Minnesota United FC and St. Louis City SC faced off on Wednesday night in one of the most dramatic games of the US Open Cup that did not end in penalties or extra time. After the Loons scored an early goal, they coasted for the remainder of the first half. St. Louis came roaring back in the second half with two goals and looked poised to take home a victory and their first win over an MLS side since March 15. At the end of the night it was two late goals from Minnesota wingback Anthony Markanich that made the difference and sent the Loons to the Quarterfinals.
Both clubs entered the contest with completely different philosophies on resting players and starting lineups. MNUFC brought in a hefty seven changes from Saturday’s showing against St. Louis. City only swapped out three players from their lineup in the 3-0 blowout loss to Minnesota United.
“Well, we’ve got a small squad. I’m conscious of how the summer months went last year, and I want to make sure that we’re very disciplined in making changes where we need to make changes, and we keep what is the biggest focus in mind,” said Minnesota manager Eric Ramsey.
Early on it appeared that Ramsey’s style was winning out as the Loons started out once again dominating St. Louis as they had on Saturday night. Just 10 minutes into the showing Julian Gressel sent in a cross that Kelvin Yeboah touched home with a no-look back heel, breaking an eight match scoreless streak for Yeboah.
“It’s always good to contribute for the team, so I’m glad that we ended up winning the game,” Yeboah said following the match.
A few yellow cards later, with one going to St. Louis City’s Chris Durkin and one to Minnesota’s Carlos Harvey, the match appeared for a few fleeting moments to be heading into extremely chippy territory. Outside an objectively bad tackle in the 42nd minute which ended in a yellow card to Markanich, that never ended up happening.
The Loons continued dominating the first half getting multiple chances, including forcing St. Louis goalkeeper Roman Bürki to make a huge diving save to keep the match at 1-0 Minnesota. When the halftime whistle sounded the Loons and St. Louis each had six shots but only Minnesota had any on target.
At the start of the second half each side made a few changes, hoping to have the second half go their way. Eric Ramsey brought on DJ Taylor and Michael Boxall to replace Nicolás Romero & Carlos Harvey for MNUFC, while Olof Mellberg brough Akil Watts on to replace Jannes Horn. From there the tide swung rapidly in favour of St. Louis City.
Ten minutes into the second half St. Louis finally got a shot on target and scored as Marcel Hartel headed home a cross sent in from Timo Baumgartl. Eleven minutes after that first goal, from near the eighteen Hartel sent in a cross to the far side of the six yard box, where João Klauss hammered home a header past Wessel Speel to give St. Louis a 2-1 lead with 25 minutes to play.
“We wanted to be a little bit more direct, have more bodies in the middle, and for the crosses and for the second balls,” said St. Louis City manager Olof Mellberg. “I thought that worked well. And again, a really nice couple of goals, and we had a really good period at that time.”
From there on the match was entirely in control by St. Louis City and even four more substitutions by Minnesota didn’t appear to give them any sort of control on the match. St. Louis had countered with four substitutions of their own and while the Loons would end up holding an advantage in shots, shots on target, and corners; late into the match it appeared all for naught as St. Louis was well on their way to a victory and a spot in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup Quarterfinals.
A missed shot for St. Louis from Cedric Teuchert in the 84th minute ended up being their undoing. One minute later Kelvin Yeboah broke open and struck a hard shot forcing Roman Bürki to make a huge save to keep the lead for St. Louis. In the 85th Anthony Markanich scored to get the Loons their first goal since 10 minutes into the match and level the match at two-all.
With extra time staring everyone in the face, Minnesota United and St. Louis put themselves into overdrive. Tani Oluwaseyi scorched the St. Louis defense and sent a hard shot on goal that easily beat Bürki, but with inches to spare before it crossed the line, Joshua Yaro kicked the ball out of touch.
The ensuing corner was sent in from Joaquín Pereyra and was immediately headed home by Anthony Markanich, earning himself a brace and what ended up being the match winning goal.
“It was awesome, especially with a brace. I think that was my first time professionally, and since I was a little kid, that I scored a brace, Markanich said. “I definitely didn’t want to go to overtime. I was tired, so happy.”
After the goal St. Louis managed only one more chance at goal before the final whistle sounded, with Marcel Hartel missing a shot he took from outside the box, five minutes into stoppage time.
With the win, Minnesota United advances to the Quarter-Finals for only the second time in club history. The last time they did that was in 2019 where they ultimately landed in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup Final, falling to Atlanta United in that championship final.