Analysis: Minnesota United discovers there’s a good gap between the Loons and MLS’ leader, Vancouver

Sunday’s game was a chance for Minnesota United to prove it belonged at the top of the Western Conference, alongside the visiting Vancouver Whitecaps, the team that’s leading the MLS standings and has one foot in the CONCACAF Champions Cup final.

By the end of the game, it was clear: Vancouver’s second string is good enough to hang with Minnesota, and its first string is good enough to blow the Loons’ doors off.

Playing a team with eight changes from its midweek Champions Cup semifinal against Inter Miami, a 2-0 win over MLS’ marquee team, Vancouver managed to lull the Loons into a first half that could have put the most dedicated insomniac into a slumber.

When the Whitecaps started subbing their normal starters on to the field in the second half, the game went from 0-0 to the 3-0 final in a hurry.

“I think this is maybe a strange thing to say, but we lost that game in the first half for not using the possession, the territory — I’m loath to use the word ‘dominance,’ because it didn’t feel like we were particularly dominant, but we certainly could have been dominant if we used the ball well,” manager Eric Ramsay said. “I think that’ll be one of the games that the players look back at and they will kick themselves for how easy we turn the ball over, how lacking we were for spark and energy around the top of the box.”

Midfielder Wil Trapp lamented the team’s lack of energy in the first half. “Look, it’s the responsibility of the players,” he said. “It’s the responsibility of us to recognize that every game’s an opportunity, every game at home especially, but it’s just a genuine situation in which — are we hungry or are we full? And it’s a situation this game where I feel like we probably went out there a little more well fed than we should’ve been.”

Striker Tani Oluwaseyi probably summed up the performance best, on behalf of everyone in the locker room. “There’s not one person today who’s going to say they had a good game, so I think that’s just what it is,” he said.

Said Ramsay: “I do feel this is one of those days where [the players] feel really disappointed with themselves, because I think the game was there to be taken.”

Trapp had scored just three non-penalty goals in his long and distinguished MLS career coming into 2025. That he has now scored the past two Loons goals qualifies as an astonishing offensive outburst on his part but also stands as a sign that Minnesota’s attack is sputtering.

Between Trapp’s two goals, the Loons went about 340 minutes without scoring — approaching six hours of soccer without a tally.

Oluwaseyi lamented the team’s lack of “ideas” when the Loons win the ball. “It’s a little difficult for us to progress it from the center backs forward without us just going long and fighting for the second balls,” he said. “We’re working on all of those things in training. It’s just not working right now on the field.”

Early in the season, Minnesota was having success simply going long all the time, but attempts to build more cohesive attacks — through wingbacks Joseph Rosales and Bongokuhle Hlongwane, and attacking midfielders Joaquín Pereyra and Robin Lod — are sputtering. None of the four had a good game. After Vancouver went ahead 2-0, Ramsay rolled the dice, removing Kelvin Yeboah, switching to a back four and putting Hlongwane up front as a forward, in the hopes of sparking something.

If anything, it caused defensive problems, as the Loons struggled to find a way to climb back into the game.

“The big word that they used at halftime was having personality to play, having personality to make a difference,” Oluwaseyi said. “I’ll put my hand up first. I played a little too safe today, and if we want to win games, if you see that Vancouver team, that’s the team that’s top of the league, semifinals on CONCACAF, you know. They have guys of personality, they have guys who want to play, and I think for us, we just got to look in the mirror — for myself, especially.”

You don’t have to go far down the stat sheet to find guys who are struggling. Yeboah hasn’t scored in five games. Hlongwane, Lod and Pereyra haven’t scored this season. Oluwaseyi has five goals this year and Yeboah four — but other than the suddenly profligate Trapp, only one other Loon has scored, and it’s injured midfielder Hassani Dotson.

Minnesota is 10 games into the season and is not in dire straits. But after a run in which the Loons dropped two points to bad teams in several games, they dropped all three points against a good team — showing they are a team that still has a long way to go.