From start to finish Sunday night was just not quite Minnesota United's night. An early goal from the spot for Austin followed by two missed penalty kicks from Kelvin Yeboah put the Loons in a bind early on. None of it was helped by Minnesota earning 11 fouls and five yellow cards in the first half of play. That lead straight into Cameron Knowles halftime talk where he focused on discipline.
"Maintain discipline. We're right in this, we've had the chances that we could easily have come in level at halftime," said manager Cameron Knowles. "We knew the chances were going to be there in the second half. We've been in difficult situations before and come back from those situations."
However the supporters were not happy about the referring to put it mildly, with the Wonderwall starting and maintaining multiple "ref you suck" chants throughout the night. All of that started from the penalty awarded to Austin following the handball call against Nectarios Triantis inside the penalty area. The video replay showed that Triantis had pulled his body in as close as possible to his body. But even with that due to the impact of the ball on his hand the official awarded the penalty, which was confirmed by a quick VAR review.
What was not quick however was the review following Kelvin Yeboah's penalty kick. That lengthy review delayed play and helped lead to 12 minutes of stoppage time, ultimately called for the penalty to be re-kicked. That was due to an apparent offside from Anthony Markanich who quipped "I feel like everyone was, not just me," while VAR also stated Brad Stuver was well off his line.
“What happened was plain for everyone to see; I don't think the team was very pleased with how things went with the referee. But, we also know that these things happen, and that we, out there on the pitch, have to put the referee out of our minds and just focus on doing our job," said midfielder Joaquín Pereyra.
Following Cameron's halftime talk Minnesota United maintained much better composure in the second half, committing just four fouls and being shown only a single card. Though Austin ended took five fouls and was handed zero yellow cards in the second half, ending with 11 fouls and just two yellow cards. The old adage quipped by supporters to referees of "at least be consistent" seemed to get better in the second half of football. Even with cooler heads prevailing that didn't change many people's thoughts on the officiating. Which from a supporters point of view remained not good at best for the full 90 minutes of football.
“Discipline was everything in this game, especially, like I said, in the first half, five yellow cards for us or something like that. It can't happen," Anthony Markanich said to the media. "Also going one down, 1-0 down at home, it just can't happen either against a team that we know we are better [than], especially at home, that we know we should've been able to handle.”
Sunday night's five yellow cards are the season high number of bookings in a single match. As for fouls the Loons 15 didn't come close to the season high of 22 fouls called against the club in Vancouver, BC earlier this season. Cameron Knowles MNUFC side will want to take those notions of discipline into Wednesday night's match at home against Colorado Rapids to really take advantage of Colorado. The Rapids are the third highest team in the league in fouls, averaging 14.3 per match and 2nd in yellow cards, having been booked 30 times this season.
