The international break was reasonably kind to Minnesota, in terms of overtaxing players. Robin Lod and Teemu Pukki, who was returning from injury, both played twice for Finland, but Pukki played 30 minutes total and Lod played 105, and neither has played since last Sunday. Michael Boxall played only one of New Zealand’s two games — though his travel schedule to Oceania and back was insane — and neither Dayne St. Clair nor Tani Oluwaseyi played for Canada.
The only concerns might be for center back Carlos Harvey, who played the entire match for Panama on Tuesday, and wingback Joseph Rosales, who played nearly two full matches for Honduras in five days.
For Ramsay, given everything that’s happened — a summer of missing players, his own late arrival, the changes in the front office — 2024 has already been a good year for Minnesota, no matter where the Loons end up in the playoff picture.
“It’s been a really successful season, when you take it as a whole and you consider everything that we’ve had to contend with,” he said. “It could not be more of a transition year, when you consider the circumstances around me coming into the squad, the way things worked over the course of those two summer months. … We’re in the playoffs, we’re fighting for fifth. I think when you take that as a position, we would have bitten someone’s hand off for that a couple of months ago. I think anything from this point onwards is a bonus.”
