Takeaways: Minnesota United advance in MLS playoffs after surviving red card, 10-round shootout with Seattle

You could go a decade as a soccer fan and never see a result quite as hard to believe as Minnesota United’s playoff victory over the Seattle Sounders on Saturday.

It had everything. Early goals. Late goals. A red card. An improbable comeback by a team playing a man short. And, in the end, a penalty shootout that had to be seen to be believed, one in which one goalkeeper scored the eventual game-winning penalty and then watched the other goalkeeper kiss his own penalty off the crossbar.

With the dust settled, it will go down in history as a 3-3 draw, followed by a 7-6 shootout victory for the Loons, one in which goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair scored the winning penalty and saved one himself, while three Sounders hit the post or crossbar.

“I definitely blacked out in the moment,” St. Clair said after Seattle’s Andrew Thomas, the backup goalkeeper who came on for Stefan Frei late in regulation, misfired on his penalty to end the game. “What I said before the game was, ‘Find a way to get the result. At this point in the season, it’s the results that matter, but I don’t think any one of us would have drew it up the way that it happened.’ ”

And it means that the Loons, who won Game 1 of this best-of-three, first-round series in an Allianz Field shootout as well, will play again in two weeks in the Western Conference semifinals — against either San Diego on the road, or Portland at home, depending on the winner between the two on Sunday — set for the weekend of Nov. 22.

Almost right out of the gate, the Loons’ season appeared to be over. They trailed 2-0 before nine minutes had elapsed, then went down to 10 men, still losing 2-1, after Joseph Rosales was given a red card late in the first half.

But one of the things about building the team’s identity around set pieces is that the Loons don’t need to dominate the ball or control the game to score goals. All they need are a couple of chances, from throw-ins or corner kicks — and those don’t require all 11 men.

Jordan Morris, though, scored for Seattle in the 88th minute to tie the score at 3-3 and send the game to penalties. It was one final wild momentum shift in a game that was full of them.

“For where we were at halftime to be where we are now is a phenomenal situation,” Loons coach Eric Ramsay said. “I think it’s a real credit to everyone involved. The players, first and foremost, showed just an unbelievable level of togetherness and spirit and will, to stay in the game, to get ahead in the game — and then to overcome what is a really tough blow to concede a goal like that at the end."

After Rosales had been sent off for a foolish headbutt, the Loons had only one path forward. The second half was always going to be about trying to keep things compact defensively, trying to move the ball up the field whenever there was an opportunity, and then hoping for some kind of set-piece opportunity.

In the 62nd minute, that’s exactly what happened. Michael Boxall lined up for one of the Loons’ famous long throw-ins, but for once, he took the throw-in short. After Pereyra passed the ball back to him, Boxall swung in a cross, which was flicked on by Morris Duggan and then headed home at the back post by Díaz.

Nine minutes later, the Loons won a corner kick and unleashed the player who’s been their secret set-piece weapon: Markanich. Pereyra swung in an inch-perfect corner, and Markanich snuck around the back of the Seattle defense — as he has seemingly been doing all season — to head home a Loons lead.

The Loons might have gone away quietly if not for the left foot of Pereyra. The Argentine midfielder beat Sounders keeper Frei with a free kick in Minnesota’s 1-0 regular-season victory at Allianz Field, and in the 19th minute Saturday, he did it again. Kelvin Yeboah won a free kick approximately 30 yards from goal, and Pereyra buried it, clearing the Sounders wall and beating Frei inside the goalkeeper’s left-hand post.

His corner kick on Markanich’s goal, though, might have been even better, beating everyone and finding Markanich open at the back post. “Without a doubt, the best corner kick of my career,” said Pereyra, in Spanish.