Minnesota United sure picked a good time to play its best soccer of the season.
The Loons beat Vancouver 1-0 on the road Saturday night, the only goal a first-half penalty kick from Hassani Dotson. It was a win that moved Minnesota above the Whitecaps in the Western Conference standings, up to seventh place and out of the 8-vs-9 wild-card places.
It was Minnesota’s fifth win in seven games, and they did it with defense; the Loons held Vancouver to a few half-chances, earning the team’s fourth consecutive clean sheet — a franchise record that couldn’t have come at a better time for the team’s playoff push.
“What we’ve done over the course of this week, when you consider the travel, the altitude and the quality of the sides we’re playing, it’s really impressive,” manager Eric Ramsay said. “I couldn’t be more pleased with what they’ve done, and the discipline they’ve showed, that is required to do what we did tonight.”
The team’s shutout streak reached 405 minutes on the evening, also a franchise record; by the time the Loons play again, two weeks from Saturday, it’ll have been a calendar month since they last allowed a goal.
Minnesota had the better of the play in the first half-hour of the game, and 24 minutes in, they were rewarded — from the penalty spot.
Center back Carlos Harvey, up for a corner kick, picked up the ball at the edge of the Whitecaps penalty area and drove into the box. He beat Vancouver’s Mathias Laborda, who unwisely tried to kick out a foot behind himself to stop Harvey — and brought down the Loons attacker in the process.
Dotson had never before taken a penalty for Minnesota, but he stepped up to take the spot kick, and converted to give the Loons a 1-0 lead.
Ten minutes later, Vancouver thought that they’d leveled the match, with a helping foot from Miguel Tapias. The Loons defender, attempting to clear a fairly tame Sam Adekugbe shot in front of his own goal, instead did something no opposing player had done in more than three games, and beat Dayne St. Clair.
Referee Ramy Touchan, though, ended up in front of the video replay monitor, and saw that the chance had clearly been created when Sang Bin Jeong was fouled by Vancouver’s Ryan Gauld, and so waved off the own goal — and saved Tapias some serious embarrassment.
The VAR decision also wiped an attempted shot off the board — notable, because the disappeared attempt would have been the only Whitecaps shot of the first half.
Vancouver came back in the second half, eventually tallying a number of corner kicks and one or two decent shots, but St. Clair wasn’t required to make any saves that were anywhere near his best.
The Whitecaps have two games remaining on their schedule, so they still control their own destiny in terms of leapfrogging back over the Loons in the standings, and potentially pushing Minnesota back into the wild-card game. But given how well Minnesota is playing, it’s clear the Loons are better than their spot in the standings.
Said Ramsay, reflecting on his team’s summer swoon, “I think if someone had said two months ago or three months ago, that we would have been in this position come this point in the year, I’d have bitten their hand off.”
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