Emanuel Reynoso arrived amid much fanfare as Minnesota United’s latest Designated Player last season and he has lived up to the billing. Opposing team’s focus on him because so much of the offense runs directly through the Argentine. To wit, his 47 key passes on the season puts him second in the league in that metric behind New England’s Carles Gil and miles ahead of the next nearest Loon, Romain Metanire, who has … 17.
But there’s another player who’s arguably been just as integral to Minnesota United’s successes this season. Robin Lod leads the team with five goals including three gamewinners. All of his game-winning goals and last week’s goal against Vancouver have come in the 75th minute or later. The Finnish winger-cum-forward has simply been the definition of clutch for an MNUFC team that has only won one game — June 23’s matchup with Austin FC that ended 2-0 — by more than a goal.
Over the course of his career, Lod has performed a bevy of roles on the pitch from left back to center forward, and the flexibility those experiences have built into him came to the fore late last season as he stepped up to play the role of false 9 down the stretch and into the playoffs. This year, we’ve seen him start games at right wing before shifting to that false 9 position and we’ve also seen him start up top before shifting out wide. His role is not defined so much by his position as by his approach: read the game and make the right contribution at the right time. By expected goals — a metric that measures the quality of chances generated — he is ninth in the league with 5.85. That mark places him ahead of notable goalscorers including Diego Rossi, Carlos Vela and Alan Pulido. Adding in expected assists, he’s 10th in the league with 8.18 xG+xA, a couple spots ahead of Reynoso, who has 7.41.
In recapping the USMNT’s Gold Cup win over Mexico, MLS’s Charles Boehm highlighted Head Coach Gregg Berhalter’s concept of “tight variance” with regard to players and Lod absolutely embodies the idea when it comes to Minnesota United. A player like former Loon Darwin Quintero had a wide variance: His highest highs — like his hat trick against Toronto FC in 2018 — are dizzying, but when he was not engaged at that level, he struggled to contribute. With Lod, the floor is very close to the ceiling and both are fairly high. He might not be an elite finisher, or an elite chance creator, or an elite defender, or an elite dribbler, but he does enough of all these things to make him effective and he rarely puts a foot wrong doing them.
Players hitting double-digit goals and assists in a season is a thing Heath has touched on before. Quintero did it in his first season with the club, notching 11 goals and 15 assists. He used to talk about it as something he expected from a fully healthy Kevin Molino. It’s a mark Ethan Finlay hit in 2015 with the Columbus Crew when he bagged 12 goals and 13 assists. But so far, no MNUFC player has managed the feat since Quintero. A game shy of the halfway point of the season and having missed several games for international play, Lod’s five goals and four assists has him around the pace to make it this year.
Should he make it, the relentlessly humble Finn will likely care more about whether Minnesota makes the playoffs and will quickly deflect credit to his teammates. He wasn’t the splashiest signing and he’s not the flashiest player. His signature bow-and-arrow goal celebration feels more customary than celebratory, a recognition of tradition and a winking play on his name. But make no mistake: if he continues to produce at the rate he’s established, his play will be a huge factor in how far the Loons can climb up the table and how far they might be able to go in the postseason once again.
