Minnesota United fans came to Allianz Field on Saturday night to cheer their team for the first time in 18 months. They left with little to applaud except for a late goal and a return to some normalcy in a 2-1 loss to Real Salt Lake.
Some 4,100 fans returned to Allianz Field on a clear, chilly spring night when a three-quarter moon rose over the south-end canopy that rises high over the Wonderwall, where fans, as they did elsewhere in the stadium, sat in pods of physical-distancing twos and fours.
The Loons ultimately were undone by their own defensive mistakes again and by Real Salt Lake midfielder Anderson Julio's two first-half goals that were too much to overcome.
"The crowd has been great," Loons coach Adrian Heath said. "Just a little bit sorry from our point of view that we didn't give them more to cheer."
Loons winger Robin Lod's goal in the 86th minute was too late, even with five minutes of second-half stoppage time.
"The crowd, they tried to get us going," Heath said. "We just couldn't get the goal early enough. I really think if we had got the goal five or 10 minutes earlier, [the fans] would have come and responded again."
Minnesota United's Hassani Dotson tried to wrestle the ball away from young Real Salt Lake goalkeeper David Ochoa immediately after Lod scored. Ochoa ended up on the turf, writhing apparently in agony, then did so again moments later after Loons rookie Justin McMaster bowled him over.
After the game, Ochoa punted a ball into the Loons' supporters section, sparking a skirmish.
"He was acting like a little bit of a clown within the 90 minutes, then he tops it off with that," Loons veteran defender Michael Boxall said. "He just doesn't seem to know how to behave. We wanted to let him know, he's just a bit of a clown. You can tell him I said that."
Heath concurred.
"There was no need for what happened at the end of the game," he said. "Normally when you behave like that, you have a body of work behind you and you're very good."
A speedy Ecuadorian on loan from Mexico's Liga MX, Julio scored his goals in the 31st and 41st minutes. The first was a long counterattacking run that Julio cleaned up at the end. The second came after Loons defender Chase Gasper tried to play the ball back on the run near midfield and played it only to RSL's Rubio Rubin, who assisted on both his team's goals.
BOXSCORE: Real Salt Lake 2, Loons 1
"At this level, you can't make the mistakes of the magnitude we're making and expect to win the game," Heath said. "Chase made a mistake, which you can do. But at this moment, mistakes are costing us dearly."
The Loons have been outscored 6-1 in their first two games. They lost 4-0 at Seattle their season opener. Real Salt Lake had a bye on MLS' opening weekend and didn't play its first game until Saturday.
When asked to assess where his team is after these first two games, Boxall said, "How we're playing or how we're sitting?
"It's frustrating it happened in front of our own fans after so long. We're only two games in. There's a long way to go. But we know we're better than that. We need to start proving that."
Loons players wore T-shirts during pregame warmups that bore the same message as the jersey patches they wore at Seattle did: Equality, Acceptance, Diversity. There also was a moment of silence held before the game for social and racial justice.
The club's supporters groups had their own silence that lasted for the first 9:29 — the amount of time prosecutors said then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd — before they began stomping their feet and banging drums, almost like old times.
"For me, just seeing some of those familiar faces again, it means a lot," Boxall said. "They mean a lot to us. Everybody has been through so much the last 12 months-plus."
