In the immortal words of Ariana Grande, almost is never enough.
Just listening to the announced crowd of 17,605 Saturday at TCF Bank Stadium gave a pretty clear picture of how Minnesota United's 1-0 loss to the San Jose Earthquakes went — a gathering swell of cheers followed by a sigh of frustration.
"It was very much a 'nearly' night," coach Adrian Heath said. "We were nearly good. The nearly ball. We nearly got it to people. And I thought it was disappointing, considering the momentum in the last three or four weeks."
United fell to 2-5-2 with the loss, failing to create the team's first winning streak and also ending a clean sheet (shutout) run at 202 minutes, including stoppage time. San Jose, meanwhile, improved to 3-3-3 and scored for the first time in two matches.
The result also put some more distance between the two clubs in the Western Conference standings; United was just a point behind San Jose entering the match.
United's offense has sputtered since the first win of the season, a 4-2 result against Real Salt Lake on April 1, scoring just three goals in four games. Before that, the attack scored 10 goals in five matches, ranking among the top in the league.
"It's just the final pass, I think, that's the last thing that we're missing," forward Christian Ramirez said of what has gone wrong recently.
"Whether it's a header touch or a bad bounce on the turf or a little deflection or a missed PK call or something like that, that's just not going our way right now.
"We're going to go through lulls as an offense, and everybody knows that. We have to just continue to go with our principles and continue to battle, and things will turn around."
Off a corner kick in the 54th minute, San Jose star forward Chris Wondolowski brought the ball down before defender Florian Jungwirth tapped it past United goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth at the near post.
And despite a valiant effort in the remaining minutes, with even Shuttleworth lending his hand — or head, rather — for a stoppage time corner kick, the Loons couldn't come back.
This was the Loons' second shutout loss of their inaugural MLS season, the first was a 2-0 loss at FC Dallas on April 8. This was also the third consecutive week United has gone scoreless in the first half, having not managed a goal in the first 45 minutes since April 1 vs. Real Salt Lake.
"Sometimes you start slower in certain games. Other games, we've started well and brightly," Heath said. "But from us, I thought we gave them too much respect the first half and dropped off too much and gave them a foothold in the game and made it comfortable for them.
"I thought second half, we got higher up the pitch. We got people closer to people and made them play quicker than they wanted to."
Heath added this result "better be" a wake-up call to his attacking players if they want to keep their spots in the starting lineup. In fact, Saturday was the first time United repeated a starting 11 all season.
Winger Kevin Molino said his team was "just a pass away" from a win the entire match, this letup isn't "the end of the world" in a long season.
"Sometimes, we're not on the same page," Molino said. "It happens in the game. It's part of the game."
