Minnesota United’s youth movement continued on Tuesday with the signing of 21-year-old central midfielder Owen Gene, from Amiens SC in the French second division.

Gene is a tall, rangy defensive midfielder, and will occupy a U22 Initiative and international spot on the Loons roster. Despite his youth, he’s already played more than 100 games for the Amiens first team.

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As preseason experiments go, it’s hard to beat Minnesota United’s attempt at playing with two strikers.

On Sunday in their first of three exhibition games at the Coachella Valley Invitational in California, the Loons played with Kelvin Yeboah and Tani Oluwaseyi up front against a less-than-full-strength team from Sporting Kansas City.

By halftime, it was 5-0 Minnesota; at the end, it was 6-0, and both Oluwaseyi and Yeboah had scored twice.

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Even after just a few days, it’s tempting to think of Minnesota United’s Korean duo as some kind of unit.

After all, Sang Bin Jeong and Hoyeon Jung are not only just the sixth and seventh South Koreans to play in Major League Soccer, but they are also the first two to play on the same team at the same time. They even have the same surname, though they spell it differently in English.

The similarities might end there.

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Hassani Dotson asked to be traded, but according to Loons chief soccer officer Khaled El-Ahmad, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be in Minnesota.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s Hassani who says he doesn’t want to be there,” El-Ahmad said on Tuesday, his first media availability following the publicized trade request from Dotson’s camp.

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Minnesota United was already short of players in its central midfield, and now the Loons must handle the potential loss of another.

The club picked up a contract option for Hassani Dotson at the beginning of the offseason, meaning the 27-year-old midfielder is entering the final season of his deal — a situation that Dotson is clearly unhappy with.

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For Teemu Pukki, this is not how things were supposed to work out.

When Pukki signed with Minnesota United in the summer of 2023, he was supposed to be the final piece in the Loons attack. For a player who had already scored more than 200 times in a near-two-decade-long career, including nearly two dozen goals in the Premier League, MLS was going to be just another stop in a storied career.

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Minnesota United has started the 2025 season carrying over a lot of the depth that it had to end 2024 — except, perhaps, down the center of the field.

“On account of some of the exits we’ve had, we look a little bit light in the middle,” coach Eric Ramsay said.

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Minnesota United chief soccer officer Khaled El-Ahmad said at the beginning of the offseason that the team would focus on bringing in younger players, and the Loons may be about to acquire their first.

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When Minnesota United trains in mid-January, the Loons do so in an inflated dome at the National Sports Center in Blaine. It’s warmer than the outside air — but not exactly warm, especially when the temperature was below zero this week.

Six below zero is a shock to everyone, but for those experiencing their first Minnesota winter, the pain was acute.

“I am trying to get used to it but just simply can’t,” said Argentina native Joaquín Pereyra, via translation from club translator Marleine Calderon. “I try to go out, but I’d rather stay home. [At training] once we start moving, our bodies get warm, but when I wake up in the mornings, it’s so hard to get up.”

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Ah, early January, when the thoughts of Minnesota sports fans naturally turn to … soccer?

Don’t laugh. As hard as it might be to believe, Minnesota United is about to get its 2025 campaign underway.

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