Tom Lawton

@startwitheasy.bsky.social

152 Followers 214 Following

Soccer, video/board games, structural engineer. Come On You Loons!

Spain are designed to make opponents suffer if they aren’t at their best. It’s a model that can work against any team in international football. Even – and, given three semi-finals’ worth of evidence, especially – mighty France.
@MLSstat shot map of the LAFC v MNUFC match. MNUFC has a lot of "Poor" shots and few "Good" or better shots
He is going to go through System Settings, panel by panel, and adjust everything he can adjust just to see how he likes it. He is going to make a folder called “Projects” with nothing in it. He is going to download Blender because someone on Reddit said it was free, and then stare at the interface for forty-five minutes.
The Loons, to their credit, were not overwhelmed. It was more just a matter of being outplayed by one of the region's best teams.
*Winner: Nectarios Triantis stockholders* Let me just get this out there before it becomes a wildly popular take: Minnesota United central midfielder Nectarios Triantis is a Premier League-level player right now. He doesn’t need more seasoning to become one — he’s ready today and may well head that way in the summer window.
13. Minnesota United (⬆️ 6): Looked good against the ball and good with it (which I really, really enjoyed). Kelvin Yeboah looks reborn, and Joaquín Pereyra has been good fun. Four points from these two games is a very credible start.
The Loons went 1-1-1 across three preseason matches, and in those friendlies, Knowles showed he favors a four-man back line instead of the five Ramsay used during his two seasons.
ASA goals added (g+) radar for Triantis. +0.08 overall with the biggest contributor being interrupting at +0.06
But you can talk yourself into it. Star midfielder Joaquin Pereyra, James, Fitz, Chancalay all rotating in and out of the team, passing through ball after through ball to a reinvigorated Kelvin Yeboah, Bongokuhle Hlongwane, and Mamadou Dieng. This is a team built on smart recruitment, with a league leading $7.3M in GAM. New coach, somewhat more progressive identity, keep the set piece juice. It’s plausible. Maybe they’ll trade all that GAM for Messi.
My pick: Kelvin Yeboah didn't miss a ton of games outright for the Loons, but he did play hurt most of 2025. For a team that played rugby.
Under the draft proposals, steel will be classified according to the emissions generated during its manufacture, with the exact thresholds to be laid out a later date. Governments will be required to ensure that 25% of steel used under public procurement and subsidy programs is low-carbon. ==The use of scrap steel and electric arc furnaces,== or green hydrogen are seen as key decarbonization technologies for the sector.
Picture of the 16th Edition of the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) Manual. A gold book with black text and line drawings of steel structures.
Movie poster for WITCHES OF THE ORIENT. Featuring real volleyball players and an animated one.
SDFC defensive actions map with upper left actions circled.
Key to the game: In last year’s West semifinal against L.A. Galaxy, the Loons fell behind early; they need to keep this goal-less early — or, ideally, score one of their own. *Highlighted* If high-flying San Diego scores early, Minnesota will have to chase an open-play goal and that is far from their strength. That would invite a blowout. *Highlighted*
And that’s on Khaled El-Ahmad. Overall, I think he’s done a fantastic job: Romero, Pereyra, and Nectar are great signings and the rest have been decent (except perhaps Yeboah, but I don’t think he’s been a bomb). But as much as I can say, “what can you do?” about Tani leaving the club, there is an actual answer to that question: *highlighted* you can prepare for your best player to be poached. *highlighted*
The Wonder Wall with a tifo of a loon with "YOU BETCHA" written in red below it.
Map of the US with all 30 MLS team logos. Red lines are drawn over the top to divide the teams into 3 conferences.
One takes something so difficult that a practiced adult can’t do it reliably and makes it so easy that we see it done dozens of times, acrobatically, in a game. The other takes something so simple that my two-year-old niece can do it and makes it so hard that seeing it done once in a match is a cause for wild celebration.
This, too, seems obvious. Every open play goal is a small miracle -- each one requires so much technical and physical and mental precision from the team in possession. They're not running a play; they're creating a solution on the fly, and they have to do it without using their hands. The defense doesn't know what the attackers are doing, but the attackers also don't know what the other attackers are doing.
g+ GameFlow chart from ASA, showing MNUFC taking control of the game in the first 30 minutes after half time.
12. Minnesota United: Sure looks like the air went out of them with that US Open Cup semis loss. The good news: their final two games are home vs. Sporting KC and at the Galaxy. Couldn’t ask for a much softer landing.
“He’s always about it, always leading, always giving some energy — and always trying to figure out the game as well,” he said. “Like if there’s a way he can cheat the game — he’s always one that loves it.”
It can be confirmed that some of the Loons, wizards with the ball at their feet, are, let’s say, less accurate when attempting to wing a dodgeball at their opponents. “It’s a steep learning curve with that,” Bell said.
Photo of the Wonder Wall at Allianz field just before kickoff.
YouTube thumbnail titled "Nectar Triantis The Aussie Rodri Europe Needs to ..."
If deals like the one the company signed with Sublime proliferate, the clean cement industry will need to prove that the certificates it is offering are verifiable and avoid carbon emissions that manufacturers would have generated otherwise, according to a 2024 report on structuring demand for lower-carbon materials co-published by RMI and Microsoft. *highlighted* That includes ensuring that the products’ environmental benefits aren’t double-counted, or claimed by multiple entities as a reduction on their emissions ledger. *highlighted*
Winner: St. Louis City …because no one is laughing at them.
Ranked 9th: Minnesota United: Long-balls, long throws, counterattacks… it’s fine. They needed this win. But I’m still eager to see them add some variety.
And it’s not like he hasn’t experienced Minnesota’s weather before. Gressel’s first MLS assist came in one of the most infamous losses in Loons history — Atlanta’s 6-1 snow-bowl drubbing of Minnesota in the Loons’ first home game in MLS.
I’d been critical of the Argentine midfielder since he arrived from his native top flight last summer, but Pereyra has been excellent over the last month. Between set piece service and open play distribution from his left-sided No. 8 spot, the 26-year-old ranks in the 99th percentile among his positional peers in non-penalty xG + xAG per 90 minutes.
Recent matchups: The Loons haven’t played the Pigeons since 2023, a 2-0 Minnesota win at Citi Field. Former players Jan Gregus and Mender Garcia (name highlighted) scored for United.
I think it’s interesting that the Loons are playing with two strikers, but rarely do the strikers interact. Rarely, for example, do you see a ball put forward to Tani and then he releases Yeboah (and vice versa). Instead, each tends to operate in his own vertical silo. It happens so much that we have to assume it’s intentional. That each striker has their own set of geometrical partners: Yeboah with Rosales/Pereyra and Tani with Bongi/Lod.
I’ve pointed it out with Harvey before, but this is one of the hallmarks of Ramsay’s tactics: the right CB will make a marauding run and either allow Bongi to overload the center with a run or they’ll be the late run into the box themselves. It’s really worth watching the game and training your eye on that Diaz/Harvey role for a little while to see what and how they’re doing.
They’re becoming a frustrating team to watch because I think they’re capable of playing very good soccer, but too often default into a deep shell. And I think that’ll become less effective – and more prone to variance-related goals – as teams get sharper on the ball (which starts to happen every year around this time).
"[Possession] is important,” Sorensen said over the offseason. “When you have the ball, you can control the game. When you don’t have the ball, you can affect the game, but you cannot control what’s going to happen…if we want to be a team that should end up in the top, we have to play as a team that also is the top team. We have to be in more control of the game than our opponents.”
"There is not one part of me that puts that entirely on the players, nor individually on the players that came on,” Ramsay said. “It was a combination of my decision-making, our decision-making, the way in which the players on the pitch absorbed the subs, and of course the way in which they performed as they came on. We as a collective have to look at ourselves in a really harsh way there, because there’s almost an inexplicable drop-off.”
Minnesota United Available GAM: $3,897,595 Minnesota United are just trending in the positive direction once again. The way they’ve managed their cap situation has been excellent and they’ve built out a solid team. Kelvin Yeboah seems like a hit and the rest of the team has had solid outings so far, to finish 2024 and to start 2025. Joaquin Pereyra is eligible to be bought down from his DP spot, and with all their GAM, they can potentially bring in players that can elevate them come the summer of 2025. Or, they can roll over this money and come in with a bigger war chest come 2026.
Hoyeon Jung, CM: Named the K League’s Young Player of the Year in 2023, Jung adds dynamism to Minnesota United’s midfield group. The 24-year-old is right footed, can carry the ball through midfield, is comfortable evading the first pressing defender, and debuted for South Korea last March in a World Cup qualifier.
The field at Allianz immediately before kickoff. #MNUFC vs RSL