For the sixth time in the club's 17 year history and just the fourth time since joining MLS, the Loons will miss the post season. A rough mid-season that started just before and continued until well after the World Cup break put the Loons on the edge back in September. But Minnesota United recovered in October and proceeded to win four of their final seven matches to close the season. After defeating LAFC to start November, the Loons had to win and have a lot go their way to make the playoffs.
Minnesota United did their job on Saturday night, coming back from down 1–0 at half-time to take a 3–1 win over San Jose. But without controlling their own destiny the Loons had to wait and see what else happened. A late LAFC goal against Seattle gave some hope that maybe MNUFC would see the playoffs. But Seattle was able to see out their match and eliminated Minnesota from playoff contention.
"I think the first is just disappointed that we didn’t get to the postseason and then we’ve shown up as a team, as a group, that we can compete with some of the best teams in the league," said manager Cameron Knowles post-match. "In hindsight, you look at all of these games and results and points that have slipped away and chances that have gone begging that would’ve got us there. So just a little disappointed for sure.”
By the final international break of the season at the end of September the team was basically written off as dead. Five consecutive losses and a six match winless skid had hit the Loons since their 5–1 thrashing of San Jose. Two more draws to start October had the team teetering on the edge of falling into the bottom three of the conference. But a shock win against St. Louis changed everything.
“The [results] weren’t going our way, but the football was there. I think people always seem to get down when it’s down, but us as players, we try to stay somewhere in the middle," Nectarios Triantis said regarding the rebound. "I have belief in this team and you’d never be surprised that we went on this [seven game unbeaten] run.”
“I can’t believe it," Tomás Chancalay said to the media. "But, we work every day for this. We are the first in the team who want to win games every time. We work for this, we train every day to win the games, but sometimes that doesn’t happen."
One positive of this is that Minnesota United will take a three match winning streak and seven match unbeaten run into the 2027 sprint season. “Going into next season, it’s a real kick and a real motivation and confidence-booster for this team and I hope that we can continue that," said Triantis. "I don’t want us to have those dips in form and there we can take it game-by-game and keep on winning.”
