Minnesota United gets first win, shuts out CF Montreal

Kelvin Yeboah scored his first goal of the season midway through the second half to lift Minnesota United to a 1-0 victory over visiting CF Montreal on Saturday night.

Yeboah's tally in the 69th minute came at the end of the most consistent stretch of pressure for Minnesota, which rebounded in its home opener after conceding late in a 1-0 defeat at Los Angeles FC to open the season.

Dayne St. Clair kept his first clean sheet of the campaign without even making a save for the Loons (1-1-0, 3 points).

Jonathan Sirois made five stops for Montreal (0-2-0, 0 points), which is beginning its season on a seven-game road trip to avoid lingering wintery conditions.

Yeboah scored seven goals in his first nine appearances for Minnesota United in 2024 after joining the club in last year's secondary transfer window.

Minnesota took a long throw-in from the left that appeared to strike a Montreal player first before Tani Oluwaseyi got to it and sent a speculative header toward the back post.

Yeboah met it there with a sneaky run and a clever poke out of the air past Sirois from close range.

After a relatively cagey first half, Minnesota began to show more results in the second.

That was particularly true for Yeboah, whose header went narrowly over the crossbar in the 52nd minute, then forced Sirois into a save in the 57th.

Not long after that, Yeboah thought he had earned a penalty by getting behind Montreal's back line. He appeared to induce retreating center back Luca Petrasso into a foul.

But referee Sergii Demianchuk reversed his call and waved off the foul after consulting a video review, even though those replays appeared to confirm his initial call.

It had the potential to be the match's main talking point, but then Yeboah popped up to finally put the Loons in front a couple minutes later.

--Field Level Media