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ST. PAUL — Emanuel Reynoso displayed his brilliance on a sun-splashed afternoon Thursday.
After Minnesota United’s U.S. Open Cup round of 32 match resumed roughly 14 hours after a severe thunderstorm flooded Allianz Field and postponed the game on Wednesday night, the Loons’ best player showed up when the goals had dried up.
Reynoso’s beautiful footwork weaved through Colorado Rapids defenders and he finished with his special left foot in the 85th minute to produce a 2-1 victory that advances Minnesota into the Open Cup’s Round of 16, with the draw coming Thursday night. The other teams in the central region are Sporting Kansas City, Houston Dynamo and USL League One side Union Omaha.
The Cup game restarted in the 18th minute with the score tied 1-1, and it looked like Minnesota would be lucky to finish regulation deadlocked after center back Brent Kallman was booked with his his second yellow card and sent off in the 83rd minute.
But when you have that Argentine No. 10, you can play with 10 men.
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The Loons made four substitutions in the 65th minute, three of them attacking-focused and with a goal in mind — Reynoso, Robin Lod and Bongi Hlongwane.
Minnesota had played on the front foot for most of the second half, but couldn’t capitalize, continuing a trend that had belabored the team throughout its 10 MLS games this season.
For the postponement, U.S. Soccer said both teams needed to keep the same 11 players Thursday that clubs had on the field when Wednesday’s game was postponed.
For MNUFC, that meant manager Adrian Heath’s experiment with a three-man back line in a 3-4-3 formation continued. Bakaye Dibassy, Brent Kallman, Michael Boxall were center backs; Oniel Fisher, Joseph Rosales, Kervin Arriaga, D.J Taylor had places in in midfield; and attackers were Franco Fragapane, Abu Danladi and Adrien Hunou.
Goalkeeper Tyler Miller, who hasn’t played in MLS since March 6, started his second straight cup game after helping produce a clean sheet in a 2-0 win over Forward Madison in the third round of the U.S. Open Cup on April 20.
The Loons will resume MLS play Sunday at Seattle, where they are 0-7-0 all-time in league games. The Sounders, which won the CONCACAF Champions League last week, were bounced out of the Open Cup 10-9 in penalty kicks by San Jose and were able to rest Thursday.
Minnesota will train at the National Sports Center on Friday before flying to Washington state.
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