Loons win friendly vs. St Patrick’s while reserve team gets first-round victory in U.S. Open Cup


Minnesota United won not once, but twice Wednesday — and 400 miles apart.

The club’s MNUFC2 reserve team won its U.S. Open Cup first-round game against Midwest Premier League’s Chicago House AC 3-0, with all three scored by forward Jordan Adebayo-Smith.

Back home at Allianz Field, the Loons’ first team scored the night’s only goal in a 1-0 international friendly victory over Dublin-based St. Patrick’s Athletic.

Smith scored twice in the second half’s first nine minutes and once more right before game’s end. That was his fourth goal in just four days after he scored the only goal in MNUFC2′s 4-1 loss at Los Angeles FC2 on Sunday.

Loons midfielder Kervin Arriaga broke a scoreless tie as well, turning teammate Bongokuhle Hlongwane’s back-heeled pass into a sweeping right-foot shot from 20 yards out in the 57th minute.

Newly hired Eric Ramsay coached the Loons against St. Patrick’s Athletic. It was his second time on the sidelines since he was hired last month.

Adebayo-Smith finished off with a deft touch with counterattacks in the 51st and 54th minutes that sent the reserve team onto the 109-year-old tournament’s second round.

The Loons signed Adebayo-Smith in January to a three-year contract with a 2027 club option in a trade with New England Revolution. He played 30 games and scored 12 goals in nearly 2,400 minutes played for the MLS Next Pro Revolution II in 2023.

The MNUFC2 reserve team on Wednesday repped the franchise in a U.S. Open Cup reconfigured after MLS balked at participating fully again because of a schedule increasingly crowded with more competitions such as the new Leagues Cup that debuted last summer.

The Open Cup tournament pits an amateur against a professional in all 32 first-round games this year. Minnesota United sent its reserve team that lost its season opener 4-1 Sunday at LAFC augmented by Adebayo-Smith — who came off the bench in two of the Loons’ first three games — and some of its academy players as well.

The Twos’ starting 11 included 2022 MLS All-Star skills-challenge star Alec Smir in goal, Adebayo-Smith, Loic Mesanvi, Kage Romanshyn Jr., Darius Russell and Molik Jesse Khan.

The Midwest Premier League’s Chicago House advanced in the U.S. Open Cup the last two years, reaching the 2023 third round before getting beat by MLS’s Chicago Fire FC.



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