A tale of two halves was the story in St. Paul on Saturday night. Minnesota's brilliance shown bright in the first half resulting in quite a few chances and an early goal for the Loons. But a single foul in the second half and a converted penalty flipped the match on its head, resulting in a disappointing draw.
Coming out of matches seven days ago both sides had a good amount of time for their starting eleven to recover. Both managers used that to their advantage by making minimal changes to their starting eleven on the First of August. Cameron Knowles made just a single change with Tomás Chancalay getting the start on the attacking wing and Kelvin Yeboah being available from the bench. Mikey Varas made two changes from San Diego's last outing against FC Dallas.
Northland Soccer Journal
After struggling to score the last few games, Minnesota United stormed right out of the gate at home against San Diego. Three minutes in the Loons pounced on an errant San Diego pass, which was then sent to Wil Trapp. Trapp whipped a through ball to Tomás Chancalay, who took a low shot to the keepers wide side to score the opening goal of the match.
Tomás Chancalay's 3rd minute goal against San Diego FC on 1 August, 2026
Not even five minutes later San Diego came extremely close to leveling the match on a shot from Marcus Ingvartsen. His shot ended up bouncing off the crossbar and post before bouncing out of the six and being cleared by the Loons.
From there the match was all Loons in every stat but possession. Minnesota fired off 10 shots with six going on target, including the goal, during the first half giving the club a more productive first forty-five minutes than the entire match against Vancouver. San Diego on the other hand struggled to keep pace with MNUFC's quick paces transition play and had to take shots whenever they could. Usually resulting in low quality low percentage chance shots from outside the box.
Northland Soccer Journal
Second half football started off much as the first had ended. Minnesota United controlling the pace with faced past football and San Diego struggling to keep pace and get good opportunities to score. Fifteen minutes into the half San Diego made a trio of changes that immediately made an impact for them. Kyle Duncan fouled Alex Mighten right at the edge of the penalty area and without hesitation the referee pointed to the spot.
Anders Dreyer stepped up to the spot for San Diego and just barely got it past a diving Drake Callender to put San Diego on the board in the 64th minute. Following the penalty Callender shoved following Dreyer saying something to the Loons goalkeeper, resulting in the referee showing cards to both players.
Following the goal from Dreyer, San Diego went into heavy park the bus mode defensively. MNUFC had plenty of attacking chances, but they were unable to get through the deep back line of San Diego for most of the half. Something that even a quintet of second half substitutions by Cameron Knowles were unable to help break through. Minnesota's only big chance of the second half came right in front of goal from Joaquín Pereyra that Dos Santos was able to to parry away out of play.
The draw pushes the Loons down to 9th in the Western Conference and extends a winless streak to seven matches. Next up for Minnesota is a Leagues Cup showing against FC Juárez on Tuesday night at Allianz Field in St. Paul.
