It’s a Loony Sunday in St. Paul as Sporting KC scores first, falls to Minnesota United

Sporting Kansas City emerged victorious from the lion’s den last weekend, beating the Sounders in a playoff-style atmosphere at Seattle.

Sunday’s game, on Halloween, brought supposedly easier opposition in Minnesota United, but the Loons were still fighting for a playoff berth and beat Sporting KC 2-1 at Allianz Field in Saint Paul, Minn.

Sporting KC got off to a flying start when Khiry Shelton scored in the eighth minute, but treats soon turned into tricks: first-half goals by Minnesota’s Franco Fragapane and Emanuel Reynoso.

“I think the difference in the game was they were fighting for their lives — they wanted to win,” Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes said. “They wanted it more than we did, unfortunately, in that first half, especially.”

Sporting KC remains atop the Western Conference standings with two games left in the regular season. But now the door’s open for Seattle to retake the lead against the L.A. Galaxy on Monday, albeit with having played an extra game.

Minnesota, meanwhile, crept up to fifth in the standings, at least temporarily (other games being played Sunday could alter that picture). The Loons knocked Kansas City out of the 2020 playoffs in the conference semifinals.

Sporting opened the game with bundles of energy, taking the lead within 10 minutes courtesy of an excellent work rate from Gadi Kinda.

The midfielder who started as a false nine improbably beat Minnesota’s Romain Métanire to the ball on the byline, winning a corner that should’ve been cleared by Métanire.

“(Kinda) playing every role of the ball and working hard to try to get the ball back was huge,” Vermes said. “He almost broke through, actually. It was tremendous by him to do that.”

The ensuing short corner came straight from the training ground. Kinda floated a cross to the back post; Johnny Russell knocked it down for Shelton to pop into the net.

“We’ve been working on it for a while,” Shelton said. “Just haven’t got the timing right with it. Today I was able to get the timing right: great ball in and Johnny picked me out and I was able to put it away.”

But Minnesota’s intensity and desperation pretty much took over from there. The Loons found gaps in the KC defense, specifically with passes behind Graham Zusi toward the byline.

Fragapane pounced on a bouncing ball 16 yards from the goal in the 20th minute off a cross from Zusi’s side of the defense. His volley squirted through goalkeeper Tim Melia’s hands and into the net.

At that point, even a draw would’ve given Sporting an advantage over Seattle in the standings. But a point wasn’t good enough for Minnesota.

The Loons maintained their intensity through the rest of the half and won a penalty in the 39th minute, when Reynoso went down under a challenge from Ilie Sanchez. The Argentinian playmaker took the penalty himself.

Melia dove the wrong way and Reynoso chipped a shot down the middle to give Minnesota the lead for good.

“Once they score that second goal it was very tough for us to try to come back,” midfielder Roger Espinoza said. “They defended well and they locked up really well. It was a difficult place to come play.”

Espinoza, 35, was of nine Sporting players who remained in the starting lineup after a midweek victory over L.A. Galaxy. He played 246 of a possible 270 minutes last week and faces another two games this week week.

Espinoza played 82 minutes against Minnesota.

“Against the Galaxy, “ he said, “I got a bit fatigued, but I was able to recover, take care of myself, and this game it was why I went longer, because I felt better.”

MVP candidate Daniel Salloi returned to the field as a second-half substitute for Sporting KC. He had missed the previous two games after turning his ankle against the Vancouver Whitecaps on Oct. 17.

But the 25-year-old winger was unable to help much Sunday. Sporting managed just three shots all game. Likewise, Russell was unable to extend his eight-game scoring streak, which thus ended as the fifth-longest in Major League Soccer history.

“I think we hurt ourselves this match,” Shelton said. “We punished ourselves.

“We’ve got to go into these games like it’s a playoff game. Teams are fighting for points to get into the playoffs, so we didn’t do our job today. But we will refocus, get together as a group and fix it.”

This story was originally published October 31, 2021 at 2:28 PM with the headline "It’s a Loony Sunday in St. Paul as Sporting KC scores first, falls to Minnesota United."