MINNESOTA UNITED FC vs. PORTLAND TIMBERS
Allianz Field | Saint Paul, Minnesota
08.07.19 | U.S. Open Cup Semifinals
7:00 p.m. CT (Stream: ESPN+, Twitter: @MNUFCMatch)

Just days after Minnesota United defeated the visiting Portland Timbers 1-0 with a stoppage time penalty from Ethan Finlay, the two sides will clash again in the U.S. Open Cup Semifinals at Allianz Field. The Loons’ run to the Semifinals matches the deepest Open Cup run for a Minnesota soccer team, a Minnesota Thunder bid in 2005 was ultimately cut short by the LA Galaxy in the Semifinals. While Cup regulations and other considerations will force some lineup changes, expect another hard-fought battle between two teams with stout defenses and a desire to get out on the counterattack on Wednesday night. As important as the three points on Sunday were for the MLS playoff picture, this one is win or go home, with the winner facing Atlanta in the U.S. Open Cup Final on Tuesday, August 27.

The game kicks off at 7:00 p.m. CT with pregame coverage getting underway on ESPN+ at 6:30 p.m. You can also follow along for timely game updates on Minnesota United’s gameday Twitter account, @MNUFCMatch.

Minnesota’s journey through the U.S. Open Cup began this season with a 4-1 win over Sporting Kansas City on June 12 and a 3-2 win over Houston Dynamo on June 18. Those positive results came on the heels of an MLS swoon that saw them losing three in a row and that strong early run in the Cup spurred them on to success in league play. The Loons are now unbeaten in 10 games across all competitions beginning with that pair of Open Cup wins. In the Quarterfinals, they roundly thrashed upstart New Mexico United 6-1 to earn a berth in the Semifinals.

For American sports fans raised on the regular season slogs of baseball or basketball followed by the high stakes run through the playoffs to a championship, the idea of a tournament running concurrently with a regular season but completely separate from it might take some getting used to, but elsewhere, it’s the norm for soccer.

“Around the world, Cup competitions are incredibly important,” said Head Coach Adrian Heath. “I know as a kid growing up, the only thing that I ever wanted to do was play in an FA Cup final and I was fortunate enough to do it a couple times. So, maybe as a foreign coach, I’ve took the Open Cup with a little bit more importance than some people have. I don’t get it for other people but that’s their way of doing it. Even when I go back to Orlando as a USL team, we got to the Quarterfinals two or three times, we knocked two or three MLS clubs out. I think it’s a big opportunity for us and it’s going to be difficult but we are ready for it.”

It’s difficult to say at this point whether Minnesota’s extremely recent history with Portland will be a boon or complicating factor to the home side. The U.S. Open Cup mandates a maximum of five international players in competition, while Minnesota United’s first-choice starting XI this season has generally included six. Add on the wear and tear of three games in less than a week — MNUFC travels to Texas to take on FC Dallas on Saturday — and rotation for health reasons is also a possibility for the home side. Portland will also face the same considerations.

“I would think that they’ll make one or two changes and we’ll certainly make one or two changes,” said Heath. “We have to because of the five-overseas rule. So there will be similarities. I don’t think the way that they play and they approach the game will change a lot, maybe the personnel will. All I do know is we are playing one of the best teams in Major League Soccer and we know it’s going to be difficult like it was on Sunday. We are going to have to approach it exactly the same way and I know Gio [Giovanni Savarese] well enough that he’ll know that we are going to come bringing our A game which is what we are going to do.”

Sunday’s hero, midfielder Ethan Finlay, spoke about the double-edged sword that comes from playing a team back-to-back in a situation like this.

“There’s absolutely stuff you learn from your opponent by playing them,” he said. “Just as you’re making adjustments to them, they’re going to be making adjustments to us. That’ll all play a factor but our message on Sunday was, we gotta worry about ourselves. If we play our game, we take care of business, we’ll be just fine. We’re going to have a positive attitude, we are going to be playing forward, we are going to be a positive team and we are going to work our butts off. Whatever the result is, we’ll deal with that afterwards. I think that was actually a perfect characterization of the game [on Sunday] because it wasn’t always super pretty and super clean by us but we continued to fight and we continued to defend. We were a little bit fortuitous in the end to get a late goal but that’s kind of what you have to do.”

It can often be hard to parse whether getting a result out of a close game is connected to some innate or developing ability within a team or simply the result of luck. Recently, Minnesota United has gutted out a 1-0 win against FC Dallas at home and taken a point each from a 1-1 road draw against Real Salt Lake and a 0-0 home draw against Vancouver Whitecaps. Moments from each of those games could be chalked up to good or bad luck depending on your rooting interest but it remains the case that the teams who get the right bounces are the ones who end up in the Semifinals or the Finals, whether that’s the Open Cup or the MLS playoffs. Midfielder Osvaldo Alonso has been in the league long enough to know that no championship comes with an asterisk.

“For any soccer player or sports player, winning a trophy is winning a trophy,” he said. “This trophy is very important for us because I think the team has never won it [The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup] before and we want to win because we want to get a trophy in our club. We want to go to the Cup of Champions. For us it’s a great opportunity to be in the Final for us and to try to lift the trophy.”

Some of the fans at Wednesday’s Semifinal will have watched the Thunder tussle with the Galaxy back in 2005. Others won’t have any kind of deep sense of what the U.S. Open Cup even is at this point. But success for Minnesota United in the moment will continue to forge the bond between the club and its fans, a bond that has been developing game by game during the team’s first season in Allianz Field.

“The connection between the players and the supporters now is growing by the week,” said Heath. “You saw the reaction to Vito’s [double] save at the weekend, the stadium erupted. We’ve got a special thing going on at the moment. We have to keep that.”

Minnesota United’s next game is on the road against FC Dallas at Toyota Stadium on Saturday, August 10 at 7:00 p.m. CT. Pregame coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. on FOX Sports North+, streaming on FOX Sports Go and on MNUFC Radio on SKOR North.

INJURY REPORT
Minnesota United FC

• None

Portland Timbers

• OUT: D – Marco Farfan (left knee)
• OUT: GK – Jeff Attinella (right shoulder)

FIRST TOUCHES

• Miguel Ibarra was drafted by Portland in the 2012 MLS Supplemental Draft, but was not signed by the club.
• MNUFC Director of Player Personnel Amos Magee was on Portland Timbers’ coaching staff from 2009–2013.
• Lawrence Olum played for the Timbers in 2017 and 2018. He scored Portland’s first MLS goal against MNUFC.
• Jeff Attinella was selected by MNUFC from Real Salt Lake in the 2016 MLS Expansion Draft but was later traded to Portland. He also played against Minnesota during his time in the NASL.
• Carter Manley and Jeremy Ebobisse both played for Duke University in 2014 and 2015.
• Darwin Quintero and Cristhian Paredes were teammates on Club America in 2017.
• Michael Boxall and Bill Tuiloma are both members of the New Zealand national team.
• Steve Clark and Ethan Finlay played for Columbus Crew SC from 2014 through 2016.
• Eryk Williamson and Dayne St. Clair were teammates at the University of Maryland from 2015 to 2017.
• Minnesota is unbeaten in its last 10 games across all competitions.
• The Loons are 8-2-0 in all competitions since June 12.
• Minnesota defeated Portland 1-0 on Sunday. Ethan Finlay’s stoppage time penalty kick was the decisive goal in the game.
• Finlay has now scored both of his penalty kick attempts this year.
• Finlay’s four goals this season tie him with Mason Toye for the third-most on the team.
• Minnesota has now claimed 38 points in MLS play, its highest total ever since joining the league in 2017. It earned 36 points in both of its first two seasons.
• Vito Mannone made five saves to earn his eighth clean sheet of the year. He now holds the club’s career record for most clean sheets.
• Mannone’s 78 saves is the third-highest total in MLS.
• The Loons have kept back-to-back clean sheets for the third time this season.
• MNUFC has not allowed a goal in its last three home games, the longest home shutout streak since joining MLS.
• Ike Opara was named to the MLS Team of the Week for Week 22 of the season. He sets a new club record with six appearances on the Team of the Week in a single season.
• MNUFC players have featured in the MLS Team of the Week for six consecutive weeks.
• The home team has won every meeting in the all-time MLS series between these teams.
• The winner of this game will face either Orlando City SC or Atlanta United FC in the Final.
• Darwin Quintero leads the U.S. Open Cup with five goals. He has scored in all three of Minnesota’s games in the tournament.
• Angelo Rodriguez is one of three players tied for the second-most goals with four so far in the competition.
• Rodriguez scored a hat trick last round in a 6-1 win over USL Championship side New Mexico United.
• The Timbers have played MLS teams in all three of their previous Open Cup games.
• This is the second time Portland has reached the Open Cup Semifinals. It last reached this round in 2013.