it. But, the most important thing is that the team got the three points.”
The adaptation of the 3-5-2 formation, which worked to relative success against Dallas, was an even bigger success in Wednesday’s game, and Heath was very pleased with its progress.
“Even conceding three tonight, I think we’ve restricted the opposition and we’ve been difficult to break down. At times, we’ve got to work on different situations to get the extra man forward. I thought we did that a lot better tonight than we did against Dallas, but obviously with Darwin at this moment he’s capable of creating something out of anything.”
The Loons, with the losing streak behind them, now continue a busy stretch of games with a return to Houston, where their US Open Cup campaign ended, and a chance to turn around their miserable road form off the back of a strong win.
“Well, we won this game and now we switch focuses,” Quintero said. “Today was great, but Saturday we have another important game. The ambition of this team is to qualify for playoffs, so we have to go there and get the points.”
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