Well, that was not a good game, and the rankings showed it. What is tough, and what I tried to show in my Tactical Analysis of the game, the formation really kept a lot of players from playing to their full potential. Minnesota moved away from a high press to sitting back and allowed the Cosmos to come to them, which led to a lot of possession for the Cosmos and some good chances on goal.

Overall, the team ranked a 4 as well as Manny Lagos. That sounds about right. While it wasn’t a blow out, Minnesota never truly threatened until the last 15 minutes. If they had managed a equalizer near death, would they have been ranked higher? Sure, but that’s the way it goes. Even though for 89 of the 90 minutes, Minnesota held firm, the one big mistake cost them points in the standings. And truly, that’s the only rankings that really matter.

Player of the Week

A clear bright spot was Matt Van Okel, who was called upon to make a number of saves, and played brilliantly. Each game he’s gotten stronger and stronger, and a great goal keeper becomes even more important come the end of the year and playoff time.

Sub of the Week

Pridham, a new signing got in for a couple of minutes, although ended up being pretty unremarkable. And even though Watson got into a shouting match with Calvano, he still was the strongest according to the fans. Too bad on that cross that he and Calvano got in each others way he couldn’t put it in.

Big table of numbers

name average mode median min max standard deviation count Matt Van Okel 8.31 9 8 6 10 1.09 32 Brian Kallman 5.48 5 5 2 9 1.31 31 Tiago Calvano 6.10 6 6 2 9 1.37 31 Cristiano Dias 6.81 7 7 2 9 1.42 31 Justin Davis 5.61 6 6 1 8 1.26 31 Vicentini 4.87 6 5 1 7 1.50 30 A. Pitchkolan 5.43 6 6 3 7 1.07 30 Bracallello 5.00 5 5 3 8 1.08 30 D. Mendes 5.20 5 5 3 7 1.00 30 Miguel Ibarra 5.77 6 6 4 8 0.94 30 C. Ramirez 5.47 6 5.5 4 8 0.82 30 M. Reed 5.17 6 5 2 7 1.23 30 Watson 6.13 6 6 2 8 1.28 30 Overall Team Performance 4.40 5 4 2 7 1.19 30 Manny Lago’s Coaching Decisions 4.17 4 4 1 7 1.60 30 How were Cosmos’ Dives? 10 being Olympic 8.48 10 9 1 10 2.01 29 M. Pridham 5.14 6 5 2 7 1.30 29

Ft. Lauderdale this week and exciting news

If you have any suggestions for additional questions you’d like answered by the fans, let me know and I’ll try to include them in the loon ratings survey for next week. Also, did you hear the news? The Swans of Swansea City are coming to play the loons! Now I get this cryptic tweet from last night.

A fateful encounter in the land of 10,000 lakes pic.twitter.com/utgiBazNyH — Minnesota United FC (@MNUnitedFC) May 15, 2014