The Bronx: New York’s sole mainland borough, home of the Yankees, birthplace of Billy Joel. Today, Minnesota made it the site of an interconference victory against City Football Group’s New York club in the sixth-ever fixture between the Loons and the Pigeons. Coming off a tough loss to Atlanta on Matchday 6, NYCFC aimed to defend their undefeated-at-home status with a powerful bounceback from the home diamond but came up short.
Minnesota United’s win kicked off a triple-header of Sunday soccer for MLS, right from the Bronx’s beloved baseball stadium. A bird’s-eye view of the soccer pitch crammed into a facility built for baseball gives the impression of a square peg in a circle, but Minnesota worked the confines to their advantage with direct counterattacks and effective movement up and down the short field.
Tani Oluwaseyi immediately set the tone with a goal in the first minute, sliding the ball past NYC keeper Matt Freese off an assist by Joaquín Pereyra. The striker’s success laid the foundation for a dominant first half, countering New York’s presence in the attacking third with a stellar defensive performance from a center trio of Michael Boxall, Nicolás Romero, and Jefferson Díaz. Romero was solid throughout the full 90, proving himself a worthy starter.
“I think Nico is really finding his feet now, and he’s shown tonight what a good player he is in both senses, but particularly in terms of his willingness to defend the box and the level of aggression, the level of intuition that he showed in defending some of those situations,” Coach Ramsay said. “He’s a real box defender, he thrives in those situations, but he’s also got real quality on the ball.”
Romero wasn’t the only player to show his versatility on the pitch, with defender Carlos Harvey subbing in on the midfield and midfielder Wil Trapp doubling the lead in Minnesota’s fifth set piece goal of the season. Trapp’s right-footed shot into the box off Joaquín Pereyra’s free kick had Freese deflecting the ball right into the top of the net, doubling the lead for the Loons.
“I think me and Wil Trapp are gonna race to 20 goals this year,” Boxy joked in a postgame press conference.
New York held 64% possession in the first half but wasn’t able to move the ball in a way that stuck, playing into the Loons’ off-the-ball strategy. Head Coach Pascal Jansen tried to send a wake-up call with two subs in the 40th minute, saying farewell to Birk Risa and Julian Fernández and hoping that Strahinja Tanasijević and Mounsef Bakrar could turn the tides.
A drawn-out first half had New York grasping at straws to put one in the net before the half, but despite a video review, a penalty kick, and a lot of play in the attacking third, the whistle blew on a 2-0 lead for Minnesota with New York failing to find a single shot on target.
Forward Alonso Martínez should by all counts be New York’s biggest attacking threat, but he didn’t make much of an impact on the field today save for his penalty kick in first half stoppage time that went off the crossbar. Instead, Hannes Wolf grabbed the defenders’ attention from the flank, showcasing his ability to navigate tight spaces but still not managing a goal. Even corner kick after corner kick yielded no results for New York, and a total of 19 shots with only four on target said everything.
The lack of fluidity in New York’s formation means the team hasn’t yet settled into Jansen’s Total Football mindset. The closest any of the players on NYC’s roster got to Jansen’s vision showed up in the flexibility of Keaton Parks, who shouldered some responsibility as a pivot in the midfield and threw away Minnesota’s clean sheet when he capitalized on St. Clair’s deflection in the 89th minute.
Though Minnesota wasn’t able to rack up the score in the second half, they held onto the lead and proved that Ramsay’s consistent, disciplined 5-3-2 holds up. The 2-1 win bumps the Loons up to third in the Western Conference behind Vancouver and San Diego. The boys head into another road match against an Eastern team next weekend in Toronto, shooting for a three-point encore.
