Minnesota United can tie the franchise’s single-season points record when they host the Portland Timbers on Saturday night in Saint Paul, Minn.
The Loons (14-6-8, 50 points), second in the Western Conference standings and three points behind San Diego FC, finished with a record 53 points (15-11-8) in 2019 en route to a fourth-place finish.
But with six matches still left, including a Sept. 13 date at San Diego, Eric Ramsay’s squad is thinking of bigger and better things this time around.
“We talk about winning trophies because I feel we’re in a position to do so, and we’ve been in position to do so for a while,” Ramsay said.
Minnesota, which can clinch an MLS Cup Playoff berth with a win, is also in the semifinals of the U.S. Open Cup and currently ranks fifth in the race for the Supporters’ Shield, four points behind the first-place Philadelphia Union.
“We’ve done a good job to get ourselves in this position,” Ramsay said. “We’ve got to make sure we treat every game between now and the end of the year as if it’s a cup final, and we’ll see where that takes us. We’ve got a group of players in there that are really motivated to take that spot above us now, and we’ll see what happens over the course of six huge games left in MLS.”
First up is Saturday night’s contest with sixth-place Portland (10-9-8, 38 points), which is winless in its last three MLS matches (0-2-1) but earned a 1-1 home draw with the Loons on July 19 in their first meeting on Omir Fernandez’s tying goal in the 92nd minute.
The Timbers come in off a 0-0 draw at San Diego last Saturday, the team’s fifth clean sheet on the road this season, matching the team’s single-season mark set in 2015. James Pantemis needed to make just one save to notch his fourth clean sheet in 13 starts. It was Portland’s fourth shutout in its last seven matches in all competitions.
“Clean sheets are going to be massively important on the road,” said Timbers coach Gary Neville, whose team is minus-2 in goal differential. “We go to Minnesota, Vancouver, Seattle … we’re going to have to keep clean sheets to have a chance at winning the game.”
–Field Level Media
