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| Don't google "special boy." The images only get darker. |
[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]
Thumbnail History
If you put a gun to my head before I wrote this post and asked me when Minnesota United FC joined the league, I’d be writing this post at your mercy. 2017? Then again, maybe that’s for the best…they still don’t have a damn head coach last I heard…
One wild season aside (see below), I think of Minnesota as a team that always makes the playoffs, but never looks much like reaching the end of them. Turns out that’s only half right: the Loons fell short in both of their first two seasons – and by a fair amount. The half-remembered consistency kicked in after that: they qualified for the playoffs in each of the next four seasons - 2019-2022 - if from the middle of the table or thereabouts; 7th place overall finish in 2019 is their high-water mark. Adrian Heath coached them from their ascent from the USL (in 2017) to (something like) the latter third of 2023, when they let him go. In my mind, “Heath-ball” has generally meant trotting out teams that were sturdy in every sense of the word - i.e., stubborn and unimaginative – but that, like the other pieces above, didn’t fall into place until Heath got his defensive midfield in order. That took care of one side of the team, for as long as it did, anyway, but Minnesota has this tic, equal parts knack and limitation, of finding one guy with that special something, a game-changer…
…that’s just one game-changer, mind. Don’t want to go about putting on airs.
Best Season(s)
2020, easily, the playoff run that put the fear of God into a Seattle Sounders team that was a dead man walking without even knowing it (Columbus Crew SC beat Seattle at a stroll in MLS Cup 2020). Minnesota had found Emanuel Reynoso by then – i.e., the greatest game-changer in Loons history – which meant they’d finally found a means to make “stubborn” payoff and even dream a little. MLS journeyman/hot boy, Kevin Molino, did just as much as Reynoso to make that happen. Think of it as a combination of two kinds of wizardry, something not seen before or since in Minnesota.
Long-Term Tendencies
Time to see how well my impression of this team in the Thumbnail History above holds up. Yep. Minnesota has exceeded the league average for goals scored just once in seven seasons – their 2020 annus mirabilis season. The big shock comes on the defensive side, because they’ve only managed one great defensive season, and two good ones – i.e., 2019 was their best, 2020 and 2021 were fine. The outliers in Minnesota’s short history speaks to the home-truth about this team: going over the goals allowed average spells disaster. That’s a defining trait for a low-scoring team, I know, but their draining consistency on what boils down to a negative stat begs some real questions. And the fact that Minnesota missed the 2023 playoffs should get people asking them at louder volumes.
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| Oh, geez. Nothing that spicy! |
Identity: Wallpaper, something you see every day/season, but don’t really notice. It sounds wild saying that as a Portland Timbers fan, what with Minnesota’s history of giving them fits, but the Loons really are neither good nor bad, they’re just kind of…there.
Joy Points: 1. Because they made the playoffs one more time than they missed them.
A Half Dozen Names to Know (here's a good all-time roster, the kind that sort. The good ones)
Miguel Ibarra/Christian Ramirez
While I don’t want to give the impression Minnesota came into MLS with shorting its offense in mind – and one could argue I can’t given how far Ramirez has flown – the “Batman/Superman” combo that (presumably) terrorized the USL cast a smaller shadow in MLS. There could be some injuries I’m forgetting, but those players needed help they didn’t get. They left before they got it, in fact. At any rate, a wide player crossing to a target-man is as Soccer 101 as it gets, and MLS serves up 200-level curriculum, at a minimum.
Michael Boxall/Brent Kallman
There they are, stubborn and unimaginative. These guys are throwbacks and utterly delightful for it – i.e., defenders who excel at getting in the way and are good enough at the rest of it, aka, old school AF. Both Boxall and Kallman have been with Minnesota from MLS Day 1 and I don’t remotely question that choice. Could they improve? Almost certainly. But why would they?
Osvaldo Alonso
I can’t state with certainty that an aging Ozzie Alonso swooped in and saved a Minnesota defense that had, to that point, betrayed my memory (as in, not good enough). I can say that he arrived in 2019, i.e., the same season the Loons got on the right side of average for goals allowed for the first time. Outside of 2019, he played fewer minutes than you’d think, but I do believe signing Alonso signaled a recognition among Minnesota’s brain-trust that they had to mind this position on the roster.
Kevin Molino
I could pair Darwin Quintero with Molino almost as easily as I could pair him with Reynoso below. Minnesota signed him as their first attempt at signing a game-changer – and he succeeded to some extent – but what the Loons have always needed as much as anything else is two attacking threats in the same line-up*. Molino, a fast player with the technical upside to elevate it, gave them that. They tragedy is that he only did it once, that one time, in that 2020 playoff run.
Emanuel Reynoso
Brave fucker showed up in the COVID season…at any rate. While Reynoso may not be posting worldie numbers, he generally delivered Minnesota's best-ever answer to the question of how to get some artistry into that laboring offense. Impressively mobile, good playing short and long, and blessed with a shot that toggles comfortably between smart and hard, he’s been good. Gods know he needs some help…you think that’s why he keeps it up with the public tardiness?
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| Ooh. Sign that... |
Robin Lod
Yeah, yeah, there are more exciting players on this team (wait…are there?), but it is incredibly rare to see any player move around the middle and attacking third with the same vital aplomb as Lod. This fucker’s a utility-player extraordinaire, and to an extent that has me questioning which is actually his best position on the pitch. Anyhoo, he carried Minnesota through 2023 (and parts of 2022) as far he could carry them. Just really a impressive professional.
Where They Finished in 2023 & What the Past Says About That, If Anything
Minnesota hung around the broad aimless middle of the Western Conference table to the day before Decision Day, if not the Day itself, but, like most teams in that sad lot, making the playoffs wouldn’t have achieved anything besides delaying the inevitable. Also, they didn’t make the playoffs and, in a just universe, no team like that would have.
Notes/Impressions on the Current Roster/State of Ambition
First, and holy shit, did Kallman fucking retire? (Yep!). Fortunately, I think the Loons had already replaced him with Miguel Tapias – and they’ll still have Dane St. Clair in goal (and Clint Irwin behind him), and that’s a decent defensive core, so long as it lives and starts 25+ games. Between Wil Trapp and Hasani Dotson, I think they’re all right for the workman-portions of midfield and that equation only gets better for as long as Kevin Arriaga stays healthy…then again you can always drag Lod back there again in the event he doesn’t. Minnesota always has some good sharp-tip-of-the-spear stuff in Bongokuhle Hlongwane (* the next highly-plausible hope for Minnesota's second banana) and Teemu Pukki, who I believe they stand to get more out of in 2024. As such, it’s just all the questions that linger in between, i.e., which player, new or current, will step up to shuttle the ball between that sturdy defensive midfield and those attacking players? Is Franco Fragapane up for more than the odd deadly raid and will Reynoso even report to camp? Alternately, will the team just have to slide Lod up there and hope the defensive midfield holds together. Were I a Minnesota fan, I’d be very anxious about what I was signing on to watch this season, what with all the unknowns. Also, I’m glad I’m not a Minnesota United FC fan tonight. Seriously, the fuck are they doing?
* Joy Point Index
Winning the CONCACAF Champions’ League: 5 points
Claiming Supporters’ Shield : 4 points
Winning MLS Cup: 3 points
MLS Cup Runner-Up: 2 points
Winning the U.S. Open Cup: 2 points
Winning CONCACAF Champions Cup: 2 points
MLS Is Back Cup: 2 points (yeah, yeah, I’m a Timbers fan; still, that was a tough one)
CONCACAF Champions League Semifinalist: 1 point
Making the Playoffs: 1 point
Missing the Playoffs: -1 point
Missing Playoffs in 1996-97, 2002-2004 (when 80% of the league qualified): - 2 points
Wooden Spoon: -3 points
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