Wednesday night in Saint Paul, the Vancouver Whitecaps will take on Minnesota United in a Western Conference clash of two teams looking to push their way back up the standings.

If you run things back to the end of April, these two teams were sitting pretty atop the West. They were tied for top spot in terms of points per match, each with 17 points over their first 9 matches, and a combined +13 goal difference between them.

The story has been much different since then, however. Over the past two months, Minnesota is 9th and Vancouver is 11th in the West, with the two teams combining for 10 losses and a -9 goal differential.

For Minnesota, those struggles have really crescendo-ed over the last month. After losing 3-2 to the Portland Timbers this past weekend at Providence Park, the Loons extended their losing streak to 4 straight. To add insult to injury, it was one of Minnesota’s poorest defensive showings of the year, as they conceded 4.0 xG to the Timbers, and blew an early 2-0 lead.

In a very similar fashion to the Whitecaps, it doesn’t feel like Minnesota is doing anything drastically different than they were early in the season, but their luck in those coin toss matches has appeared to go away from them.

As with Vancouver, the weight of international absences has not been very helpful either, with Canadians Tani Oluwaseyi and Dayne St. Clair away at Copa America. Oluwaseyi has been having a breakout season for the Loons, leading them with 7 goals on the season (along with 4 assists, second on the team) in less than 700 minutes and only 6 starts. Those two, evidently, will be absent from this match.

Under first-year manager Eric Ramsay, Minnesota has been the league’s third lowest team in terms of possession – so they are more than happy to sit behind the ball in structure and wait for their opportunities, even at home. The Loons are middle of the table in the West in terms of both expected goals for and against, with their xGa numbers not being very favourable, in part due to a couple of blowout losses where they conceded a lot of high-quality looks. That seems to be the challenge with this Minnesota team, when they lose their structure at their own end of the pitch, it can get really out of hand.

On the flip side though, Minnesota does have a number of talented finishers that can hurt opposition. I’ve already mentioned Oluwaseyi being lethal in limited minutes this season, but Jeong Sangbin has also been a very good player for Minny, with 4 goals on the campaign as he learns the ropes of MLS soccer in his second season at just 21 years old. As always, veteran Robin Lod has also been a steady presence for the Loons, as he leads the team in goal contributions, 13 total (5 goals, 8 assists).

Though Ramsay started out his tenure in Minnesota playing his group in a 4-3-3 formation, the Welshman moved to a 3-5-2 / 3-4-3 system in mid-April, and has stuck with that ever since. Defender Michael Boxall and midfielder Wil Trapp lead the Loons in terms of minutes played, with Boxall starting every match so far this season. With Teemu Pukki struggling to stay fit, South African forward Bongokuhle Hlongwane (5 goals, 4 assists) has seen a good amount of minutes (954 in total) up front alongside Sangbin as well.

For Vancouver, they will still be without the services of Ali Ahmed and Andres Cubas, though Vanni Sartini certainly should have been encouraged by what he saw from a front three of Brian White, Ryan Gauld, and Levonte Johnson this past weekend. Alessandro Schopf will also be back available for selection after serving his suspension, but I’d be a bit surprised if Sartini did not run back the midfield pivot of Pedro Vite and Seb Berhalter which started against St. Louis. The one place where I could see some notable rotation is in the back three. Tristan Blackmon is out for this match with a groin issue, so I wonder if it’s time for Ranko Veselinovic to slot back into the centre of the defence, perhaps pushing Mathias Laborda back into a wider role.

Much like the weekend at home, this match feels like it will be a big emotional boost for whichever of these teams is able to come away with a result, after a strong start to the year, both the Loons and Whitecaps are looking to steady their form and focus on pushing up the Western Conference table. Vancouver has struggled to break down these low-possession teams at times this season, but I think the cracks in Minnesota’s defending are big enough that the Whitecaps should be able to find goals in this match. Given this, I’ll say the Whitecaps come away with a single point in an entertaining 2-2 draw.