Tom Krasovic: SDFC-Minnesota United match brings an extreme contrast in styles — and coaches

One team plays like it owns the soccer ball and pays up for stars.

The other?

It has the ball less than anyone and sold off its lone star late in the season.

Welcome to the San Diego FC and Minnesota United playoff match that comes to Mission Valley Nov. 24 — a contrast in styles akin to San Diegans surfing in the winter while Minnesotans ice fish for walleye.

“It’s arguably the biggest contrast in styles that you see in MLS,” Minnesota coach Eric Ramsay said following his team’s 3-1 win in September here, which repaid SDFC’s 4-2 victory in St. Paul three months earlier.

“If you’re a football purist,” added Ramsay, “and you’re watching it from the perspective of tactics, strategies, matchups, changes as the game goes on, it’s a really good game.”

There’s no doubt which team ought to be favored to win this Western Conference semifinals match.

Coach Mikey Varas’ club stands as the conference’s No. 1 seed and breezed past the Portland Timbers 4-0 on Sunday to advance past the first round of the MLS Cup playoffs.

San Diego, led by the savvy Danish tandem of Anders Dreyer and Jeppe Tverskov, tends to solve the tactical challenges that arise within a match.

Minnesota, seeded fourth, is better than Portland and comfortable playing without the ball — a vital trait against SDFC, which led the league in possession.

Minnesota United finished last in possession but creates headaches on the margins. The Loons indeed are loony, but in a calculating way. They throw the ball into the scoring box at a very high rate because it works for them. Their goalkeeper pounds midfield free kicks into the scrum. Their mastery of set pieces forces opponents to bone up on extra details.

Varas said that compared with Portland, Ramsay’s team profiles as “a completely different opponent.”

So atypical are the Loons, MLS may not have an apt comparison.

Rather, it’s the empirically driven Major League Baseball “Moneyball” A’s of the 1990s and early 2000s who may be Ramsay’s spiritual brothers, suggests football writer John Muller of The Guardian newspaper in England.

Minnesota might be the “most aggressive set piece team on the planet,” he wrote. As of July, the club had taken more long throws and deep free kicks than any other club in 30 of the world’s top leagues, per Soccerment.

Subpar spending power may be driving the outlier approach.

Minnesota’s guaranteed compensation to players this season ranked 26th out of the league’s 30 teams, reported MLS’ players’ union. And in late August, Minnesota sold the rights to star striker Tani Oluwaseyi to Spanish club Villareal in a club-record deal for a reported $6 million to $8 million.

As an assistant with Manchester United, Ramsay worked with international stars such as forwards Cristiano Ronaldo and Marcus Rashford. While there, he studied how Brentford, Newcastle and Burnley used direct set pieces to outperform their budgets in the Premier League.

Since Minnesota United made the Welshman, then 32, the youngest head coach in MLS, it has reached the conference semifinals in both seasons.

“Obviously, it’s not escaped my attention that teams with smaller budgets can outcompete teams right at the top end through set plays,” Ramsay told The Guardian this summer. “It was one of the things I looked at from afar and thought prior to coming in that we could find an advantage.”

He added: “Ultimately, where we use set plays, it comes from wanting to squeeze every advantage that we possibly can from the group of players that we’ve got.”

San Diego FC doled out more guaranteed money than Minnesota by about $8 million to place 15 spots higher in the league at No. 9.

But that’s no guarantee of success. Against one another, each showed its style can prevail, leading to a road victory apiece and both teams finishing with five goals.

“Over the course of 180 minutes played this season,” Ramsay said in September, “it’s been MLS at its very best.”

Looking beyond this match, keep an eye on both coaches.

Don’t be surprised if the U.S. Men’s National Team interviews Varas, 42, for its head coach job someday. And before his 40th birthday, Ramsay could be directing an English team.

MLS Western Conference semifinals: No. 1 San Diego FC vs. No. 4 Minnesota United

When: Nov. 24, 7 p.m.

Where: Snapdragon Stadium

Streaming: AppleTV+

Radio: 760-AM, 1700-AM (Spanish)