It was a blue-light special at PayPal Park.

On Saturday night, San Jose put a ball in toward one of their players and a Minnesota United player cleared the danger away a staggering 57 times. 11 Loons recorded at least one clearance, led by Morris Duggan’s 17. For reference, further up the Pacific coast, Seattle had 13 as a team in their win over LAFC earlier in the day. 

If 57 seems like a lot of clearances, it is. Last year, the league-wide average for clearances per game was 19; Minnesota averaged 22 and was second-highest in the league. They had already been well ahead of that pace in their other two games this season, but at 36 and 37 respectively, those games still fell far short of this one. 

Even among the outliers, this was an outlier: Since joining MLS, Minnesota United’s previous record was 52 against Necaxa in the 2024 Leagues Cup and their high in league play was 43 in their 2024 away draw in Colorado. In both those games, the Loons were under siege and defending almost frantically for long stretches of the game.

They played down a man for 70 min against Necaxa, who turned the advantage into 64% possession, 30 shots — including 14 on target — and precisely 0 goals, opening the door for the Loons to steal a 1-0 win. The Rapids had 74% possession, 20 shots — including 7 on target — and did muster the three goals they needed for the draw. Here’s the attack momentum chart from that game:

      

In the second half of that match in particular, the Loons barely saw the ball unless they were picking it out of the back of their net. Colorado should have won the game handily, but the Loons put six of their nine shots on target and got three goals out of their limited attacks. Soccer will break your heart.

On Saturday, the last 20 minutes or so saw San Jose bring on several attackers and throw everything forward to find a goal. The Loons needed to do a better job keeping the ball when they got it — that’s clearly visible in the graph below, and Eric Ramsay said as much in his postgame comments — but even so, the game as a whole felt nothing like the other two high-clearance games. Here’s Saturday night’s attack momentum:

      

Not ideal at the end, but nothing like defending against Colorado: The Loons seemed in control of this game, even when San Jose was pressing toward the end for an equalizer. If the defense felt under siege, they didn’t show it. The Quakes had plenty of the ball, but no plan for breaking through the Loons’ defense; the final whistle was a relief, but it didn’t feel like Minnesota had stolen the points as much as earned them.

If amassing 57 clearances in a game is a freakish outlier, doing so in a 1-0 win that wasn’t anywhere near as tense as it could have been is doubly so. 

To get anywhere near that many, the opponent needs to have the ball in — or be passing into — dangerous areas of the field almost constantly. And San Jose did just that: They had more touches in Minnesota’s half of the field than they had in their own, they had 79 entries into the attacking third, and they completed 74% of their passes once they were there. 

Yet for all that possession and sharp passing in dangerous areas, they had fewer touches in the opposition box than Minnesota did. They had fewer shots from inside the box than Minnesota did. Their solitary shot on target was worth a whopping 0.02 xG and, most importantly of all, they did not score for the first time this year. 

So what does this all mean?

Let me just say before I go further: the three game sample size here is painfully small. What are starting to emerge are patterns, nothing more. I think they’re interesting enough to talk about, but if come June 1 everything looks different, it won’t be the first time a team’s tactics have started one way and still changed before all the snow melts.

THAT SAID, what they’ve shown so far defensively feels both effective and sustainable.

The estimable Wes Burdine referred to Montreal’s heatmap from their game against Minnesota as a lobotomy patient; I love that and he’s absolutely right. San Jose’s isn’t much better; neither is LAFC’s. Check them out in order, most recent game to least:

In all three games, Minnesota’s opponent gets plenty of the ball, especially in the middle third of the field out on the wing, but when it comes to the box and byline, there is simply no sustained possession at all.

Minnesota has 131 clearances, 25% more than the next highest team, and these images are a good illustration of why: Teams are getting into good positions but then bogging down, being forced to move methodically in tight spaces when most teams would rather go fast and force the defense into a mistake.

The Loons’ defensive organization makes passing between the lines incredibly difficult and their lateral movement is good enough to keep teams from simply swinging the ball around until an opening appears. Frustration builds, internal clocks start ticking loudly, and a hit-and-hope ball starts to feel like the best option. Minnesota is dictating what teams can do close to goal rather than being reactive and it’s paying huge dividends.

There are other elements at work, as well, but that defensive organization is the prime driver. As long as the Loons can keep that up, they should be able to consistently frustrate even good attacking teams like they did against San Jose.