On a chilly and windy Saturday night in St. Paul, Minnesota United extended their home unbeaten streak with a dominating win against the Portland Timbers. A first half goal from Tomás Chancalay and a second half goal from Kelvin Yeboah was all it took for the Loons on Saturday night.
Cameron Knowles brought out a very familiar looking eleven for the second home match of the season. The philosophy of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" continued as the Loons retained the exact eleven from their win over San Diego FC. Knowles 3-5-3/5-4-1 has become the favoured formation since the loss in Vancouver and the Loons retained the shape against Portland Timbers.
Match 🧵 #MINvPOR: Lineups are out for the teams and #MNUFC 's lineup looks very familiar as they will roll out the same lineup they did against San Diego. Trapp, Bongi, and James are all available from the bench. 🕢: 7:30pm CT ⚽: 7:39pm CT appx 🖥️: Apple TV 📻: 1500ESPN
— Northland Soccer Journal (@northlandsoccer.com) 2026-04-19T00:05:43.204Z
Minnesota United started threatening early and didn't let it take very long for them to score the first goal of the night. Just past the quarter hour mark the Loons struck with a beautiful goal.
After recovering a loose ball, Jefferson Díaz sent a low cross back towards the top of the box. Waiting at the right hand side of the penalty arc was an unmarked Tomás Chancalay who fired a shot into the top left corner of the goal.
More like this, please 🙏 Tomás gets his first in Black and Blue
— Minnesota United FC (@mnufc.com) 2026-04-19T01:10:29.506384Z
For the remainder of the first half the match had a simple consistent rhythm. Minnesota attacks, get a good chance at goal and either misses the shot or Portland clears and was occasionally broken up by the odd Portland attack. Though the Timbers while having higher possession number and equal shots, they never obtained a shot on target and only one real chance to score.
The second half of football started very similar to the first half with the Loons dominating the run of play. One difference was MNUFC slowing down play when in possession trying to kill time and maintain a bit more possession than in the first half. Portland made their first sub only ten minutes into the second half, though that ended up not doing much immediately.
Rather just five minutes after that sub the Loons had a massive breakout that started on a long ball sent to Tomás Chancalay. He got deep into the box and pulled Portland goalkeeper James Pantemis towards him. Chancalay slipped a quick pass into the six on the open side of the goal, where Kelvin Yeboah buried it to double the lead for Minnesota.
Taking nicknames for this trio
— Minnesota United FC (@mnufc.com) 2026-04-19T02:11:54.733967Z
As the match wound towards the 80th minute, Portland nearly scored but it was immediately called offsides by the officials. From there the Timbers amped up their pace trying to force a late goal and get back in the match.
With the win Minnesota is now on a five match unbeaten streak and have gotten their fourth clean sheet of the season. The Loons will now head down to Texas for a midweek throwdown with FC Dallas in Frisco, TX. Kickoff for Wednesday night in
