A Hater’s Guide to Minnesota United

Welcome to the “Hater’s Guide to Minnesota United.”

I’m sure many of you have been wondering where the Hater’s Guide has been the first three games of this season. Right? Right, y’all? You’d been wondering right? Well, I had already written a lot of mean things from last year about D.C. United last year and look where that got us. This time we won. You’re welcome.

I didn’t want to do anything for Vancouver because I put my heart and soul behind them in recklessly picking them to win the West for no reason but Tall AF in our season preview and they’re my large adult sons and I love them. So no hating there.

I straight up forgot for Houston. My bad.

I wanted to break this thing back out again for Minnesota though. No real reason or anything against them, I’m just kind of bored.

As always minimal effort has been put into this. There has been little research, next to zero editing and there’s a legitimate chance that you won’t find any of this entertaining in any way. If you take any of this seriously you deserve to be made fun of. As a commenter once eloquently stated even after reading a disclaimer about how dumb and irrevocably pointless this article would be…

“This is a waste of time. Nothing here folks.”

Do you enjoy watching soccer teams with United in their name but want the feeling of witnessing a historically terrible collection of players stumble their way through a season of lows and more lows while being led by a man that somehow won MLS Coach of the Year in 2013 and oops, sorry this was my opener for the D.C. guide that got scrapped.

Let’s try again.

Do you enjoy watching soccer teams with United in their name but want the feeling of witnessing an only kind of sort of historically terrible collection of players stumble their way through a season of lows and more lows while being led by a man that somehow won USL Pro Coach of the Year twice? Then boy do we have a team for you.

Expansion side Minnesota United joined MLS last year along with Atlanta United which was nice because it meant Atlanta United was only tied for the dumbest team name to enter the league that year.

The teams’ seasons were drastically different. Atlanta United became the darlings of the league while Minnesota United sure did try their hardest. The teams met twice. First with a 6-1 shellacking by Atlanta in the middle of a Minnesota blizzard. The Loons got revenge against a ten-man Five Stripes squad late in the season, winning 3-2 thanks to two stoppage time goals against Atlanta United keeper...err...holy smokes, who was in at that point? Hold on..................................................................oh my god it was Alexander Tambakis in the only 28 minute of his MLS career.

In the end, the win against Atlanta’s mix of first-team zombies who had played 15 games in the last 25 days or something and bench players kept Atlanta United from securing a first-round-bye in that year’s MLS Cup Playoffs. It was the biggest of the Loons’ 10 wins in 2017. A hilarious amount of wins due to the fact Orlando City had an equal number of wins as a first-year expansion side widely predicted to be the worst in history at the beginning of the season. Despite this, I’m still bitter about that loss and you should be too. If that’s not enough here are more reasons to dislike Minnesota United and the greater Minneapolis/Saint Paul area...

The Coach

Adrian Heath began his United States coaching career with the Austin Aztex in 2008 before following the team to Orlando City in 2011. The USL edition of Orlando City won titles in their first two years. That team then moved to Louisville when they were replaced by the MLS edition of Orlando City. Heath stayed in Florida to coach that new, completely different team before being unceremoniously booted a year and half later. Those two titles with the USL Orlando team are the reason MLS Orlando City fans feel they’re validated in saying “AT LEEST WE HAVE HISTORY” in every single argument they’ve ever tried to have with anyone associated with Atlanta United.

Cool.

Well anyway, here’s Wonderwall.

Cool.

(Ok fine. It’s kind of cool that they’ve embraced the cheesy meme-ness of it all. Doesn’t change the fact that some of you definitely had your girlfriend stolen in college by some dude in a puka shell necklace after he broke out his guitar at a party and played this song my god Jessie what were you thinking we could have been happy together.)

Darkness. Darkness all around me.

Minnesota United’s largest and oldest supporters group is (the(?)) “Dark Clouds”. So named as another reminder that life in Minnesota is cold, bleak and meaningless. As if the soccer team wasn’t enough.

This.

I wasn’t even born for this and I’m still upset about it.

Wait, does Tyrone Mears play on this team?

Yes. Yes he does.

Speaking of the team...

Try and name three players.

You have to feel for Minnesota fans forced to watch a team that still has no Designated Players. We can definitely still make fun of them for having a team of nobodies though.

So, fun game. Name three players. No, really. Off the top of your head right now. Try it.

Ok, you got Mears. That was a freebie.

...

Ok, yeah you remembered Ethan Finley existed.

...

............

Alright, I’ll help. I’ll give you a list of nine names. Three of them are actual Minnesota United players. One in three shot here.

Rasmas Schuller

Jesus Shuttleworth

Wyatt Omberg

Teal Bunburry

Frantz Pangop

Ibson

Sam Nicholson

The artist formerly known as Ibson

Collen Warner

Did you pick three? Good, you’re right. They’re all Minnesota United players. Is that true? I don’t know. I don’t care and neither do you.

The kit sponsor is Target.

Which means every season ticket comes with a white, suburban mom attempting to wrangle in three kids as she tries to dig through her purse to pull out coupons she spent hours clipping that make her final total exactly what it would have been at Walmart.

S-E-C! S-E-C! S-E-C!

MNUFC’s principal owner is Bill McGuire is the former executive officer of UnitedHealth Group oh my god I just figured out why they’re called Minnesota United.

Y’all. Wow. This guide has been a freaking ride.

Anyway, he left UnitedHealth after being forced into retirement by the best damn conference in the land due to some recruiting violation known as “backdating”.

From Wikipedia: In 2006, the SEC began investigating the conduct of UnitedHealth’s management and directors, including McGuire, as did the Internal Revenue Service and prosecutors in the United States Attorneys’ office for the Southern District of New York.

The investigations came to light after a series of probing stories in the Wall Street Journal in May 2006, discussing the apparent “backdating” of stock options, in a then-common process called options backdating. Backdating involves manipulating the timing of options grants so they look as though they were made on days when the stock’s value was lower. Doing that boosts recipients’ windfall when they sell the stock. The backdating was approved by the board of directors, according to the Journal. Several shareholder classes filed lawsuits accusing former UnitedHealth’s directors of failing in their fiduciary duty to properly notify shareholders of the scheme.

On October 15, 2006, it was announced that McGuire would step down immediately as chairman and director of UnitedHealth.

On December 6, 2007, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a settlement, under which McGuire was to repay $468 million as a partial settlement of the backdating prosecution.

Minnesota United still has no designated players.

Duck, duck, what the hell is wrong with you people?

It was brought to the attention of many of the good, kind, hardworking people of the world sometime last year that there were no good, kind, hardworking people in Minnesota.

We all know the classic childhood game Duck, Duck, Goose. (writer’s note: The next passage contains possibly disturbing content. We want to respect the mental health of our readers and encourage those easily disturbed to move on. Go read a book. Paint a picture. Do not keep reading. The rest of you.....hold on to your freaking hats.)

In the midst of the barren wasteland of Minnesota, a new game somehow emerged. Like a movie monster from the ashes of the post-apocalyptic wreckage of the setting in a Cormac McCarthy novel.

Minnesotans play a game the same as Duck, Duck, Goose in every way. However, instead of saying goose to indicate a new chaser being brought outside the ring of competitors, they say “Gray Duck”.

They say duck. Duck. Gray Duck.

You know, like serial killers.

Wait, that’s it? That doesn’t really seem like that big of a de—

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE OR ANYTHING!

THE DISTINCTION OF BEING NAMED A GOOSE RATHER THAN A DUCK IS THAT THEY ARE DIFFERENT AND THEREFORE, AS DIFFERENTS, THEY MUST GIVE CHASE AND DESTROY THAT WHICH MADE THEM DIFFERENT TO REJOIN THE NORMAL AND OUTCAST THEIR ATTEMPTED DEFILER.

GRAY DUCK?? IT’S THE SAME ANIMAL! GEESE AND DUCKS ARE DIFFERENT! READ A BOOK. THERE WAS NO DISTINCTION MADE OF THE COLOR OF PREVIOUS DUCKS. HOW DO WE EVEN KNOW IF THIS SO CALLED “GRAY” DUCK IS EVEN OF SEPARATE COLOR??? IF THEY ARE NOT DIFFERENT THEN WHY DO THEY GIVE CHASE?

WHY?

DO?

THEY?

GIVE?

CHASE?

Jeez, chill. Can we get back to bad soccer jokes or Minnesota jokes or whatever?

yeah. fine.

Twin Cities

Twin cities? There’s two of you right next to each other and you can’t just be one whole city? It’s like, get along. Don’t be such a gray duck, Saint Paul, amiright?

I hate these things.

Me too. Me too.