A makeshift black plastic canopy shrouded Hodong Cho’s laptop as drizzle fell during Minnesota United’s outdoor training session Wednesday in Blaine.

The Loons staffer was protecting proprietary data streaming instantaneously from GPS devices the players wore 20 yards away, running up and down the practice field. That information is sorted into a variety of charts to measure players’ work rate across the week’s practices and through Sunday night’s game against Sporting Kansas City at Children’s Mercy Park.

One constant in the sea of stats is that United midfielder Miguel Ibarra is a front-runner in nearly every metric gathered, from total distance covered, high-speed running, sprinting, acceleration, deceleration and the amount of repetitions of each.

Those numbers are distilled by software from Catapult, an Australian sports analytics company, into one number known as PlayerLoad. The numbers are in the largest font and color-coded on each players’ bio page on Excel spreadsheets. Green means great, and that’s where Ibarra’s numbers reside.

Last week was another strong stretch for Ibarra. The training data were near optimal, and his production on the field reflected it. Last Saturday, he hustled to a loose ball and scored a beautiful curling goal in the second half to jump-start Minnesota’s 2-0 victory over Montreal, and he was named to Major League Soccer’s team of the week.

“That’s when I know I’m at my best — if the numbers are up and consistent,” Ibarra said.

Jarryd Phillips, United’s head of fitness and sports science, jotted down some of Ibarra’s numbers in pink ink in his black Moleskin notebook and shared them with the Pioneer Press.

During a typical game, Ibarra runs a total of 7.1 miles, including 0.8 miles at high speed (11 mph) and 0.12 miles at an all-out sprint (15 mph). That’s nearly a mile covered while approaching full throttle and attacking an opponent’s defense across many 90-minute spans.

“He is in the higher end of MLS, not just the team,” said Phillips, who joined the Loons’ staff last season after holding a similar position with the Seattle Sounders. “He is a special character that we have. His ability to work and his engine is just fantastic.”

Some of Ibarra’s numbers are expected based on the wide midfield position he has started in for 11 of Minnesota’s 13 games this season. Among the 10 field players, the center backs and forward often will have the lowest accumulated distances and amount of sprints, while the central midfielders will have high distances covered, but not high velocities. Fullbacks, or outside defenders, often will be in the middle.

“Your wide players such as Miguel, that is when we start to see the majority of the categories on the higher end,” Phillips said. “Your overall distances are high. Your sprinting is high, your high speed is high. The number of efforts and repetitions they are doing is high.”

Ibarra was transcendent during United’s days in the lower-level North American Soccer League. In 2014, he was the first player outside the top domestic level to reach the U.S. men’s national team since 2005.

He was sold to Club Leon in Liga MX in 2015 for around $1 million, but played sparingly in Mexico’s top flight, and United worked to bring him back before their expansion season a year ago. He had three goals and four assists for the Loons in 2017, and this season, he has two goals and three game-winning assists.

“He’s back to the Miguel Ibarra that probably prompted Leon to spend the money they did on him because he’s having an influence on the team in a lot of different ways now,” United coach Adrian Heath said. “If he can score, that would obviously be the icing on the cake. But certainly his energy levels, his high-intense running, his distance covered is having an effect on everybody.”

In his 41st season in football, Heath tends to be more old-school in his approach to the game, but he sees the value in numbers.

The Loons started the season 2-1 and had five lineup changes, mostly because players were called into international duty, when they went on the road March 24 to play the New York Red Bulls, one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference. But these factors were secondary when Heath sent out blistering criticisms after the Loons were beaten 3-0.

“I’m not going to be prepared to watch people playing not to their maximum and I think that was the case (against the Red Bulls),” Heath said March 27. “… We know how much ground they cover, high-speed running there is. They know. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it was the lowest of the season (that) weekend. Facts, figures don’t lie.” Related Articles Loons’ late rally falls short in 2-1 loss to Columbus Crew

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The low output against New York was stark after strong stats in preceding wins over Orlando City and Chicago.

After the loss to the Red Bulls, Phillips compared the different week-to-week outputs from the players and tweaked the training regimes for various sets of players: starters, subs, players in the 18-man lineup who didn’t play, players not on the game-day squad and those out with injuries.

Since then, United hasn’t had major fluctuations in the players’ work rate from game to game.

Another factor in GPS analytics is measuring the “acute-chronic ratio,” which calculates a 28-day norm to a seven-day workweek. Anything below the number 1 is deteriorating; from 1 to 1.3 is progressing; 1.3-1.5 is overload; and above 1.5 is a danger zone for soft-tissue injuries. This figure is put in context with other data points United accumulates and distills.

For Ibarra, maintaining the status quo is the objective.

“I’m even surprised that I run that much,” said Ibarra, who is 5-foot-6 and 145 pounds. “They tell me the same things. They don’t know how I have little legs and am able to run so much.”

He then smiles before adding, “I’m just trying to keep those numbers consistent.”