One of the most crushing numbers from Minnesota United’s 3-2 defeat against Colorado Rapids on Sunday was the difference in corner kicks, in which Colorado had a 13-3 advantage.
Colorado scored its 97th-minute winner from a corner, and the talking point was sealed.
At a sweltering TCF Bank Stadium on Friday night, the corner score was identical, 13-3. The problem was that while Minnesota was the side with 13, it had once again given up the game-defining goal on a corner kick as FC Dallas stole a 1-0 win on an immensely frustrating night for the United offense.
This script is a new, but recurring theme for Minnesota this season: the games in which it is clearly the better team, but cannot find a way to score and gives up a decisive goal on a rare opportunity for its opponents.
The start of the game did provide something fresh: a brand-new formation in Miguel Ibarra’s absence and one that may prove relevant moving forward.
Adrian Heath chose to start a 3-5-2, adding Wyatt Omsberg to Brent Kallman and Michael Boxall at the back and moving Tyrone Mears and Alexi Gómez up the field at wingback (who shift back into a five-man defensive line without the ball in this formation).
The formation took a little bit to come online offensively, but once it did, the midfield magic of Darwin Quintero provided optimism that this game would be the game full of goals for the side in blue.
“As you would expect, when we defend, we’ve got five at the back. They didn’t really look like they were scoring,” Heath said of the formation. “I was a little concerned that we weren’t getting enough bodies forward, but we kept getting Darwin on the ball and he kept producing the pass for us.
“I said at halftime in the interview with Jamie (Watson) that the first goal was going to be massive, and unfortunately they were the ones that got it.”
The first half finished with no real chances for Dallas and two decent ones for Minnesota, which had enjoyed the best parts of play, a welcome sign on its return home. Dallas, while missing key playmaker Mauro Díaz (and may be moving forward), still entered the game second in the Western Conference, 13 points ahead of United.
“It took us 10 or 15 minutes to find the holes, and we knew it was going to take time once we started moving the ball,” Christian Ramirez said of the first half. “But then you start to see Darwin come up and find the holes that we talked about during the week. Collen Warner did a good job of finding balls in there and Ibson kept them pinned back in that hole. It really was working well.”
Once the second half began, Heath’s halftime interview about the first goal must have looked like a great sign for Minnesota as the chances got better and better. There were crosses just barely missing heads and feet, shots inches wide of the post and four clear chances in four minutes.
The problem, as it has been before, is that even this period of total dominance did not yield the game’s most important statistic. The feeling when Dallas broke Minnesota’s pressure after the fourth chance was one of foreboding.
When Dallas earned a corner, the goal seemed so easy to predict. Another cross, another header, another deficit. Roland Lamah scored the goal in the 59th minute, and now the goal really needed to come.
United did not fade after falling behind. If anything, the chances got even better. Christian Ramirez and Ibson both had shots skim just wide of the posts. Crosses from Gómez and Quintero were nudged just offline or saved away by Jesse Gonzalez.
The cold, hard statistics tell a less comfortable story for Minnesota.
While the chances were golden, United put just five of their 15 shots on the frame of goal, and Gonzalez was only forced to make one truly great save. They still had five shots on goal to Dallas’ four, but Bobby Shuttleworth was irrelevant on the one that mattered.
As Heath tinkered through his substitutions, the formation became even more aggressive. First, it became a 4-3-1-2, with Mason Toye brought on for Omsberg and Quintero shifted behind his two strikers. Frantz Pangop and Carter Manley’s introductions moved Gómez to the midfield and pulled Quintero further back into the midfield of a 4-4-2.
Toye too got a golden chance to score, with Gonzalez’s one great save coming on his rocket of a shot. It truly felt like a night that United could not score no matter what they did, and in the end, that was the truth.
Dallas had gotten away with it, and the Loons were right to feel aggrieved by the final score.
“Maybe since I’ve been here, the most chances we’ve created in a game, most corners,” Heath said. “We had some gilt opportunities tonight, and the longer you go, you always leave yourself susceptible, and what a poor goal to concede.
“That’s the fourth in the last six games we’ve conceded from a corner, so we’re really not picking them up. Going over it, we keep talking about it. Unfortunately, we’re not learning our lesson. Football, sometimes you get what you deserve, sometimes you don’t. Tonight was one of them where we didn’t.”
“It just sucks, it hurts, all that stuff,” Kallman said. “We’ve just gotta find a way to win games, especially at home. Little bit unlucky, but we definitely failed a little bit tonight.”
Collin Martin was among the substitutes for Minnesota this game but did not play. Friday was Pride Night at TCF Bank Stadium, and earlier in the day, Martin became the first currently active male athlete in any of America’s five major sports leagues to come out as gay.
“I think it’s a brave decision,” Heath said. “We all knew, but it wasn’t common knowledge elsewhere. It’s something this club has always talked about, being inclusive to everybody. It’ll make no difference to us. Hopefully, if there’s one or two people out there thinking about it, this might give them the impetus to join him.”
United’s only win in the month of May came after 120 minutes in penalties against FC Cincinnati. They lost every other game in the month, and their game against Toronto FC on Wednesday will not be an easy one to get back on the right foot.
Perhaps on Wednesday, the walls in front of the goal will be knocked down for Minnesota.
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