Minnesota United will try to continue a torrid month of matches and post a season sweep of Austin FC when the teams square off on Saturday in Saint Paul, Minn.
Both sides come into Saturday’s contest off wins Wednesday in the U.S. Open Cup Round of 16.
The Loons (7-3-4, 25 points) have won three of their past four MLS matches, including a 3-0 home victory over St. Louis on Saturday. Tani Oluwaseyi and Joaquin Pereyra each racked up a goal and an assist in the win and Julian Gressel added a tally. Dayne St. Clair saved four shots in recording his league-leading seventh clean sheet of the campaign.
Minnesota then played St. Louis again — this time in the U.S. Open Cup — and came from behind to win that match 3-2.
“By design, wanted to be able to finish Wednesday’s match strong and it is another one of those situations where it pans out as you would have hoped for,” Loons coach Eric Ramsay said of the win Wednesday. “We were able to spread minutes well across the group, we were able to keep Saturday in mind and we’re able to finish strong and win the game.”
Minnesota leads the Western Conference in set-piece scoring and has allowed just 13 goals, third-fewest in the league.
The Loons dominated Austin 3-0 on May 3 in Texas. Anthony Markanich scored that day and also had two goals late Wednesday to fuel Minnesota’s U.S. Open Cup comeback.
Austin (5-6-3, 18 points) is 0-1-2 in league play since losing to the Loons and has gone five straight MLS matches without a victory. The Verde did produce a 3-1 win over Houston on its own pitch in the U.S. Open Cup on Wednesday.
“We’ve had some great moments (in the attack) the last two games that translated Wednesday,” Austin goalkeeper Brad Stuver said. “We have to continue that.”
Now it’s time for the Verde to carry that momentum into MLS play.
“We’ve played better before, but the objective is to move on to the next round,” Austin FC coach Nico Estevez said. “One of the things we were missing (this season) was winning the boxes. Against Houston we won the boxes while they won the run of play.”
Brandon Vazquez continues to lead the Verde in goals with four, with the team’s five other goals being recorded by five different players.
–Field Level Media
