Star Tribune: Why Teemu Pukki is leaving MNUFC
Jan 24, 2025
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.
Star Tribune: MNUFC negotiating with midfielders Owen Gene, Jeong Ho-yeon on transfer market
Jan 23, 2025
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.
Star Tribune: MNUFC close to acquiring center back Nicolás Romero
Jan 20, 2025
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.
Star Tribune: MNUFC Training Camp, Week One
Jan 17, 2025
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.”
Star Tribune: Setting up the beginning of MNUFC preseason
Jan 10, 2025
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.
Star Tribune: 2025 MNUFC Schedule Released
Dec 20, 2024
Lionel Messi is coming to Minnesota.
Though Minnesota United released its entire 2025 schedule on Thursday afternoon, there’s no use in pretending one game doesn’t stand out: May 10, against Inter Miami, 3:30 p.m. at Allianz Field.
“We’re really excited, just for our fans to potentially have the opportunity to see the greatest player of all time play at Allianz Field,” Loons CEO Shari Ballard said.
Star Tribune: MNUFC's offseason
Dec 11, 2024
Nov. 27: Minnesota United’s offseason may have begun abruptly, after they were knocked out of the playoffs last Sunday, but their time off will be busy.
The expansion draft for San Diego FC, MLS’s 30th team, is Dec. 11. Free agency begins Dec. 12. But the first step in the offseason was Wednesday, the day that Minnesota had to decide on 2025 contract options for a dozen players.
Perhaps not surprisingly for a squad that ended the year as one of the hottest teams in MLS, the Loons are picking up all but a handful of those options.
Dec. 11: Minnesota United FC returned to the playoffs in 2024, but the gap between the Loons and the top of the Western Conference was evident.
If you count their penalty-shootout playoff wins against Real Salt Lake as regulation draws, the Loons won only one game of 14 against the five teams that finished above them in the standings this year.
Chief soccer officer Khaled El-Ahmad has to figure out how to catch the class of the West — LA Galaxy, LAFC and the Seattle Sounders. But El-Ahmad says he knows what the team needs to close that gap: more of the same.
Star Tribune: LA Galaxy 6, Minnesota United 2
Nov 25, 2024
Minnesota United set out to be the best version of itself in its MLS conference semifinal with the LA Galaxy. The Loons wanted to be defensively compact, limit the space in which Riqui Puig and company had to operate, and frustrate the Galaxy’s offensive weapons — leading, they hoped, to a few chances to hold the ball themselves.
After conceding six goals of every variety, the only possible question to ask: What the heck went wrong?
Read the rest at StarTribune.com…
Game story: Minnesota United’s season ends in Western Conference semifinals with 6-2 loss to Galaxy
Star Tribune: Eric Ramsay, MLS Coach of the (End of the) Year
Nov 24, 2024
He didn’t admit it then, and he certainly wouldn’t admit it now, but there must have come a time this summer when Minnesota United coach Eric Ramsay wondered, at least briefly, whether he had made a big mistake.
At one point, his team had lost a club-record six consecutive games. His starting goalkeeper and top striker had been commandeered by Canada for Copa América, something that his new league didn’t seem to have considered as a possibility when making the schedule. His best player had disappeared, months before, and then was unceremoniously sold.
It’s one thing for a young British manager to take his first head coaching job in MLS, a league that’s not entirely well-respected in the hallowed halls of English football; it’s quite another to have it go poorly.
Read the rest at StarTribune.com…
LISTEN: Sound of the Loons podcast
Star Tribune: How MNUFC can beat the LA Galaxy
Nov 15, 2024
The formula for winning on the road in soccer is pretty standard, across the globe. First, be defensively sound; then, look to score on the counterattack, since most teams will try to control the ball at home. And of course, get a goal on a set piece, if you can.
It’s a plan that Minnesota United used to great effect this season. The Loons won eight road games and picked up 27 points away from home, both tied for the best in the Western Conference, and if you look back at those eight wins, a pattern emerges. Charlotte? Kept a clean sheet, scored on the counter, scored from a set piece. Atlanta? Allowed just one goal, scored on the counter, scored from a set piece.
Now, the Loons are faced with a winner-take-all playoff game on Nov. 24 against the LA Galaxy — on the road. So how can they come out of Dignity Health Sports Park with a win?