With Their Backs Against The Wall, Minnesota United Finds A Way To Win

We have seen rust become an issue in some of the games while in other games we have seen some teams just take off and not look back. Today we saw a game that seemed to be the tale of two halves as Sporting Kansas City took on Minnesota United FC in the opening match of Group C in the MLS Is Back Tournament. The first half seemed to belong to Sporting Kansas City who were constantly applying the pressure as they stayed on top of Minnesota United not allowing them out of their own half of the field for almost the whole first half. Minnesota just couldn't seem to get any real touches going before Sporting Kansas City shut them down. The 43RD minute of the game, Minnesota would pay for their style of play as Alan Pulido made quite the move and found a charging Khiry Shelton who made Minnesota United goalkeeper Tyler Miller pay as Shelton buried it passed him at the near post. Sporting Kansas City would carry the 1-0 lead all the way into halftime as Minnesota had to come up with a new game plan for the second half.

The second half featured a complete 180 by Minnesota as they started developing more than three touches and they were creating chances on goal. They had a chance to equalize in the 63RD minute when the ball coming off of a rebound found Ethan Finlay who put it away, but there is just one problem. The VAR system would show that Kevin Molino was just offsides. In the 73RD minute,  Aaron Schoenfeld gets a great pass on a clear run from Romain Métanire, but Sporting Kansas City goalkeeper Tim Melia would deny an obvious scoring situation and he received a red card for his troubles. So now Kansas City was down a man and only playing with ten men which meant that Minnesota was going to apply the pressure and that is exactly what they did with every opportunity and finally in the 92nd minute it paid off as a Minnesota shot would find Sporting KC first half goalscorer Khiry Shelton for an own goal meaning that he scored a goal in each half for both teams. To make matters worse for them, Minnesota would find the back of the net with a nice cross from Raheem Edwards that found Romain Métanire near the post who found a charging Molino who buried it in the back of the net for not just the go ahead goal, but the game winning one. My man of the match definitely coincides with ESPN's as Kevin Molino gets it for his hard work during the game.