Analysis: Goalie Dayne St. Clair makes clear that going to penalty kicks with Minnesota United is bad strategy

Dayne St. Clair came into Minnesota United’s first-round playoff series with Real Salt Lake knowing he had a good record in penalty shootouts.

After two more shootout wins, and RSL converting only five of 10 attempts across the two games, his confidence is now even higher.

St. Clair didn’t make a save in Game 1, though RSL missed two penalties over the crossbar; Saturday night in Game 2, St. Clair sandwiched a pair of saves around yet another kick that soared over the bar.

“As soon as I saved the second one, I know we’re winning for sure, in that moment,” he said. “And I know I’m going to get another one.”

The Loons goalkeeper has been part of four shootouts for Minnesota over the past two seasons, and he’s won all four — two in last season’s Leagues Cup and two in this year’s playoffs. He lost one at Copa América this summer for the Canadian national team, though, and he had an idea why. “MLS definitely helps because most of these guys speak English,” he said. “At Copa América, I don’t know how many English speakers there are.”

St. Clair was notably yelling at RSL’s Matt Crooks before the latter’s penalty sailed over the bar, though, according to the keeper, he was just yelling Crooks’ name. “We didn’t have any stats on him for shooting any prior [penalties],” he said. “I didn’t really know where he might be going, so if I can kind of play into it, at that moment I have nothing to lose — versus sometimes you have the data and you don’t really want to say anything because they might switch.”

“He’s a big personality — as we’ve seen at the end, he’s a showman,” manager Eric Ramsay said of his goalkeeper. “I think everyone felt in Salt Lake, we really backed him to make a save [there]. Obviously, that didn’t transpire to be the case. But I think here, it was almost definite that he would save one.”

For the rest of the playoffs, if a game is tied at the end of regulation, the teams will play a half-hour of extra time before going to a penalty shootout — reducing the chance that the Loons will end up right back in another set of penalty kicks. If they do, though, they must feel like they have a built-in tiebreaker, knowing that St. Clair is in net for the penalties.

On the lineup card, and in the defensive lineup, Bongokuhle Hlongwane was once again the right wingback in the Loons’ back five. When Minnesota had the ball, though, Hlongwane’s average position was so far forward that he was usually even ahead of Robin Lod and Joaquín Pereyra, who were nominally the two wide forwards in the Minnesota setup.

It was especially noticeable when Minnesota took goal kicks, with St. Clair usually choosing to bypass Real Salt Lake’s high press and go long, aiming to the right side, where Kelvin Yeboah, Hlongwane and right center-back Carlos Harvey would be stationed.

“Bongi is sort of a bit of a project on that side,” Ramsay said. “He much prefers to play closer to the front. So as we’ve done all season, we’re trying to tailor the roles to the players’ strengths at the moment. Although Bongi is someone that we’re really trying to develop, in all senses, I feel like tonight was a good example of him sort of doing the role in Bongi’s way of doing it, and we have given the freedom to do that.”

Sixty percent of the Loons’ offensive attacks came down that right side, often through Hlongwane — and it created one golden scoring chance in the first half, as Hlongwane and Pereyra combined for a one-two that put Hlongwane in alone with the keeper, though Zac MacMath stonewalled the attempt.

“We felt there would be situations where it would be to our advantage to get Bongi much closer to Kelvin and use Carlos much higher up the pitch, and that sort of applies mostly in those situations at goal kicks,” Ramsay said. “But it also applied in general play. It gave us a real dynamism on the right-hand side, particularly with Carlos in the first half.”

As far as defense, St. Clair was happy to take credit for, um, helping him out. “If you ask him, he probably hears me screaming at him for the majority of the game to make sure he’s in the right spot,” the goalkeeper said. “Credit to him, because he hasn’t complained once about it. I know when I yell at him it gives him a little extra motivation to get those 5 extra yards.”

Joseph Rosales, Minnesota’s left wingback, managed 11 assists this season — but all that was missing was a goal. Rosales even missed a penalty kick earlier in the year, all in search of what would have been just the second goal of his MLS career.

It’s almost like what he needed was a good-luck charm.

Saturday morning, Rosales’ first child was born, a daughter named Sofia. So naturally, Saturday night he got his first goal of the season, finishing off a Loons counterattack and becoming the only Loons player to score in the past three games against Real Salt Lake.

“All morning I have been receiving calls from family members, friends as well as from teammates,” said Rosales, via a club translation. “Even before arriving at the game, [they] were telling me that today was going to be a good day and that I would score, and it happened.”

Minnesota now has to wait three weeks for its next game. Game 3 of the first-round series is no longer necessary, giving the team a free week, and that’s followed by another two-week international break, meaning that it won’t be until the weekend of Nov. 23 that the Loons travel to Los Angeles to take on the Galaxy in the conference semifinals.

Ramsay said he’d give his players a few days off next week. It sounds like Rosales will need them.