Minnesota United at New York Red Bulls
When: 6:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Sports Illustrated Stadium, Harrison, N.J.
Stream: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV
Radio: KSTP-AM, 1500
Weather: 83 degrees, 40 percent chance of rain
Betting line: RBNY plus-115; draw plus-240; MNUFC plus-230
Form: With a 3-1 win over Houston on Wednesday, MNUFC (9-4-6, 33 points) kept pace with San Diego, the new top team in the Western Conference. New York (8-7-4, 28 points) played to a 1-1 draw with struggling Toronto midweek.
Recent matchups: Given the unbalanced schedules, Minnesota is 2-2-1 all-time against Red Bulls and hasn’t traveled to New Jersey since 2022. The two teams played to a 1-1 draw in St. Paul in March 2023.
Quote: Loons head coach Eric Ramsay has had last summer’s nine-game winless drought on his mind this June. Again, MNUFC is playing without a handful of key players away on international duty and was coming off a 4-2 defeat to San Diego on June 14.
“I would say (the Houston win is) one of the biggest results that we’ve had this year, because the stage of the season that we’re in, the absences that we’ve got, the, I suppose, scars of last summer and everything that goes with a really messy period in the MLS,” he said postgame. “I think for us to have won (Wednesday), to follow up the San Diego performance with that, was really big and I think it keeps us right in the race at the top.”
Update: The Loons have cleared two international roster spots for the summer transfer window, with Sang Bin Jeong and Joaquin Pereyra receiving U.S. Green Cards. Dutch rookie goalkeeper Wessel Speel’s impending first-team contract would bring the total to one for the club to use on new foreign players. They might be able to free up space with corresponding roster moves, such as outgoing loans of current players.
Absences: Four MNUFC starters are away for the Concacaf Gold Cup: Dayne St. Clair and Tani Oluwaseyi (Canada), Carlos Harvey (Panama) and Joseph Rosales (Honduras). Two backups are out injured: Morris Duggan (back) and Sam Shashoua (oblique).
Players to watch: Pereyra, the team leader with five primary assists, will play a bigger role Saturday after coming off the bench Wednesday. “We will obviously be very reliant on him in the sense that he will bring a real freshness and an energy that maybe some of the others will find hard to come by,” Ramsay said Friday.
On Red Bulls, it’s forward Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, who is tied for fifth in MLS with 10 goals this season, including four on penalty kicks. The 35-year-old German previously reached double-digit goals with Bayern Munich in 2022-23.
Scouting report: Red Bulls’ identity remains a team that will aggressively high press opponents. With a taxing game expected, the Loons held their training session to 40 minutes on Friday.
“We’ve got to make sure first and foremost we are prepared for that,” Ramsay said. “That we play the game in as shrewd a tactical way as possible, and as tight a way as possible, and trust that if we can keep the game tight we will create chances, we will score. But they are ultimately a team that wants to test your back line, playing in behind fairly often.”
Prediction: With absences, MNUFC doesn’t have quality depth to turn to for its second match in four days. That will show on the pitch, but not all is lost in a 1-1 draw.
Related Articles
A wild stretch leads to Loons’ first win in Seattle
Frustrated Loons calmed down by Eric Ramsay after 1-1 draw with Austin
Rejuvenated Loons cruise to 3-0 win over St. Louis
David Beckham disgruntled over Minnesota United social media posts
Seven anecdotes from Lionel Messi’s historic visit to play Minnesota United
Leave a Reply