The majority of Minnesota United FC’s Opening Day lineup was made up of players who were part of the Minnesota Stars’ 2012 playoff run, but one player in the middle of the field, Neil Hlavaty, was missing. This Saturday, he’ll be back patrolling the center of the Metrodome turf.

It’s just that he’ll be wearing the other team’s colors while he does it.

Hlavaty, 26, was one of the original Minnesota Stars, signing with the club in 2010 after post-college stints in Sweden and Poland. He was a mainstay on the 2011 and 2012 teams, starting almost every game in a defensive role in central midfield, and scoring a handful of goals along the way.

After the season was over, though, he was a free agent, and was drawing interest from a number of teams. Rather than wait out the uncertainty in Minnesota with a new owner coming in, he chose to decide his future early on in the offseason and sign with FC Edmonton, who he said showed interest “directly after the final whistle.”

“I just wanted to get my offseason and my next move sorted out right away,” he said. “The NASL and soccer in general is a cruel business, and when you spend every offseason not knowing what your next move is… I just wanted to spend a Christmas and my birthday [December 27] with my mind at ease. I haven’t had that in my career a lot, and it’s something I was looking forward to having.”

“I knew there were changes ahead. It was around the same time all the negotiations were happening, and I had talked to Manny and I had talked to Carl [United head coach Lagos and assistant coach Craig, respectively], and I expressed to them what I wanted to do, and there was a lot of uncertainty about what was going to happen with their side of the management – they didn’t really know that yet. I was at a point, not necessarily at a deadline, but I wanted to enjoy my offseason.”

Hlavaty said he had no regrets whatsoever about the move, and is excited about what it can do for his career. “It was difficult moving to a new spot, but I’m settled in nicely now,” he said. “The change is good for my game, and doing new things in training and new routines is always good. I don’t want to remain comfortable, because any time you’re standing still, you’re not getting better. I think it’s already paid off for me individually at least, and as a team I think we’ll start to see results really soon.”

The midfielder has also been wearing the captain’s armband for the Eddies so far this year while captain Albert Watson is out injured, another thing he thinks is good for his career. “It’s changed my game a little bit,” he said. “I think I was always a leader on the field, but now it’s a bit different off the field, handling some of the younger players, and just trying to teach guys more, and help guys out more in certain situations. I think it helps me remain a little calmer on the field. It’s a good step for me.”

Edmonton has just one point from its first two matches, and after this Saturday, they’ll already be a quarter of the way through the NASL spring season – but Hlavaty isn’t worried yet. “We’ve been playing well and we have been unlucky not to get results – almost getting wins in Carolina and Florida,” he said. ” I have nothing but positivity heading to Minnesota, and not that there’s pressure to get a win, but we all know that we can do it. ”

“A draw is always good away from home. However, coming off a loss and getting zero points – three points will put you back in the top of the table. That’s pretty much our main goal. We’ll go in and try to handle business, and if it’s not three points, we’ll be pretty upset. If it’s one, we’ll take it, but three points is the goal.”

Twelve Minnesota United FC players, plus head coach Manny Lagos and assistant coach Carl Craig, have joined up with Athlete Ally as ambassadors for the group, which works to “raise awareness and end homophobia in sports.” In addition, every player, coach, and staff member at the club has signed the group’s pledge, which reads as follows:

I pledge to lead my athletic community to respect and welcome all persons, regardless of their perceived or actual sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. Beginning right now, I will do my part to promote the best of athletics by making all players feel respected on and off the field.

United is the first team to support the group on a organization-wide basis – and for the moment, more than a third of the 30 athlete ambassadors are United players.

Team president Nick Rogers, who is on the group’s advisory board, told the New York Times, “Athlete Ally is not advocating a viewpoint; it is just saying that on the field of play the only thing that matters is the competition. That resonated with the guys.”

The players to sign on as ambassadors are player/coach Kevin Friedland, captain Kyle Altman, Pablo Campos, Etienne Barbara, Miguel Ibarra, Justin Davis, Brian Kallman, Simone Bracalello, Max Griffin, Connor Tobin, Travis Wall, and Kentaro Takada.

While the pledge of support seems self-evident, it remains true that the sport of soccer has had its issues. Just last night, San Jose forward Alan Gordon was caught on camera using an anti-gay slur, one for which he will be suspended by MLS, and in February former US Men’s National Team midfielder Robbie Rogers walked away from soccer after coming out of the closet, saying that he was afraid of coming out at every club he’d been a part of.

Chris Kluwe of the Minnesota Vikings is also an ambassador for Athlete Ally, and Minnesota Wild players Cal Clutterbuck and Jason Pominville are among the local hockey players who have voiced support for the You Can Play project.

When Minnesota United FC forward Nate Polak started feeling pain in his shoulder area after the first week of the pre-season, he figured that it was nothing to worry about.

“I thought I was just sleeping on it wrong, or something,” he said.

But when it started to swell and bruise, and the veins started to pop out, he had to go to the trainers, and then to the team doctor. An ultrasound discovered that Polak had a blood clot in his shoulder – also known as thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition in which a nerve or blood vessel in the region of the clavicle is compressed, leading to clots.

For Polak, it meant a week in the hospital at the University of Minnesota, followed by a week in the Mayo Clinic, as two sets of doctors tried to break up the clot via various procedures. “That was rough,” said Polak.

“I guess my first thought was ‘When am I going to get back to playing again, and how’s this going to affect the rest of my season?’,” he said. “I was just really worried about that. But it became a health issue – I kind of needed to worry about my health first. It was a scary moment. Nothing I’d ever expect to happen.”

The 23-year-old, who joined Minnesota partway through last season after graduating from Hastings College, is currently on blood-thinning medication to try to lessen the clotting. He says he’s feeling good, though, and the next step is to wait for surgery – a rib resection, where the rib in the area is removed in order to reduce the compression on the vein.

Coincidentally, Polak is the second local athlete to deal with this problem this spring. Twins minor-leaguer Deolis Guerra was hospitalized during spring training with the same issue, and had a rib removed in mid-March.

Once the surgery is done, Polak says his recovery time will be quick. “I’ll be able to do fitness and touches on the ball,” he said, “but the only thing in question right now is how long I’ll be on blood thinners afterwards.”

He won’t be able to train with the team until the whole thing has run its course, however – it’s just not workable while he’s on blood thinners. Said Polak, “Taking a knock during training, or something like that, would be serious.”

The team is not expecting him back at any point in the first half of the season, putting a hole in the team’s forward depth. It’s certainly tough on Polak, especially during a game like last Saturday’s, in which the team was short up front. “I was really wishing I could have helped,” he said.

In part one of our interview, I asked Minnesota United team president Nick Rogers a lot of questions about ticket sales. That final transaction, however, is in some ways the outcome of part two: promotion and marketing.

In the weeks leading up to the home opener, there were more than a few United fans who worried about the team’s advertising – specifically, that they hadn’t been seeing much of it. Rogers admits that the team’s rebranding, which took place barely a month prior to Opening Day, put a damper on the club’s ability to advertise.

“With paid marketing, you have to put together ads, you have to get scripts for radio reads, you have to get voice-over talent to do those and producers to make them,” he said. “You have to have an actual marketing plan and buy media space that these creative assets are going to go into, and that all takes time, and it took a little longer than we would have liked, than we would have hoped for. Really, the paid stuff only hit a week before our game.”

That said, though, Rogers says that the team now has advertising going in every channel you can think of, and hopes to have a consistent presence throughout the season.

Really, the team’s goal is to make themselves appear more of a major-league team. Rogers, though, knows that doesn’t happen overnight – and he knows that the team will have to earn that status in the minds of fans, sponsors, and media.

“It comes down to the players, and explaining to people that the players are serious talents from around the world,” he said. “Some of them – not all of them, but some of them – make a lot of money doing what they’re doing. It’s earning the respect of the local media, to treat it like it’s a pro sport. Hopefully we can get people to pay attention when, for example, we beat the Chicago Fire, or when we beat Real Salt Lake in the US Open Cup. I think we have to go out and prove it, that we are a legitimate pro sports team, and then follow it up with some resources behind that from a PR perspective to say – pay attention, we’re doing interesting things here.”

He also refers to the team’s efforts on the day-to-day operations side as a different approach than in past years. “It’s the difference between planning for a decade and planning for the next six months,” said Rogers. “If you’re planning for the next decade, you’ll probably go out and buy a house. Given all the other costs involved, that might make more sense. If you’re planning for the next six months, maybe you’re paying a premium to rent something. It might cost more, but you just have to get through the next six months. We’re trying to bring a longer-term view to what we’re doing, and it means doing things differently in a lot of places.”

It’s not just talk. The team has moved their merchandising operations in-house, rather than outsourcing those as part of a trade deal – and United merchandise flew off the shelves at the home opener. The club also hired a full-time video coordinator, formerly of the University of Georgia athletic department, to oversee and professionalize the team’s video operations. “We want it to look like ESPN3,” said Rogers. So far, so good; the match broadcast earned rave reviews on Saturday.

Rogers might able to sum up the team’s goals in one sentence. “We’re trying to put this on in a way that we’re not just saying this is a professional club – you can see the evidence,” he said.

For the future, the team has a few plans on the burners. They’ve had discussions with potential broadcast partners about getting matches on TV, something that could help promote the club. They’ve also discussed jersey sponsorships, though they’re still looking for what Rogers deems the right fit for the team. “If you’re just trying to get through to next season, you will take whoever will give you whatever [amount of money] you can get,” he said. “We want it to be the right fit for what our brand is, for the story we’re trying to tell – and financially, too, obviously.”

In 2012, the Minnesota Stars did everything they could think of to draw fans to their Metrodome home opener, including selling tickets at a discount from normal prices. 8,600 fans walked through the turnstiles that night, one of the biggest Minnesota soccer crowds for years.

So when the attendance was announced last Saturday at 6,754 for the Minnesota United home opener, there were plenty of people who viewed it as a disappointing turnout. Team president Nick Rogers, however, was not among them.

“I think we were satisfied, which is to say we weren’t disappointed,” he said. “We obviously would like to have more people there, and our goal is to have more people there in the future, but I think we have a pretty solid foundation.”

Rogers also noted that not only were all of the tickets sold at full price for Saturday’s game, the team was going up against Timberwolves and Swarm home games, the last Minnesota RollerGirls derby of the year, and the Final Four on TV. “There was a lot happening in town, and we pulled in 6700 people,” he said. “So I felt pretty good about it. But we have a lot of work to do, we’re not stopping to congratulate ourselves just yet.”

Saturday night’s weather was simply awful, with rain pouring down and temperatures in the 40s, making the Dome a the only comfortable place to watch a game. Despite some worries, the team president was happy with the experience. “I was a little concerned that if we brought in the number of people that we ended up bringing in, that maybe it wouldn’t be loud enough, but I thought it was great,” he said.

He also gave credit where credit was due, to the loudest group in the stadium – the Dark Clouds supporters group, who unveiled a few giant three-dimensional loon puppets before the game. “I’d like to see them do another one,” said Rogers. “A bigger one.”

Minnesota has hired former Houston Dynamo account executive Sean Sittnick as their director of ticket sales, along with two sales executives to work underneath him – all to start building a season ticket base, something Rogers knows the club needs to work on. “We’re not there yet,” he said. “We’re still under the 1,000 number. That’s an area we really need to push.”

“It’s sort of a complicated conversation. Our season tickets this year are flex tickets, so we can sell these for the rest of the year. We need to have a season ticket holder base – I look at San Antonio, what they’re doing. They’ve got four or five thousand [update: the number is more like two or three thousand] season ticket holders, which is incredible… We have high aspirations for our number, but that will be a work in progress.”

As for the rest of the Metrodome schedule – four more games, through mid-June – Rogers has a few numbers in mind of what he’d like to see. I threw out a few potential attendance numbers to get his reactions.

5,000 fans? “That’d be disappointing. I think we need to build on what we’ve done. Having said that, this is our first year managing the club, and we’re trying some things that are different. In the past, we played all our games at 7:30pm. We’re already switching that up; we played at 7:00 [last week], and our next game is going to be at 2:30 in the afternoon… Like this past game, we’re going to have two hours of tailgating and concerts outside the Metrodome beforehand. So hopefully we can bring people in before that, get them in the Dome. 2:30 on a Saturday, if there’s a lower number, I think we’ll try to learn from that and go forward. For me, if we’re not moving upward, it is going to be somewhat disappointing.”

How about an average of 10,000 fans? “I think we’d be satisfied. I think we still want to strive for a little bit higher. I think there are enough people that are interested in this, around here. I would be jumping up and down happily if we could average 15,000 for the rest of these games. That might be a bit of a stretch. 10,000 would be good, not great. Averaging 15,000 would blow me away. If we could average 10,000, then I’d be happy.”

What if the crowds stay down around the 6,700 mark? “I think if we can’t show some growth, if we can’t build on what we’re doing, it’s not going to be satisfying. I think we have to keep moving forward and upward while we’re playing downtown. There are some additional challenges when we move back to Blaine, and part of that is going to be on us at the games downtown, selling that experience and explaining to people why it’s worth it to make the trip that for some people is a little bit further than what they’re used to driving.”

For now, though, Rogers will take the 6,700 that came out on Saturday. And he knows he’s got a week and a half, until the team’s April 20th game against Edmonton, to start making headway on his goals.

Coming tomorrow: Rogers talks about promoting, marketing, and publicizing the team.

For the second year in a row, Minnesota opened the NASL season in the Dome to great fanfare – and came away with a 0-0 draw. Frustration was evident from the team, but most were happy to at least to come away with a point. Head coach Manny Lagos summed it up by saying, “It didn’t quite work out, but we didn’t lose.”

Said striker Etienne Barbara, “From the game today, I can tell that the Scorpions didn’t come here to win. They were happy with a point, obviously.”

Be sure you read Dave La Vaque’s match report, which will be in tomorrow’s print edition, but here’s a few extra notes for this one:

Getting to know you: None of the United players were happy a 0-0 draw, but most of them saw positive signs for the team – and feel like success will come after they have some time to get used to each other.

When asked what the team needs to work on, Barbara was emphatic that the team just needs time in the system. “We need to know what kind of runs, what kind of movements, what kind of passes people like,” he said. “We defended very good, we kept possession very good. We just need to get better in the final third and understand how each other moves.”

Said defender Kyle Altman, “We just need time. It’s hard to say that, given that it’s a twelve-game season. But we have two weeks off now to play together and learn each other’s tendencies.”

The team did look a little bit hesitant on the attack, especially in the first half, as the team opened up with what was almost a five-midfielder look – sort of a 4-1-3-1-1. Barbara was the only forward, with Miguel Ibarra roaming in behind him. Simone Bracalello began as a left wing, Lucas Rodriguez on the right – they would switch, midway through the first half – and Michael Reed and Aaron Pitchkolan sat behind those three in the center.

It wasn’t a traditional formation, but United did seem to get used to it as the game wore on. With no game until April 20, they have two weeks to work out the kinks.

Moment of the match: United had its three best chances in a five-minute span in the second half. Kevin Venegas, a second-half replacement at left back, and Pitchkolan both forced saves frome San Antonio keeper Pat Hannigan, but Bracalello came the closest, crashing a swerving 30-yarder off the bar, straight down, and out. The five-minute barrage was Minnesota’s best chance to steal a goal in the second half.

The injury bug: Minnesota is just one game into the season, but they’re already dealing with roster issues. “We were a little thin with our ability to sub,” said Lagos, who was missing four attacking players, including the suspended Pablo Campos. An injury rundown:

• Max Griffin is dealing with a lower-body issue, though Lagos was hopeful that he’d be returning for the team’s next game.
• Striker Nate Polak is out long-term with a non-sports-related medical issue, and looks unlikely to play in the first half of the season.
• Midfielder Bryan Arguez is dealing with a quadriceps issue, and wasn’t in the squad.
• Goalkeeper Daryl Sattler took an elbow to the head and stayed down for over a minute in the second half, but escaped with nothing but a chipped tooth.

First place: The entire NASL is still undefeated after the first round, as Tampa Bay and Carolina ended in a scoreless draw and Fort Lauderdale and Edmonton drew 1-1. Only Atlanta, which had a bye this week, is still without a point in 2013.