2:26Back to work after an important 3-1 victory over Real Salt Lake on Sunday, Minnesota United trained lightly in Blaine on Tuesday.
Veterans such as Darwin Quintero, Romain Metanire and Ozzie Alonso among others stretched, ran lightly, watched and/or left the field early in a full week when United doesn't play again until Sunday at Portland. Those training including players who didn't play or see much time on the pitch Sunday.
A week without a Wednesday game is welcome, especially with the Loons, in third place in the Western Conference, headed to Portland. United is one point behind second-place Seattle, two points ahead of Real Salt Lake, three ahead of L.A. Galaxy, four ahead of San Jose and five ahead of seventh-place Portland and the final playoff spot.
"It's a change over to a full week where we can actually prepare and get some work done on the training field," United coach Adrian Heath said. "It just seems like it has been a game every third or fourth day lately, with the travel, the re-gen, the preparation and so it'll be nice to get a good week's training under our belt."
Heath said his players have come through comeback victory against Real Salt Lake -- after they allowed the first goal – with few knocks.
"Everybody come through OK," he said.
Heath called it "my decision" not to include newcomer Thomas Chacon and veteran striker Angelo Rodriguez in the 18 players picked to start or sub Sunday and not illness from which Michael Boxall and Kevin Molino played their way through last week.
"As I've said, you can only pick 18," Heath said. "I picked the 18 I thought was best for us. Thomas is a little bit different. He's still integrating in. We don't want to overload and overpower him with everything. … It's hard to throw in and just expect him to go and go and go.
