Thunder Only Gain Point at Home but Show Improvement
Saturday, May 23
The Minnesota Thunder lost the chance to pull out of the cellar of the standings on Saturday evening. 3 points would have allowed the team to pull even with the Montreal Impact and ahead of Cleveland. However, try as they did, the Thunder were not able to put one in the back of the net despite improved play and 4 great chances in the first half. 3,311 watched the match in near perfect weather conditions Saturday evening with clear skies and temperatures near 70 degrees.
The lineup saw a few changes as Geoffrey Myers started up top with Melvin Tarley. In the back line, Andres Arango started his first game in over a month and was paired with Jonathan Greenfield for the first time this season. Arango looked like the stable and solid defender Thunder fans observed in the 2008 season and the overall defensive organization looked better as well.
The Thunder did have some great chances in the first half with Miami FC goalkeeper Patrick Hannigan pulling off a couple of amazing stops. Another near Thunder goal was cleared off the line by a Miami defender and another chip from Myers hit the cross bar.
After a dominating first half by the Thunder that saw no goals, Miami was allowed back into the game and seemed to come on strong in the second half. Miami FC made 4 substitutions and the Thunder 5. Each team had chances but the match ended a draw, even though Minnesota dominated most of the statistics of their southern Florida opponent.
The Thunder out-shot Miami 12 to 7 and dominated corners 7-4. Minnesota was fouled often by Miami 11-7. Many of those fouls gave the Thunder good positions for free kicks. However, Ricardo Sanchez had a rare off-night on his set pieces, including corners, and rarely connected with quality.
Final: Minnesota Thunder 0-0 Miami FC. The team only has 3 points in 7 games played, with only 1 point coming in this past 3-game home stand. The team will need to start digging itself out of the hole soon as they are now 16 points behind the Carolina RailHawks who have two more games played. However, 4th place Portland also have 7 games played and sit with 12 points, 9 points ahead of Minnesota.
It doesn’t get any easier for the Thunder as their next opponent is the Puerto Rico Islanders. This is another home game at the National Sports Center and will be played next Sunday, May 31 with a 5:00 p.m. start time.
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Better from both teams but still quite frankly poor. USL and MLS both produce too many matches whereif I take the average American sports fan to watch it they’ll never watch again. This was one of those games, the RSL-DC match at the same time was another.
Buzz Lagos did a great job on the TV color commentary but the two teams were quite frankly comical in their finishing. The Thunder controlled play but in that 3-5-2, Miami hit them on the counter more than they should.
I have to disagree ever so slightly with Mr. Krishnaiyer here. The Cleveland match last week was poor, dire, whatever one wants to call it. This match actually had some entertainment value. Sanchez and Myers could have both done better with their chances but comical is too harsh. Comical was last week.
I also have so say I am growing a little weary of this argument regarding the average American sports fan. The match could have finished 5-4 with a Zlatan quality finish in stoppage time and Average Minnesota Sports Fan will still be waiting for the Vikings pre-season to begin. Chasing this mythical beast around is very much a banging head against wall proposition. When my Lazio supporting Italian father-in-law is in town he is more than happy to take in a Thunder match. He knows what he is getting. He has seen much worse in Serie B. Selling the live experience to the Twin Cities soccer fans (there are a lot of them) is the only realistic way forward for the Thunder.