Balanced Effort Leads to Big Home Win

Winning is fun.

After 3 points in Montreal coming from the foot of Abu Danladi, Minnesota United dominated (for the most part) FC Dallas to the tune of a 4-1 victory.

It did not start well as FCD looked like they might run away with it as Maximilliano Urrati fired a beautiful volley past Bobby Shuttleworth within 9 minutes. But the goal was called back because of offsides. Whether or not FCD was offside ended up being irrelevant when Tesho Akindele put the visitors up early.

What started badly turned around quickly. Constant pressure from Ibson, Kevin Molino, and Christian Ramirez paid off when Ramirez beat Jesse Gonzalez to level the score.

FC Dallas defender Maynor Figueroa had a night he will likely want to forget as soon as possible. Beat on Molino’s assist to Ramirez, Figueroa was caught flat-footed as Miguel Ibarra scored to put the Loons up at halftime.

The start of the second half was even. The teams both looked for a breakthrough when Collin Martin ran over FCD supersub, Mauro Diaz in the penalty area. The ref awarded Dallas the penalty kick and Diaz stepped up to take it. But for the second time in as many matches, Shuttleworth met the challenge with a perfect save.

The Loons were quick on the counterattack and a beautiful sequence of passing led to Ramirez’s second assist of the night. Ethan Finlay put the ball into the far corner to add to his goal scoring total in a Loons shirt.

With the game pretty in hand, Abu Danladi found himself one-on-one with Gonzalez only to hook his shot a little too far and strike the inside of the post. Abu would make up for it not long after when he found himself again one-on-one with Gonzalez. Taking an extra touch, Abu passed it into the back of the net and the game was truly on ice.

With Wonderwall blaring, the team turns its attention to a road trip that starts in Houston and a rematch against Atlanta. The final home match of the season against Sporting Kansas City on October, 7th.