Three things: #MINvLAFC

1. In more exciting news, the president came to town.

2. In the immediacy of the post-game moment Wil Trapp mused that it was one of the teams best performances of the year. Ozzie Alonso felt it was disappointing to not get three points at home. Adrian Heath, the most pragmatic and upbeat of the group, thought the team deserved three but admitted to always taking a point. He also believed that with the dominant performance it would have been a travesty if Minnesota United hadn’t gotten anything from the game. But dominant is an understatement. How can these stats not be a win?

3. It is still very hard to understand what was happening with LAFC on the night. In their historic 2019 season Bob Bradley had his team quite literally playing with space and playing with their opponents in space, stretching teams in and out of position at will. On Saturday, they looked like this:

In addition to being narrow they also played with a strangely organized but still wild congestion, especially ex-Loon Raheem Edwards who was allowed to roam quite freely, often as an extra man creating chaos in the middle of the field. It was, as the statistics show, a great tactic for Minnesota to play against, although it might again have been a team daring the Loons to score, with all the confidence that they couldn’t. But reliant on individual moments of quality, Minnesota cannot break another team down, which was evident in the opening moments of the second half when LAFC fell back into a disciplined defensive block. What Minnesota can do, though, is take advantage of another team’s openings. Even if they still can’t score, they can control the game in the space given them.