Video montages from Minnesota United’s social media accounts this week shared receipts of national pundits’ low predictions for the Loons in 2024.
Since MNUFC has advanced to Sunday’s Western Conference semifinals, the club took the opportunity to blast its doubters.
That’s a thick glossing over of recent history.
The actions of the Loons’ ownership group and front office in late 2023 and early 2024 — after the firing manager Adrian Heath — didn’t scream of a club’s urgency to win at a high level this season. Actions speak louder than words.
CEO Shari Ballard was willing to wait for new chief soccer officer Khaled El-Ahmad to wrap up his job at English club Barnsley before coming to Minnesota. After missing the MLS Cup playoffs in 2023, Ballard said last November: “We’re not building this by January,” a reference to the start of preseason.
El-Ahmad, in turn, showed patience in his head coach hire, and Eric Ramsay didn’t arrive until the 2024 regular season was three games old. Into late April, the club took zero big swings on new player additions via the primary transfer window.
When MLS All-Star midfielder Emanuel Reynoso returned to Minnesota in May after yet another AWOL stint in Argentina, El-Ahmad wasn’t willing to fast track the playmaker back onto the field. El-Ahmad soon transferred Reynoso to Club Tijuana in Mexico for a discounted fee, and in the process, proved a bigger point that club culture is more important than having Reynoso help stack three points in matches.
Then the Loons’ summer slide down the standings put their record at 8-10-6 on July 17. There was nothing but patience expressed from Ramsay and El-Ahmad, who pointed to the abundance of player absences for international duties and injuries. Their lack of stress belied a 1.29 points-per-game pace that would have been lucky to sneak into the ninth and final place in the playoff field. There was no win-now directive to feel as if they had fallen behind.
MNUFC’s 6-1-1 finish to the regular season and eventual sixth seed in the West — followed by the two wins in penalty kicks to beat third-seeded Real Salt Lake in the first round of the playoffs — had been boosted by El-Ahmad making a handful of additions in the summer transfer window and Ramsay’s ability to implement his tactics and get buy-in from players.
But making the final eight playoff teams in MLS?
“There is, of course, a level of satisfaction, but I think it’s difficult to do that until you know how everything pans out,” Ramsay said days before the Loons play at second-seeded Los Angeles Galaxy on Sunday night.
“I’ve tried not to think too much beyond the upcoming game and sort of take the balance of the season as a whole once that’s done. But I don’t think anyone can deny that relative to the circumstances and the expectations that we’ve had a really good year and sort of anything from this point onwards set against what was talked about prior to the season would, of course, be a bonus.”
Even if the Loons lose Sunday, the 2024 season can still be chalked up as a success. That’s primarily true because this wasn’t supposed to be the year. It might not even be the year before the year.
El-Ahmad’s attempted maneuvering before the close of the summer transfer window showed he wanted to bring in a defensive midfielder, but in the end was unable or unwilling to make it happen at that point. Again, no urgency in this being a make-or-break season.
The Loons have been successful this season despite not spending very much. MNUFC has the 25th largest salary spend ($14.7 million) out of 29 teams in the league. Underperforming forward Teemu Pukki is the club’s highest-paid player at $3.5 million, and that 25 percent of the salary budget is expected to come off the books within the next year.
This will allow El-Ahmad future opportunities to improve the roster, and the ownership should give him the latitude beyond reinvesting just that amount that money. Defensive midfielder appears to be a primary target again this winter.
The ongoing roster remake has made the Loons more youthful, with players heading into their prime years. Striker Kelvin Yeboah was the biggest summer addition, and the 24-year-old Designated Player hit the ground running with seven goals in 709 minutes to finish the regular season.
Another reason this season is already a success is MNUFC has formed a clear identity to carry into 2025.
Since his first day on the job, Ramsay has instilled a defensive focus, which produced a club-record shutout streak to end the regular season. Ramsay has gotten players to be willing to switch positions when needs are a must and attackers have bought in to help defend.
While Ramsay can see the overall success when he takes a step back, he’s pushing forward into Sunday’s match.
“That’s not to say that I don’t feel nor expect us to go another step beyond because, if I look at our form at the moment, I do feel we’re a good matchup for anyone in the league,” Ramsay said Tuesday. “There’s absolutely no way that we’re going into this game feeling as though it’s David against Goliath, and we’re huge underdogs, and you’ve got a 20 percent chance of winning the game. That’s just not how we look at it. So I’m trying to, again, balance those two perspectives.”
Originally Published: November 22, 2024 at 8:16 AM CST