Analysis: Minnesota United’s Sang Bin Jeong again shows his versatility

Minnesota United fullback DJ Taylor has made nearly 70 starts at right back over the past three seasons, including starting 17 times so far this season. And the Loons brought in young Slovakian standout Matúš Kmeť, ostensibly to give some competition for Taylor at the right wingback spot — especially after they traded Caden Clark, the other player they had used regularly as a right back.

So naturally, when the Loons took the field on Saturday night against Seattle, the right wingback was … Sang Bin Jeong?

Chalk it up to the thing that coach Eric Ramsay prizes from all of his players: versatility.

“He’s got a really good engine; he can be up and down very quickly and can get himself on the backline,” Ramsay said after the 3-2 loss to the Sounders at Allianz Field. “We ask him very often to, depending on how the opposition plays, attack as if he’s a winger and defend as if he’s a fullback at points, which is obviously the case with them playing very wide on that side. He’s someone we feel can bring that system to life a bit; we obviously don’t want to attack without the width, without the numbers on the backline, and he’s someone that really wants to be there. The combination of him and Joe [Joseph Rosales, the left wingback], it works well for us and we create a lot of chances in that sense.”

In some ways, Jeong’s inclusion on the right was a natural complement to Ramsay’s selections at forward, since he started only two rather than the usual three, in Teemu Pukki and Kelvin Yeboah. Both players played quite narrow through the middle, with a triangle of midfielders behind them, leaving it to Jeong and Rosales to provide the width in Minnesota’s attack.

Of course, none of that works unless Jeong can also play defense, and he came through with a huge sliding block of a Paul Rothrock shot in the second half, just as it looked like Rothrock was going to score for the third time in three games against the Loons this year.

Playing two strikers also meant that the Loons needed to introduce some defensive wrinkles to make sure that they could cover the field defensively, and not just rely on Yeboah and Pukki to sprint around the field for 90 minutes. Rosales pushed higher defensively than usual, playing almost as a midfielder, while Pukki occasionally dropped a bit deeper and wasn’t just a high-pressing forward — leaving Minnesota to almost always have a bank of four players stretched across the middle of the pitch.

“We tried to make sure we had some nuances and subtleties in the way we defend as a front two and front three, and weren’t constantly having to cover the width of the pitch,” Ramsay said. “It didn’t feel like we suffered from any real tactical problem against them.”

The Loons are now mostly healthy, and they have a much deeper squad than they did prior to the transfer window, which means Ramsay has the luxury of choice — and the headache of having to leave players out of the starting lineup.

He’s trying to set it up with his team to remind them that while starting the game is important, finishing the game is important too — and sometimes, when the crowd is at its loudest, it’s even more fun.

“We are a squad that really values the bench, and we sort of package it as though we have starters and finishers, genuine finishers, and I’m not just playing paying lip service to that,” Ramsay said ahead of the game. “We’ll start with a certain group of players, but the ones that are perhaps the most memorable ones for the fans at the end of the game will be the ones that come off the bench. The players are on the bench know full well that they’ll have opportunities, and they just need to take them when they can.”

Those finishers, in this game, turned out to be Bongokuhle Hlongwane, Carlos Harvey and Taylor — perhaps fewer than we might have expected, especially with Yeboah going a full 90 minutes in his first competitive game in months.

According to Ramsay, they might have planned less for Yeboah, until the striker let them know that he didn’t need to be held back. “We had designs on him not playing a great deal in the intrasquad game that we played last week [on Saturday],” Ramsay said. “He made it very plain after the period that we had anticipated for him that he was good to go, and wanted to continue on in that game, which was a really good sign last week.”

Said Yeboah, “I’m just thankful my body was able to hold up.”

On the flip side, it was something of a surprise not to see Kmeť even on the bench. It would seem that the new wingback signing is simply on a different timeline.

“He’s still got a little way to go,” Ramsay said. “We’ll be patient with him for sure and see where he goes over a longer-term picture than the next week or two.”