Minnesota United, who sit 12th in the Western conference with nine games remaining, are not likely to receive immediate help from players signed in the recently closed Summer Transfer Window.
Minnesota, who has managed only one league win since the World Cup break, signed three new players and sent two out on loan before the window closed in early September. The new signings include former MNUFC 2 attacker Aziel Jackson, who comes in on loan in from Jagiellonia Białystok in Poland, Maurice Malone, a striker from SK Sturm Graz in Austria, and Cherrion Valerius loaned in from NAC Breda in the Netherlands. The players sent out on loan are seldom-used midfielder Dominik Fitz (to Wolfsberger AC in Austria), and defender Devin Padelford (to the New York Red Bulls).
Although all three players will have the opportunity to earn minutes right away, none project as starters this season. This marks a departure from recent summers, when the Loons relied on the window to fortify their roster for the stretch run. Last year, the team signed midfielder Nectarios Triantis as well as Fitz, and both Kelvin Yeboah and Joaquin Pereyra were 2024 summer signings. Many fans expressed disappointment that the Loons weren't more aggressive this window, given their recent struggles on the pitch, and Matt Doyle assigned the team an F in his recent column reviewing the summer transactions of each team in the Western Conference.
Jackson and Malone have both already made their debuts for MNUFC. Jackson, who has played 30 minutes across two appearances as an attacking midfielder, is known for his quickness but has struggled to find first team minutes during his career. Malone, who has logged 43 minutes, will have to fight for playing time at the striker position – which has become crowded due to the recent form of Yeboah and the emergence of Super Draft pick Marcus Caldeira.
Fans will have to wait to get a look at Valerius, who will need visa paperwork to clear before joining the team. He profiles as a right wingback or right center back. Valerius is 6' 4" and known for his athleticism, but will probably need time to adjust to MLS coming in from the Dutch second division.
In spite of the lukewarm reactions to the team's work in the transfer window, newly-appointed sporting director Hank Stebbins remained upbeat about the roster in a discussion with local media last week. "I think we got better," said Stebbins. "We added three players that I think will contribute."
Stebbins put an emphasis on continuity, stressing that MNUFC managed to keep the core of the team intact. While last year the team crucially lost its leading goal scorer Tani Oluwaseyi in a multi million dollar sale to Villareal in La Liga, the outgoing players this year were struggling for minutes and sent out in the hopes of finding them valuable playing time. Additionally, Stebbins is hopeful that none of the players the team signed this year will suffer the fate of Fitz – a player purchased for over two million dollars that never cracked the lineup. "We tried to be really specific about making sure guys who came in would contribute."
Throughout the window, the Loons were linked to multiple slightly higher profile attacking midfielders who would have come with a Designated Player tag. Stebbins noted that the emergence of Caldeira as a viable second striker in the starting lineup means that the team now relies on just one playmaker – or number 10 – in Pereyra. That and other factors ultimately led the team to decide against signing an additonal playmaker. "We were pretty strategic in terms of what we were willing to do to bring those players in," said Stebbins.
While many teams were active in this window, most notably Western Conference rivals Colorado and Sporting Kansas City, the overall number of players brought into the league was less than many experts had predicted. Doyle, speaking on the Soccerwise podcast last week, posited that some teams are slightly more cautions about spending money right now due to impending large scale changes in the league's Collective Bargaining Agreement, or CBA.
Stebbins said that changes to the CBA was not a major factor in Minnesota's approach to this window, although it could very well affect the team's business this winter.
