Analysis: Minnesota United gets a break before crucial two-game set

Minnesota United has a two-week break in the calendar, but when the Loons do return, they will be coming back for perhaps the most pivotal non-playoff week of their season.

After a game Sept. 13 in San Diego — potentially with the top spot in the Western Conference on the line, depending on San Diego’s result against LAFC late Sunday night — Minnesota plays host to Austin midweek on Sept. 17 in a U.S. Open Cup semifinal.

The Loons would also host the final of the U.S. Open Cup. As a result, they have a chance to win the team’s first major trophy without leaving home. The only issue is that, at least against the top teams, Minnesota has been less than successful at Allianz Field.

In eight home games against the other current MLS Western Conference playoff teams, the Loons have only two victories: They beat ninth-place San Jose 4-1 on July 12 and defeated Seattle 1-0 on Aug. 16. They have also lost four times and drawn two other times, including a tie against the very same Austin team that will visit in the semifinals.

Loons coach Eric Ramsay had an interesting answer when asked what his team would have to do to turn those draws and losses into wins.

“We need to get stronger as a club,” he said. “We need to have more depth. We need to have more options. We need to be at our fullest when it comes to our players who can come on and change games, because ultimately that’s what the top teams do, and the top teams have in this division. That’s, of course, only one side of it. I’m not pointing solely to individuals and personnel, but that is a big part of moving forward and being able to compete with the very top teams.”

Ramsay went on to connect the team’s sometimes-criticized defense-first style with that lack of depth, noting that the team has had awfully good results — including clinching a playoff spot with five games to go — without ever being “spectacular” or “dominant” like other top teams might expect to be.

With an international break this week, the club as a whole can get a bit of a breather, and it is hoping to officially add some of that depth that Ramsay is looking for — but, as always, it will lose some players for the break as well.

Five players — goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair, center backs Michael Boxall and Carlos Harvey, wingback Joseph Rosales and midfielder Robin Lod — will depart for distant shores this week with their national teams, along with several players from MNUFC2. Even if the Loons manage to officially integrate their three remaining summer signings, as expected, they are still in the case of some coming in while others are going out.

“It’s not going to be the training camp that you’d almost hope to have at this stage of the season,” Ramsay said. “The buildup to that San Diego game will be interesting for both teams, in the sense they lose possibly up to 10 [players], we lose a good number of players, and we will come back together as a group in San Diego on the Thursday before the Saturday [game] and we will have had some training time, hopefully, with the new guys — assuming all the paperwork gets done.”

Those new guys include attacking midfielder Dominik Fitz, defensive midfielder Nectarios Triantis and winger Alexis Fariña. Fitz should be more or less ready to go, having played seven games already this season with Austria Wien, and Fariña is in midseason as well, but Triantis hadn’t played at all in England for Sunderland this season.

Striker Momo Dieng, who was already playing in the United States and therefore didn’t have a visa delay, made his MLS debut in Saturday night’s 1-1 draw against Portland at Allianz Field, playing a little less than 20 minutes off the bench. “We are in the middle of the season. I’m ready. Train for one day or three days, I don’t care. I just keep going,” Dieng said. (His first language is French, and he was a little uncomfortable doing a postgame news conference in English.)