20 degree and snow didn’t effects Atlanta victory over Minnesota
WOODBURY, Sunday’s Minnesota United FC will make their home debut in MLS, while their upcoming opponent and expansion counterpart Atlanta United debuted in lovely 68-degree weather down south, Minnesota United will hardly offer the same level of comfort.
“Portland had the rain, and what brings here is the snow and the cold,” Minnesota United left back Justin Davis predicted to MLSsoccer.com, citing the Timbers’ conditions in the Loons’ MLS curtain-raiser last week. “It’s supposed to be, what, 20 degrees and snowy? For a team like Atlanta that’s had nice weather through their preseason, it’s something that they’ll have to deal with. If it’s something like that which we can use to our advantage, we’ll take it.”
With a projected kickoff temperature of 23 degrees and a 79 percent chance of snow, Minnesota will try to embrace the weather to create a unique home-field advantage. Per MLSsoccer.com’s Benjamin Baer, this would rank among the four coldest matches in league history. Each time, the home team has gotten a positive result.
For head coach Adrian Heath, it’s a far cry from his previous home base in Orlando. However, he admits it could be a unique advantage.
“Obviously it’s different than anywhere in the country,” Heath said. “We have to make sure that, regardless of the weather, that this becomes our home. You look at leagues around the world: Wherever you are in the league, if you’re successful, your home form becomes huge for you. We have to make sure that, whether it’s sub-zero on the weekend or maybe 90 degrees in the summer, this has to be our home.”
Heath also mentioned that, while he played in some cold matches during his days at English side Everton, this would be the coldest match he was ever a part of. Technical director Manny Lagos remembers occasions of near-zero temperatures with freezing rain playing high-school soccer in Minnesota. However, neither of them have experienced anything like Finnish midfielder Rasmus Schüller.
“Back in Scandinavia, we train outside all winter,” he explained. “Hopefully we’ll get some advantage from it, but you can never tell. In juniors, we had some games in minus-15 Celsius [5 degrees].
After all home opener Minnesota United has been envisioned. The Loons were put on ice early in their first MLS home game, falling 3-0 within the first 27 minutes at TCF Bank Stadium before losing 6-1 to fellow expansion side Atlanta United.
The Western Conference club never found its footing, allowing a goal in the third minute and struggling to recover. What made the blowout result even tougher to stomach was that it came a mere week after Minnesota suffered a 5-1 defeat to the Portland Timbers.
For Minnesota head coach Adrian Heath, there’s much to sort out.
“Poor defending,” said Heath when asked what went wrong in a post-match press conference. “I thought there were a couple of quality finishes in there on the day. We were poor at the back. We’ve got a lot of work to do there. Whether that means we change one or two things or one or two individuals, we have to look at that for next week.”
Minnesota United made two changes to their backline following the week 1 defeat, shifting Jermaine Taylor to left back and filling his right back spot with newcomerJerome Thiesson. However, the shift did not fix the leaky defense for Minnesota. The Loons have allowed 11 goals in their first two MLS matches, and are the first club in league history to have given up at least five tallies in back-to-back games.
“Our performance today, overall, was shocking,” said midfielder Collen Warner. “That part of it was not expected, and that needs to get better. Overall, I think people are doing the right things in training. Coming into these games, we need to be less naive and rash in our decision-making. We need to be a little bit more disciplined in our decisions, said to sources.
Meanwhile, Minnesota’s attack was held in check by Atlanta, save for one penalty-kick goal by Kevin Molino in the first half. The club realizes that this side of the ball needs attention, too, after scoring just twice in two matches.
“Back to the drawing board on Monday,” said striker Christian Ramirez. “It starts from the front. We have to make sure we help the guys behind us. We just have to focus on not giving up five or six, and then we can start tightening up our defensive shape. We’ll be better off.”
Minnesota had a crowd of 35,043 that was braving the snow and sub-20-degree weather, but couldn’t give the supporters a reward. The club hopes to do so the next time out, but knows there is much to correct and plenty of areas in which they can improve.
“Only positive we can take from today is the people who braved the elements to come out. The support was incredible,” said Heath. “It’s just a pity that we couldn’t give them any type of performance that warranted the support we got today. I apologize for that, because they didn’t deserve that. It goes without saying that we’ve got a lot of hard work out ahead of us.”
Added Ramirez: “It’ll get better. I promise you that.”
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