Minnesota Stars Show Flair for Dramatics with 90th Minute Game Winner Against Carolina RailHawks

Entering into Saturday night’s NASL semifinal game between Minnesota and Carolina, the 6th place Stars held a 2-win, 2-tie record against the 1st place RailHawks. After last night’s game, Minnesota are now 3-2-0 over the RailHawks; a result that went down hard for Carolina after a 90th minute chip shot from Stars midfielder Andrei Gotsmanov. That goal, in front of  2,512 very vocal fans on a near perfect fall evening, sent Carolina home with their 5th straight loss and now must find a way back into the 2-legged total goals series at WakeMed park next Saturday evening.

The game was a typical Minnesota, Carolina battle with physical play on the field, thirty-two fouls called and chances by both side throughout the game. The best opportunity for Minnesota coming in the 4th minute when a hard driven shot by defender and captain Kyle Altman hit the underside of the crossbar, deflected down hitting just in front of the goal line and bouncing away from trouble. Cristiano Dias and Lucas Rodriguez also had chances early that they were not able to put away.

Photos by Jeremy Olson - www.digitalgopher.net

Carolina’s Jonny Steele and Matt Watson both had one-on-one chances against Stars keeper Joe Warren, who stopped both shots.

Overall Minnesota had 12 shots to Carolina’s 14 in this back and forth battle that gave the crowd their money’s worth. All the drama and the near misses just set up the final goal by Gotsmanov to be all the more dramatic. “The ball just popped up, and I thought the defender was going to head it out,” Gotsmanov said. “Fortunately he missed it, it hit me right in the chest and bounced at my feet, and the only thing I could really do was chip the goalie.”

“An amazing finish,” said Lagos. “When you think about the tempo and the intensity of the game, the chances that were there, it took something special like that to get a goal. The thing about tonight is there could have been 4 goals before half-time. But I thought his composure was unbelievable. It was a world-class finish.”

“I’ll go back and analyze the game and I might be wrong but I felt like we played well tonight,” said Rennie. “We dominated long stretches of the game and we created chances. I don’t think we could really ask for any clearer chances than we had. We didn’t take them tonight. We certainly have to take them next week.”

The RailHawks will be desperate for goals in next Saturday’s rematch in Cary in the total goals series. The league’s leading offensive team’s Midas touch has gone cold the past month, scoring only once in the last 5 weeks and their last 5 games. It was early September the last time Carolina notched a win, a 2-0 affair at WakeMed against FC Tampa Bay.

The mental frustration of the last minute loss was summed up by RailHawks midfielder Tony McManus. “Frustrating! We worked our butts off for 90 minutes and then one mistake and it’s a game changer. Now we have to go home and have to fight a lot harder than we were intending to do. We knew we’d be in a dog fight if we were going back 0-0. Now we’re coming from behind and it’s going to be a different type of game.  But honestly, we just have to put our chances away. Minnesota did a great job of defending tonight, but when we get opportunities like we had tonight we can’t miss them.”

The home field advantage will be Carolina’s but the psychological advantage will belong to Minnesota. However, Minnesota will have to be on the watch for small slip-ups like last year’s home and away first round playoff series with the RailHawks. Minnesota and Carolina finished that game 0-0 in the first leg in Minnesota. In the return match Stars then-central defender and captain Andres Arango received a red card early and the wheels fell off the bus losing 4-0 to the RailHawks.

“In respect to Carolina, they’ve been one of the best teams in the league the last couple of years,” Lagos said. “We have a ton of respect for them. So when we step on the field we know we have to do the little things right to do well against them and disrupt the things they do well. And that sometimes leads to a physical game. I think because both teams have respect for each other it leads to the games between these teams sometimes being a bit more physical than the average game.”

“There was an honest effort from both teams tonight. Effort to play good soccer, effort to battle, effort to be physical because it obviously means a lot to both teams. I’m measured in my comments because I know we got a result tonight but now we have to go on the road to a very difficult place and try to win the series.”

“We look forward to getting back home and regaining our good form,” said Rennie. “There’s a championship final at stake. We’ll give it everything we’ve got to get there.”