Saturday night against St. Louis City, Minnesota United reverted to the starting lineup that beat Inter Miami one week earlier.
They reverted back to the win column, too, beating the visitors 3-0.
Tani Oluwaseyi scored in the first half, Joaquín Pereyra and Julian Gressel scored in the second, and Minnesota United cruised to a comfortable victory, easing some of the angst the Loons felt after an ugly loss 2-0 to Houston on Wednesday.
“These are the games that you play for, to be honest,” Oluwaseyi said. “We work so hard every day in training and even in the games and when you’re able to put together a, quote-unquote, perfect game, with the clean sheet, scoring multiple goals [from] multiple goal scorers and you know, just feel like you played from minute one to minute 90, I think are the ones that you look back on when the season’s over and you remember them pretty fondly.”
St. Louis hasn’t won an MLS game since March 15, a 10-game stretch in which it has now earned just three points total.
How it happened
To put it mildly, the Loons are not famous for their passing or possession. In the second half, though, the Loons’ counterattacking started to look like a secret strength — especially midfielder Robin Lod, who made several inch-perfect passes that led to scoring chances.
Lod was the key in the second-half passing move that finally led to a ball in the back of the net for the Loons, connecting with Bongokuhle Hlongwane and Oluwaseyi, who made the final layoff to a wide-open Pereyra at the top of the penalty area. All Pereyra had to do was pass the ball into the back of the net, his second goal of the season.
The Loons’ third goal was equally silky. Wil Trapp and Pereyra combined down the left-hand side, with Trapp slipping a through ball for Pereyra, who swung in a left-footed cross for a wide-open Gressel. Just onto the field as a substitute, the newest Loon bounced a volley past the keeper — his first goal for his new team.
