Recap: Toye’s brace leads Loons to a 3-2 victory on the road in Montreal

The Loons third match in the week appeared to be a tough one to win from the get go but the Loons would come out of Montreal holding a 3-2 win, their 3rd straight MLS victory.

After not changing the starting XI the past two matches, Minnesota United made some pretty large changes heading into Montreal to take on the Impact. Boxall and Gasper reprise their roles in the back four of Heath’s 4-3-3 from the last two matches while Eric Miller and Brent Kallman take the other side of keeper Vito Mannone. In the midfield and forwards only Ethan Finlay starts his third match in a row with Lawrence Olum, Mason Toye, Collin Martin, Rasmus Schuller, and Kevin Molino taking those other 5 spots in the front six.

Montreal Impact opened the match reminding us of the Minnesota back line that we've seen before and feared and hoped would never come back. Less than 30 seconds in Anthony Jackson-Hamel received a long pass down the far side of the pitch before cutting around the inside off Chase Gasper. Then beating the Mannone to the far side of the net after Brent Kallman missed a tackle inside the box that could've saved the goal.

Mason Toye was able to bust put some dance moves not long afterwards when he fired a shot into the upper right hand corner of the net, after Molino hit him with a little flick of a pass.

In short span yet again another goal was scored by the home side. A corner was played directly to Rudy Camacho who used his chest to play it to the ground before firing a high shot to the upper right corner and beating Minnesota keeper Vito Mannone.

While Montreal didn’t score the rest of the first half they did come close a few times only for Loons keeper Vito Mannone to make some outstanding saves to keep the Impact held to a single goal lead.

Ethan Finlay evened the game back up on a penalty kick that was given to him after Impact keeper Evan Bush stepped up and ended up taking Finlay to the ground. After a VAR review to make sure the call was correct Bush went the wrong way on Finlay’s grounded PK to the right side of the goal.

Through the first 45 minutes the Minnesota attack appeared very sloppy in the final third of the pitch, completing only 39% of passes and 0/4 crosses. With the two shots Minnesota had (outside of the penalty kick) only one (the first goal) went on target. The other was a shot by Rasmus Schuller that looked more like he was attempting to kick a field goal, missing both very high and wide.

Shortly into the second half Kevin Molino sent another ball from the wing to Mason Toye who was inside the 18. After receiving the pass Toye took a shot on the ground from just outside the 6 into the right hand side of the net to secure the his first ever brace in MLS.

The Loons would use their first two subs in the 70th minute seeing Miguel Ibarra come in for Ethan Finlay and Hassani Dotson come in for Collin Martin. Minnesota used their third and final sub to bring Angelo Rodriguez on for Mason Toye in the 82nd minute.

MNUFC had a chance in the 84th minute to bring the scoreline to 4-2 with a three on one chance. Kevin Molino would pass to the left to Angelo who passed back to Molino in the center before Molino missed the net just to right .