As with the journey of any good hero, Minnesota United’s season can be divided fairly neatly into three acts: the first, wherein our hero embarks, faces challenges, learns, adjusts; the second, wherein greater challenges force yet more growth; and the third, wherein the hero rises in the face of adversity and scores an emotional victory, ending the story with a greater understanding of the world and themselves. Here, we present Part One.
No team knows exactly what to expect before the season begins, but expansion teams know less than most. For Minnesota United — who signed their first players and Head Coach Adrian Heath just a few months before the team would open their first MLS season in Portland against the Timbers — their plans by necessity involved an element of luck and an understanding that adjustments would go hand in hand with growth.