Recap: Loons Fall to SKC 3-0

The Loons came into this match down three players as Francisco Calvo and Johan Venegas are off on International Duty and Sam Cronin is serving a suspension from last weeks match against Orlando City. That didn’t stop Minnesota United from giving us a good Starting XI.

The match didn’t start off the best as Miguel Ibarra was lost early on in what seemed like a calf injury and only 7’ in, Rasmus Schuller would come in to take his place. Around the same time as the injury to Ibarra, Ismalia Jome was issued a yellow card for not retreating.

Following that the Loons proceeded to concede three fouls and two corners in the next 11 minutes resulting in multiple chances and shots for SKC, including an admittedly beautiful bicycle kick attempt by Latif Blessing.

As the fairly one-sided and fairly yellow card happy match neared halftime Bobby Shuttleworth was given a yellow card in the 43rd minute for time wasting.

With the Loons defensive effort bending and seeming to break, SKC continued to pour on the shots. In added time at 45+2’ they finally broke a very disorganized and misplaced back line with Ike Opara scoring on a fairly mundane shot to put Sporting up 1-0 just before halftime.

Coming out of halftime, the total shots were extremely lopsided 16-1. MNUFC did get a chance in the 53rd minute as Christian Ramirez got a shot on target from the left side of the box only for an easy save. In the 54’ SKC would go up 2-0 on a miraculous set of shots.

After the ref played advantage the entire MNUFC team seemed to just stop and grind to a halt and that’s when Sonny Saad came and blasted a shot into the net. The shot which bounced off the top bar hit the ground, which on the replay you could tell crossed the line, rocketed back out which Jimmy Mendrana buried with a header, past Shuttleworth who took a hop to far to his left, to make it 2-0 SKC.

In the 55’, Bashkim Kadri would come in for Jome and just a few minutes later had a ball played to him by Marc Burch on the cross, only to miss the shot to the left. The Loons final sub was used in the 63’ as Justin Davis made his fourth MLS appearance for the club coming in for Marc Burch.

By that point Sporting Kansas City had exerted complete control of the match. SKC would add an extra goal with just three minutes to play as Saad Abdul-Saleem capped off the match with his first ever MLS goal.

Now this was not the worst match the Loons have played all season, however, there was almost zero effort given over the course of 90 minutes.

The Loons next match is a US Open Cup clash when they take on Sporting Kansas City from Children’s Mercy Park on Wednesday June 14th.

The next league match is on Saturday June 17th against Real Salt Lake whom they beat April 1st for the Loons first ever MLS win.

What did you think of tonight’s game? Let us know in the comments below or of course head over to our post match thread here and vent your frustrations.