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Minnesota United heads to Frisco, TX tonight to take on Western Conference opponent FC Dallas in another of a long stretch of matches for the Loons. MNUFC’s stretch of two games per week started last Sunday with a league match against Portland and continued on Wednesday with a US Open Cup clash against the same Timbers squad. After tonight’s match United continues to play two games per week until September 1st when they travel to Los Angeles to face LAFC.
Minnesota will almost certainly have to start rotating players in with so many games in such a short amount of time coming up and with 8 players starting both matches against Portland this may be the time to do it. 5 of the 6 subs used in those two games also made appearances in both matches with Hassani Dotson the only player to appear once on the pitch.
The Loons also aren’t in as desperate of a situation to secure three points as FC Dallas is, with the Loons sitting above water in second place in the West with 38 points, only behind LAFC’s seemingly thousand mile lead at 52 points. Dallas on the other hand barely has their head above water at 7th in the West and only 2 points above 8th place Portland.
“Well, I think [that] they’ve played better than some of their score lines reflect. We’ve watched quite a lot of their games and they’ve probably, as I was saying earlier on in the season, when you’re on top, they’ve missed a lot of chances this year to kill teams and then teams have hung around and you’ve managed to nick a point off them or nick two off them. At the end of the day we’ve just got to go and be prepared because one thing about them, at home they are a formidable opposition. They get after you, got pace in the right areas, got a bit of everything, young team as well. So, it’s going to be tough.”
Tough might be how tonight will be for Minnesota as they have never won, drawn, or even scored a goal in Frisco through their two meetings with FCD at the stadium.
You can catch the match at 7 PM with coverage starting at 6:30 PM on both Fox Sports North Plus and SKOR North.
Staff Predictions:
John Stephenson: 2-1 Loons
Jacob Schneider: 1-1 Draw
Zak Lippert: 1-0 FC Dallas
Gustavo Navarrete: 2-2 Draw
Seth Steffenhagen: 3-2 Loons
Colin O’Donnell: 2-0 FC Dallas
Tim McLaughlin: 1-0 Loons
Ashle Norling: 2-1 FC Dallas