Storylines welcomes you to the first half of the Loons’ doubleheader week and a trip to Dignity Health Sports Park for a game against the Los Angeles Galaxy.
Houston, They Were A Problem
As noted in First Touches yesterday, both the Galaxy and Loons are low-scoring, defensive teams, two of only three teams in the league to have both scored and allowed fewer than 20 goals on the season. An outlier to the Galaxy’s trend of low-scoring games was Houston’s 3-0 win at Dignity Health Sports Park in May. Houston was able to hold the Galaxy scoreless with some good and timely goalkeeping by Steve Clark, and could have scored more than the three goals they scored. Notably, Houston notched a total of eight shots on goal in the game, the most the Galaxy have allowed this season, and even the saves that Jonathan Bond made sometimes created more opportunities. Bond twice was unable to control shots on goal, the first of which immediately led to Houston’s opener through Sebastian Ferreira, who was the first to react to the rebound. As noted, Houston’s eight shots on goal were the most that the Galaxy have allowed this season, but they’ve allowed seven shots on goal twice, one of those quite notably coming in the first matchup between the Galaxy and Loons this season. One of Minnesota’s primary objectives this game could be to put the ball on target and see what happens.
Fire Away
Those seven shots on target in that first game are the most Minnesota has had in a game this season, one of Minnesota’s two most recent point-scoring performances. The win against FC Dallas four days later was another landmark in shooting. The Loons only attempted seven shots of any kind that game, their second lowest mark of the season, but got six of those seven on target for a whopping 85.7% accuracy, and scored two of them to get the road win in Texas. In Minnesota’s three losses since the Dallas and Galaxy matches, they’ve recorded more total shots than in the Dallas match in all three, but only have managed a total of 11 shots on target between the three games. In last Saturday’s loss in Miami, the Loons had just two shots on goal, their second-lowest mark of the season in any match.
Keep It Clean
The other side of the coin, obviously, is Minnesota’s defense holding firm on the road. The Loons have failed to keep a clean sheet in their last eight matches in the league, with the frustrating late goals allowed against Miami the latest example of the Loons not playing a complete game. Michael Boxall addressed this in his comments after the game on Saturday: "That's something we’ve been looking for at least a month or two where we need to have complete performances, especially after last week. I think the first 45 [minutes] was excellent and then the whole second half just wasn’t at that level. And then tonight, we did take a step forward for 75, 80 odd minutes to put in, what I thought was a pretty good performance by everyone, and then obviously, the momentum swings a little bit when you make changes. You want your subs to be the spark, which unfortunately was the Miami substitute who made the difference tonight.” As noted above, Minnesota is still one of the better defensive teams in the league by goals allowed. They have all the tools needed to put a complete performance together, and Wednesday is a new opportunity to do so. As Boxall said, “Good thing is, it is a quick turnaround, so we’ve got no other choice but to bounce back.”
MATCH INFO
LA Galaxy vs. Minnesota United FC
Dignity Health Sports Park | Carson, CA
06.29.22 | MLS League Game #17
9:30 pm CST (MLS Live on ESPN+, Bally Sports North, The CW-Twin Cities, 1500 ESPN)
