Analysis: Minnesota United learns sometimes success comes at a cost

Minnesota United didn’t play its best game in a 0-0 draw at Toronto on Saturday. Facing a Toronto side that was set up, more than any other team this year, to deny its opponent chances to counterattack, the Loons couldn’t figure out a way to break through.

Eventually, they ended up with only one shot on target, no shots of any kind in the final 25 minutes, and one certainty: If they keep having success, this sort of thing is going to keep happening.

“We are going to now encounter teams that are very, very conscious of the way in which we’ve had success over the course of the first seven games, or the first eight games I should say,” Loons coach Eric Ramsay said. “It’s going to be a process of iteration for us in that sense as we encounter new challenges. As we encounter the opposition adapting to us, we will adapt for sure.”

The Loons had nearly half the possession, and probably had more possession in Toronto’s half than vice versa — but that didn’t lead to much in the way of chances. Nicolás Romero’s shot on target and Bongokuhle Hlongwane’s early-first-half miss were the only two chances of the game that could be rated anywhere above average.

Romero hit the keeper, and Hlongwane’s shot would have missed the goal by a mile if it hadn’t rebounded off an unsuspecting Kelvin Yeboah.

Even Minnesota’s set pieces, usually a strength, created very little. “That’s another thing in terms of adaptation to the opposition,” Ramsay said. “Of course the opposition will spend a large portion of their week — based on our set play threat — working on set plays,” said Ramsay. “So we sharpen their focus, we heighten the level of attention that the opposition have in those moments, and then it becomes another problem for us.”

It’s a good problem to have, in the sense that the Loons are now respected enough to make other teams adapt to them. The issue now is taking that next step and breaking down teams determined to stop them.

Two-fifths of the Loons’ entries into the final third of the field came down the left-hand side of the attack, the usual station for the steadily improving Joaquín Pereyra. On the other side, though, Robin Lod — the team’s All-Star last season — seemed to be struggling.

Lod didn’t create a chance, take a shot or dribble past a defender. The Loons’ offensive struggle was by no means on him — he was still second on the team in terms of passes into the final third, behind Pereyra — but the Loons will need his creative power against teams that sit back and wait for Minnesota to take them on.

“Robin is a player that gives us that edge so as the season progresses and the more we find ourselves in these situations, the more we will be reliant on Robin, but I am also not in any way wanting to take away from the attacking players that we’ve got,” Ramsay said. “We have a group I would characterize as very direct, very goal-orientated. We’ve got some players that can play a final pass with real intricacy and precision, and there’s probably three or four of those across the front line, and that’s really important for us.”

Ramsay isn’t in the habit of making subs before the hour mark, but nine minutes into the second half he sent on DJ Taylor in place of Hlongwane.

It wasn’t a move that could have been predicted before the game, not only because Hlongwane is an important player but because Taylor played 90 minutes for the second team Wednesday and probably didn’t expect to get nearly 40 more Saturday.

The cause was a first-half yellow card from Hlongwane, lunging in along the sideline to try to make a tackle. Come the beginning of the second half, Toronto coach Robin Fraser moved big-name attacker Federico Bernardeschi over to the left, specifically so he could attack Hlongwane — and either burn by him at a too-cautious moment or entice him into a second yellow card.

“[Hlongwane] was obviously being targeted by the opposition, on a booking, in the way they moved Bernardeschi,” Ramsay said. “We ended up playing with DJ, who is much closer to a fullback than a wide player — and of course really solid defensively — but you lose a bit of that unpredictability that Bongi gives you in the final third.”