United They Kick

Soccerball with USA flag (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Minnesota United FC (aka the Loons) are the latest pro sports franchise to come into the Twin Cities.  Their first season in Major League Soccer, after years in the minors, began Friday with a match at Portland against the Timbers.

The Loons are owned by Bill McGuire, who was once the CEO of United Health Care.  He bought the team from the North American Soccer League in 2012, just before they were about to fold it.  Manny Lagos, a longtime figure in Minnesota soccer, is the team's sporting director (read:  general manager).  Adrian Heath is the coach.

The team will play its home games for the next two seasons at the University of Minnesota's football stadium.  Then, probably in the 2019 season, the Loons will move into their new soccer-specific digs in St. Paul, having successfully wrangled money out of a skeptical state legislature that had already seen too many stadium deals.

As an expansion team, United's roster is stocked with the usual castoffs from other squads, young players and the holdovers from their previous incarnation in the NASL.  Heath, who previously led another MLS startup in Orlando, will be tasked with bringing his new team together and making them competitive against the more established competition.

MLS has 22 teams this season (Atlanta United is the other new franchise), and is looking for more.  Soccer's popularity in this country is rising as more Americans are taking the game seriously, thanks to TV coverage of the World Cup and the English Premiere League, as well as attention paid to the U.S. men's and women's national squads.  And they have national television deals with Fox, FS1 and ESPN.

As a league, MLS is kind of a wannabe on the international soccer stage.  Their biggest stars (who are invariably placed in New York and Los Angeles) tend to be veterans with one foot in retirement.  They don't seem to have an identity of their own, having chosen to co-opt the European leagues.  They have teams named Real Salt Lake and Sporting Kansas City.  Their schedules read "Los Angeles Galaxy vs. New York Red Bulls", forcing fans to figure out which one is the home team.  Their season runs from March to December, which is longer than that of the NHL and NBA.  And their plan to expand to at least 28 teams is a reminder of how the original NASL folded back in the 1980s.  Too many teams with too little interest equal a league collapsing of its own weight.

Minnesota United, being a first-year team, is not expected to do much this season.  Most of the players are unknown to the average fan in and out of Minnesota, and will certainly have some adjusting to do.  But this has been a good market for pro soccer, with the Kicks and Strikers of the original NASL selling out the old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington back in the 1970s and 80s.  Can the Loons be just as successful with a new generation of soccer fans?  We'll soon find out.