For the fifth time this year, Minnesota United scored three goals in a game, this time in beating FC Edmonton 3-2. Christian Ramirez put away a first-half penalty, and Daniel Mendes scored twice in eleven minutes in the second half, a neat near-post flick and a blast from near the penalty spot.

It'll make for a good highlight reel, but the United video team could equally put together a reel of Minnesota defensive blunders. There was the wayward Juliano Vicentini pass that led directly to the game's first goal, by Edmonton's Lance Laing; there was a similar wayward pass in the second half from Aaron Pitchkolan that loosed Eddies striker Frank Jonke alone on goal, forcing goalkeeper Mitch Hildebrandt to come out and commit the foul that got him sent off. Perhaps most shockingly, there was the innocuous-looking ball that bounced to Hildebrandt that defender Tiago Calvano chose to chest past his own keeper, off the post, then tantalizingly along the goal line, where Calvano cleared it - though a subsequent TV replay indicated that the ball may have crossed the line.

It's no wonder that head coach Manny Lagos looked distinctly unhappy, even after his team had closed out the win one man short. "This is an imperfect game and you have imperfect moments," he said. "Tonight, to walk off the field having played some good soccer, but at times having showed some shockingly poor concentration, is disappointing. We started out sluggish, and we had to get back into it and we exerted a lot of energy and got back into it - and seemingly thought we were controlling it. Our concentration kind of let us down and made it a tough night.

"We just made some poor mistakes. We've got good quality guys in the locker room that would put their hands up and say it should have been better. As a group, as a team, we'd be stupid not to acknowledge those mistakes."

Team captain Aaron Pitchkolan acknowledged the mistakes - and hoped that the team had got them all out of its collective system. "There's really no rhyme or reason for it, they came all at once," he said. "We'll learn from them and move forward. Manny and [assistant coach] Carl [Craig] and the coaching staff, they won't let us be complacent. We know what we're up against."

Lagos was happy, though, that the team handled the adversity of giving up an early goal and a late red card. "There were some great moments in the second half and some great goals. I certainly was proud how we changed how we started from the first half in the second half, and I thought that was the difference in the game."

Mendes scores twice more

Mendes is on a bit of a hot streak; two goals tonight brings his tally to four in five fall-season games. More notable, perhaps, was the fact that he scored both goals in the center of the field from open play. Given that United generally plays with its wide midfielders starting very wide, it's not always normal to see a winger in the penalty area.

As it turns out, it's all part of Minnesota's plan to get its fullbacks forward into the attack, and get as many potential goalscorers in the penalty area as possible. "I try to go inside to give the space to Viva [Kevin Venegas]," said Mendes. "We train a lot of that - give him space. I get more involved in the game when I get inside, and we created some good play in the wide part of the field. The coach wants the wide players to cut inside and give the space for the fullbacks to come up."

Venegas did have plenty of space - some of that probably due to Edmonton's relative exhaustion. The Eddies were playing their third game in seven days, and eight of the team's starting eleven played all three. Once United went down to ten men, the Eddies showed an offensive spark, but were otherwise mostly passive - not surprising, as there were likely a few dead legs on the field.

Juliano limps off

Vicentini limped off the field ten minutes into the second half, grimacing after a challenge left him down on the field. Postgame, Lagos said that it appeared to be a groin injury, but that the team wouldn't know more about the severity for a day or two.

Should Vicentini miss next week's game against Indy, the team would likely be left with two choices - either play Greg Jordan alongside Floyd Franks in midfield, or bring Pitchkolan forward into the midfield alongside one of the two and slot Cristiano Dias back into the defense.