Analysis: Minnesota United sees its mirror image against Los Angeles FC and finds the look frustrating

It was a pretty familiar look: back five, forwards mostly sitting back and not pressing, letting the other team have the ball and pass it ineffectively back and forth between the defenders, 60 yards from the goal.

Except this time, it was the visitors blunting Minnesota’s offense rather than the other way around. The approach served Los Angeles FC well in its 1-0 victory Wednesday over the Loons at Allianz Field.

“It’s kind of funny getting a taste of your own medicine a little bit,” Loons striker Tani Oluwaseyi said.

Manager Eric Ramsay noted it’s becoming a bit of a book on the Loons: Other teams feel like they can control the game by letting Minnesota have the ball.

“I feel like more and more teams are giving us that level of respect,” he said. “They’re obviously making big efforts to defend the space in behind, and that’s then for us to adapt. And I don’t think we did a bad job of that in the second half. It felt like we struck that right balance between structure and some fluidity within that structure that allowed us to create some, as I say, some half chances but without there being anything clean-cut.

“And that’s going to be the next step of the team’s evolution. We’re going to have to be a team that can do everything.”

Midfielder Wil Trapp suggested the team just wasn’t patient enough in the first half and improved in the second half — though still with some room for further improvement, in terms of being clean on the ball.

“You saw in the second half there’s more structure, there was more calm, connecting plays, cleaner, all that stuff,” he said. “And then — granted, it wasn’t anything clear — but the game was [played] in their half the whole second half. Chance after chance with like throw-in set pieces, all that type of stuff.”

Ultimately, Ramsay vowed that the next time an opposing team sits back and lets the Loons have the ball, as LAFC did, his team will be ready.

“We have to get better around the box,” he said. “We have to be a team that can create from very little space, which obviously isn’t always the case for us. Typically, we’re a team that attacks really well in big spaces, but we can, and we will get better at attacking in the types of spaces that we find ourselves encountering tonight.”

In Ramsay’s very first game as Minnesota United manager, on March 24 last season, the Loons beat eventual conference champion LAFC at home, 2-0.

When it comes to games against the top teams in the West, he’s still searching for another home win to pair with that one.

There have been other marquee wins for the Loons this season. They finally beat Seattle in Seattle, for one, and they beat Inter Miami 4-1 in May. But LAFC’s 1-0 win Wednesday moved the visitors into fourth place in the West — meaning that Minnesota has played three home games against the other top three teams in the Western Conference in 2025 and lost all three.

Against Vancouver it was 3-1. Against San Diego, 4-2. You could even throw in that they’ve also played two of those three teams on the road and failed to score a goal, losing 1-0 to LAFC and drawing 0-0 with Vancouver.

“I don’t think there’s a thread that runs through all of those losses,” Ramsay said. “I think there’s particularities to each game.”

The one thing the Loons could hang their hat on, ultimately, is that while they struggled to break down LAFC on Wednesday, they put the clamps on the visitors as well.

If you throw out the game-winning penalty kick from Dennis Bouanga, and a couple of late chances as the Loons conceded the counterattack while they pressed forward to try to find an equalizer, LAFC was held virtually without a chance — 0.06 expected goals, by the league’s website.

Of course, the same might be true of any team trying to protect a one-goal lead on the road.

MATCH SUMMARY: Los Angeles FC 1, Minnesota United FC 0

MLS standings

“If you look at [LAFC] today, we lose, but they don’t really do much,” Oluwaseyi said. “I think the other two games against Vancouver and San Diego you can definitely say that they were the better team on the day. I don’t think you can say that about LA today, but at the end of the day we weren’t good enough and they got the win, so I think it’s just a matter of recognizing that there’s another level.”

It’s a level the Loons are going to have to find if they want to reach their goals. The way things worked out Wednesday night, had Minnesota won, the Loons would be sitting atop the Western Conference standings. That they remain stuck in third place is fitting; when they face off against the best in the West, they just can’t quite get all the way to the top.