It’s an age-old soccer adage: Draws on the road, wins at home. Over the last six games, Minnesota have done just that — and thrown in a 1-0 win at Providence Park for good measure.
It took all of two minutes for Minnesota United to find the back of the net against Portland as forward Franco Fragapane gifted a pass to forward Adrien Honou for the finish. The Loons went on to create opportunities throughout the rest of the game, but struggled to finish them. Nevertheless, MNUFC held the Timbers at bay and took home three points. Thanks to the win, the Loons now sit fifth in the Western Conference.
“It was warm. Really, really warm,” said Head Coach Adrian Heath. “As I said to the players, we can’t use that as an excuse. They aren’t used to 100 degree heat here either. I didn’t want it to be one of them where we’re talking about the weather after the game and that’s what I said to the players before the game. There’s a famous expression, ‘Heat makes cowards of us all,’ and I said we’re not going to use that, guys.”
Despite a rough start to the season, Heath doesn’t see their current unbeaten streak as a dramatic turnaround.
“We started the season 0-4, a lot of criticism,” he said. “But there was a lot of positives in there and I did say to the group that if we can maintain some confidence in each other, don’t give so much away but start defending and get a mentality that the group is defending, not just the back four and the goalkeeper. We’ve done that. The resolve of the players at the weekend, their form in the last 10–15 minutes, [Portland] were throwing everything at us, was magnificent. More of the same.”
As this week’s training began, the Loons not only focused on recovery from the hot game, but also welcomed back defender Jukka Raitaka and midfielder Jan Gregus from the Euro 2020 Championship.
“The experience was amazing. Unlucky that we didn’t go through the group stage like we wanted to but it doesn’t change the fact that it was amazing,” said Gregus. “Nothing changes for me, I just to do best for the club and for the country. I’m very glad that I saw the boys did really well and got [two] wins, so I was very pleased with that.”
With the Loons coming back together, the focus shifts to their next match on Saturday, July 3 against San Jose Earthquakes. While the Quakes have had a tough time of it recently, their unique tactical approach never presents anything less than a challenge.
“They [San Jose] play a unique style. They play man-to-man across the entire field, which no other team, that I know of, does that,” said goalkeeper Tyler Miller. “It’s a team that we have a good history with, and leading into this game, we’re on a good run of form right now but every game presents its new challenges and its unique opportunities for us to step up to the level and raise our game. Yes we have been unbeaten in six games but I still think there’s moments in games where we can improve and win games a little bit easier and make plays a little bit easier on ourselves. We just need to keep improving in training and approach San Jose how we’ve approached the last six games and we’ll have a good opportunity to win.”
