Match Preview: Loons aim to extend unbeaten streak, despite recent offensive woes

After two straight draws at home, Minnesota United finish up their quick two match home-stretch against Vancouver Whitecaps. The Loons have, outside of recent scoring efforts, have had one of their best ever season start and tied a club record for consecutive matches without a loss. A win or draw to Vancouver Whitecaps will break that club record. The lack of scoring the previous two matches is not concerning yet to manager Eric Ramsey who said last week, “I’m really pleased. We’re at a stage of the season, I’m the type of guy that tries to look at things as objectively as possible here … we’re dominating games when it comes to chances, when it comes to the numbers that we see is really important in games, and that’s the thing that bothers me at the moment.” With no new injuries heading into Sunday afternoon’s match and sitting in third in the Western Conference, Minnesota looks strong heading into matchday 10.

Vancouver Whitecaps also come in to Sunday afternoon’s showdown extremely strong. The Whitecaps sit at 6-1-2 (20 points) through nine matches played and have only lost one match in all competitions so far in 2025. At 20 points the ‘Caps lead the Western Conference and are coming off a 2-0 CONCACAF Champions Cup win over Inter Miami CF just a few days ago. Midfielder and captain Ryan Gauld is a notable missing piece for Vancouver, having picked up an injury at the beginning of March against Montréal in the Champions Cup. Wing back Mathías Laborda has missed the past three matches, but is expected to return soon per reporting from Vancouver.

News & Notes

MNUFC2 played their fourth match of the 2025 MLS Next Pro campaign on Thursday, defeating Rapids 2 in Colorado 2-0 to push the Twosies to 4-0-0 (12 points). This Friday on 02-May, the Twos finally come home to Blaine after their season opening road trip. MNUFC’s two loanees in the USL Championship had their sides play yesterday. Detroit City defeated Pittsburgh 1-0, however Jordan Adebayo-Smith did not make an appearance. Ramon Torres was subbed on in the 79th minute for Birmingham Legion in their loss away to Hartford Athletic.

This afternoon’s game is the 2025 Black Excellence match and will feature art from Antione Jenkins as part of the club’s 2025 Artist Collection installments. Our photographers will have some pics of the art in a gallery coming up later this week.

Availability

MIN | Out: Hassani Dotson (knee), Owen Gene (ankle), Kipp Keller (leg) ; Questionable: None

VAN| Out: Ryan Gauld (knee), Mathías Laborda (hamstring) ; Questionable: None

Staff Predictions

MJ: 1-1

Michael Lake: 2-0 Loons Wonderwall

Seth Steffengahen: 2–1 Loons

Tim McLaughlin: 1–0 Vancouver

Bridget McDowell: 1–0 Loons

Ashle Paige: 2–1 Minnesota