Luis Amarilla converted a 77th-minute penalty kick to lift visiting Minnesota United to a 1-0 victory over previously perfect St. Louis City on Saturday night.
Amarilla earned the penalty himself when he induced St. Louis defender Kyle Hiebert into a reckless challenge while one of his teammates appeared to have already prevented the attack.
Amarilla’s finish past Roman Burki for his second goal of the season kept Minnesota (3-2-0, 11 points) perfect in its three road games and halted St. Louis’ expansion-record win streak to start a season at five games.
Dayne St. Clair made three saves for the Loons to keep his second clean sheet.
St. Louis (5-1-0, 15 points) outshot Minnesota 16-10 overall and 3-1 in efforts on target but was held scoreless for the first time after outscoring opponents 15-4 over its first five games.
As the 29th team in MLS, it still owns the best five-game start for an expansion team in league history. It could’ve set a record for the longest win streak by an expansion side at any point in the season with a sixth straight win.
But even though Minnesota failed to make Burki make a save, the visitors looked the more likely team to score for most of the second half. And the Loons had the best chance from open play for either team in the 55th minute on one of several promising transition sequences.
Bongokuhle Hlongwane eventually got into a promising position on the right side of the penalty area and had rounded Burki, but he struck the near post with his shot.
Amarilla reached the rebound but had his subsequent attempt blocked by a defender.
There would be no such obstacles in the way 22 minutes later when Amarilla finished off his penalty kick.
St. Louis looked most threatening after trailing and had two excellent looks in second-half stoppage time, with Joao Klauss at the middle of both.
He picked out Samuel Adeniran with a cross from the right in the fifth minute of second-half stoppage time, and Adeniran turned his defender only to shoot high of St. Clair’s goal from in close. A minute later, Klauss flashed a header wide after reaching another cross at the back post.
–Field Level Media
