Few things about Minnesota United’s new era have been — oh, what’s the word? — normal.
After moving on from head coach and front office chief Adrian Heath just before the end of the 2023 season, the Loons hired Khaled El-Ahmad to lead their sporting department. That’s normal enough, you say. El-Ahmad then hired the youngest permanent head coach in MLS history in Eric Ramsay…after the following season had already begun. Ah, there we go. Ramsay, a former assistant at Manchester United, didn’t get to enjoy the luxuries of a preseason with his new team. Instead, he flew straight into the fire.
No matter: that new leadership helped Minnesota to the second-best points-per-game total in club history, excluding 2020, and saw them win a playoff series. This year, the club enjoyed the best season in its history with a fourth-place finish out West.
Along the way, Minnesota United began playing an extreme style of soccer the likes of which MLS has never seen, one built on set piece excellence and defensive compactness. As El-Ahmad tells Backheeled, he thinks of it as “Stoke City on a rainy Tuesday...with flashes of Liverpool.” Minnesota’s MLS opponents may think of it more simply as nightmarish.
