Outshot, outplayed and hunkered down all night with a reconfigured lineup and new formations, Minnesota United finally succumbed at Sporting Kansas City on Sunday night, 1-0 on winger Johnny Russell's disputed 80th-minute goal.
The Loons were outshot 21-6 — including 7-0 in shots on target — on a night when red-card-suspended Romain Metanire didn't play at right back, newly arrived French left-side defender Bakaye Dibassy started his first MLS game at left back and coach Adrian Heath made several changes.
Included was bringing his top three attackers and left back iron man Chase Gasper into the game as second-half subs because new star Emanuel Reynoso has been bothered by a sore groin and because Kevin Molino and Robin Lod, among others, need some rest in this condensed regular-season restart.
"Kevin, Robin and Reynoso played a lot of minutes and we have to protect them," Heath said by video conference call afterward. "If you look around the league, Salt Lake made nine changes the other day. We can't just keep playing the same group every four days until the end of the season. It's impossible."
So Heath turned to such players as Jacori Hayes, Raheem Edwards, James Musa and Marlon Hairston to start Sunday's game while a whole other group of players that Heath calls "half a team" didn't make the trip. That includes captain Ozzie Alonso, strikers Luis Amarilla and Aaron Schoenfeld, midfielder Ethan Finlay and even backup goalkeeper Greg Ranjitsingh.
Heath did so with a new 3-5-2 offensive formation that turned into a 5-3-2 formation defensively.
"When Romain gets suspended, it kind of throws a spanner in the works," said Loons veteran defender Michael Boxall, who played right back to Jose Aja's center back and Dibassy's left back in the three-man defensive back line. "Adrian has to come up with a plan."
Except for Hassani Dotson's scoring chance soon after game's start, Sporting Kansas City pressured the visitors in waves all night long. It missed several shots just outside the right post, forced second-year keeper Dayne St. Clair to make multiple saves and was denied when Dibassy cleared a shot away on the goal line in the 75th minute.
"It would have been probably very unjust the result had they not won the game," Heath said.
Five minutes later, Russell scored after he ran down teammate Graham Zusi's long pass over the Loons' middle defense and scored low and right past St. Clair while Gasper and other teammates pleaded offsides.
A video review upheld the goal, perhaps deciding either Gasper far on one side of the field or Hairston far on the other side kept Russell onside.
"I can ask the question, but you get in trouble if you ask any kind of question these days," Heath said. "I'm better keeping shut."
Boxall said at the time he thought there was "no way" Russell could have been onside and said he saw a still image that looked like he had been offsides.
"When it comes to VAR [video assistant referee] in this, it's hit or miss," Boxall said. "Less hits, more misses. Obviously, it just leads to us getting confused and frustrated when you can't really trust it. I don't know what needs to be done. It might have worked in our favor the other week. It might have worked against us tonight. But obviously, it's still a work in progress after all this time."
Sporting KC hadn't won a game since a 2-1 victory over the Loons on Aug. 21 at Allianz Field.
It was 0-2-2 since then and hadn't won a home game since March 7.
Sporting played Sunday without star forward Alan Pulido, one of six players missing for his team because of "undisclosed" injuries.
The Star Tribune did not travel for this game. This article was written using the television broadcast and video interviews before and/or after the game.
