It’s a brave new era for Minnesota United, a phrase used by multiple members of the team’s staff on Saturday. The game against LA Galaxy was already circled on the calendar as the final 2023 regular season match at Allianz Field, but after the news of Adrian Heath’s firing on Friday, it took on new meaning. As the stadium announcer rounded out the team’s starting lineup roll call, the supporters saved their loudest, most appreciative cheer for last: interim head coach Sean McAuley.
It was the Loons’ first game under a new head coach since joining MLS.
“In a way, it’s one man taking the fall,” said team co-captain Michael Boxall — one of two players to take the field in every year of Minnesota’s MLS era. “Everyone here is responsible for it. … He has a big say in a lot of things, but in a way, when you have a manager let go, you feel like you’ve kind of let him down. It’s just one of the s—-y things about sports.”
When Heath first entered MLS, it was as head coach of Orlando City SC. He led the team from the USL title to the first division, with a core compiled around former Ballon d’Or winner Kaká, top SuperDraft pick (and Canada’s eventual top goalscorer) Cyle Larin and USL holdover Kevin Molino. The Lions got cold feet halfway through his second season, letting him go despite the team never failing to be competitive.
Heath didn’t need to wait long for a second MLS gig, signing on with Minnesota ahead of the club’s own move from the lower leagues to MLS in 2017. There was no Kaká-esque figure leading the wage ledger with $7 million in guaranteed salary — the team’s top earner, Vadim Demidov, was seen as a bloat on the salary cap with his income of $550,000. However, Heath saw a chance to tap into what had long been one of the second division’s bedrock markets.
“It isn’t exactly trendy compared to everywhere else,” Heath said before the team’s MLS debut. “It’s got those harsh-weathered conditions at certain times. The other thing that stuck out is that people from [Minnesota] are really proud of it, a bit like the north-east of England. If we can be remotely as important to the people of [Minnesota] as Newcastle United is to theirs, we’ll be a great addition to MLS.”
While Newcastle is now among the game’s best-funded clubs, Minnesota remains firmly entrenched in MLS’s middle class. Aside from trading the University of Minnesota’s turf football stadium for pristine Allianz Field in 2019, most seasons featured little diversion from a familiar plot. Heath would perennially get his team (always deployed in a 4-2-3-1) to start the year strong, fade toward the summer window, make a major signing, charge up the table and play opponents hard in the playoffs.
The highs were evenly spaced across his tenure; the lows, albeit numbering few that truly sunk below the team’s usual humming tenor, felt more like what most adequately supported MLS clubs experience rather than the bleak and apathetic milieu that surrounded Chicago and Houston in recent years. One flashpoint came in early 2018, after the team’s third-ever trip to Kansas City was a third defeat, bringing that series’ aggregate scoreline in Kansas to 11-1. And yet, Heath and Minnesota rebounded: a gutsy U.S. Open Cup win on penalties kept him in the post ahead of the new stadium’s grand opening.
In total, Heath’s tenure makes for a symmetrical bell curve. After its debut in 2017 and the entertaining if uneven nature of 2018, Minnesota broke through on the back of a defense-first roster remodel to make the playoffs in its new stadium in 2019. Later, the U.S. Open Cup final was one of a few times where Heath’s knack for coming up big in a knockout game as an Everton striker translated to his gig on the touchline.
After taking over chief roster decision-making duties that winter, 2020 brought two semifinal showings. The first in the MLS is Back Tournament, was a clean 3-1 defeat against the hosts Orlando. The second brought far more tumult: an inspired run to the Western Conference Final catalyzed by Molino and the type of playmaking 10 that Heath had coveted from the time he arrived in Saint Paul: Emanuel Reynoso.
It was a game that validated the work Heath and Company had done to build a team full of veteran players with a point to prove. Away at Seattle, Reynoso and Bakaye Dibassy gave the visitors a 2-0 lead heading into the 75th minute. As ever, the Sounders fought back, scoring twice in the final 15 minutes of regulation before Gustav Svensson spared the Loons from extra time by flipping the result in the third minute of stoppage time.
GO DEEPER
Sounders’ epic comeback seals MNUFC’s painful playoff exit
In the immediate aftermath, the ever-quotable Heath found himself at a loss for words. “To be honest with you, Jeff, at this moment in time,” he stated plainly, “the best way to describe it is I’m in a little bit of a shellshock.”
With the benefit of hindsight, the dream turned nightmare never seemed to haunt Heath and the team. The main concern throughout his time as coach and, eventually, doubly so as sporting director was his inability to find a consistent solution at striker. Christian Ramirez was traded to LAFC midway through 2018 for allocation money which eventually helped acquire 2019’s defender of the year, Ike Opara. From there it was a revolving door with each new transfer window, ultimately slowing with the team’s highest-ever salary outlay for a player, Teemu Pukki.
For all the rotation up top, veterans largely respected Heath. According to a team employee, who requested anonymity so as to share details amid uncertainty following Heath’s dismissal, the bulk of the roster had two main concurrent feelings: one of appreciation for his faith in them, and another feeling that a change was necessary to rejuvenate this team.
The two previous seasons, 2021 and 2022, were eerily similar. The team frequently held its own against Western Conference heavyweights between disappointing results against perceived inferior opposition. The seasons saw the team finish with 49 and 48 points, respectively.
Expectations were similarly set for this year before signing former Norwich City striker Pukki as a free agent this summer. With the West lacking a clear front-runner ahead of the Leagues Cup, it felt like a signing that could buck the trend of dropping points late in games and turn narrow draws into wins. Instead, Finland’s record goalscorer struggled to make an outsized impact before Saturday as the team fell from sixth in late August to 11th at the time of Heath’s dismissal.
Only one team, Toronto FC, averaged fewer points from Sept. 1 to Oct. 6 than Minnesota’s 0.5 across six matches. If they could have reclaimed even a third of the 22 points dropped from leading positions in the second half, Minnesota could have been among the West’s top four sides.
The final weight on the scale that balanced the pros and cons of retaining Heath for his contracted 2024 season may have been laid on Sept. 30. The game against San Jose Earthquakes followed the same script as many this year: a close first half, a go-ahead goal after the break and a conceded goal in the game’s final minutes to finish with a point at home. The team had become predictable, and opponents were making them pay.
Team decision-makers above Heath were split on whether or not to let him coach the final regular season match at home before making the change. After a 5-1 shellacking at LAFC, however, it felt like a potential sendoff of Heath which was far more bitter than sweet.
In this era of MLS, where money is so closely tied to team decisions, nearly finishing seven seasons as a head coach is a rarity. Overall, 2023 will likely be remembered as Heath’s most disappointing year.
Even Saturday’s 5-2 win, capped by four goals from Pukki, leaves the Loons’ playoff hopes in the hands of their conference rivals ahead of Decision Day. There was little by way of stylistic adjustment under McAuley, as Heath’s former top assistant kept much of the same lineup and still had the team try to feast in transition.
Beginning this winter, however, the organization will venture into uncharted territory: the chance for a reinvention.
Minnesota’s solid, if not showy, identity is in line with the team’s primary color: gray. While this year was the first to don black kits for the primary shirt, Minnesota United has largely been identified as a team proudly wearing gray in every season from when Dr. Bill McGuire bought the team in 2013 through 2021. There’s nothing wrong with gray; there isn’t a better-represented shade in my wardrobe. Still, it isn’t going to be the statement piece of any ensemble or one garnering oohs and ahhs. Gray is dependable, never out of style, pairing well with khaki shorts and jeans of any wash. It’s hardly surprising that no other club has built its identity with gray at its heart.
For worse or for better, it’s also a color that feels appropriate for what this team is as it closes its seventh MLS season. Minnesota United is dependable. Minnesota is a side built around veterans: for the developmental successes of Bongi Hlongwane and Dayne St. Clair, fans will remember a litany of youngsters who couldn’t work into Heath’s rotation, from Thomás Chacón to eventual Ecuador World Cup roster member Romario Ibarra.
The first big question will be whether Minnesota gives Heath’s successor sporting director privileges or splits the two roles into two hires. As for the coach, the two other finalists for the job in 2017 could be similarly available. The runner-up, Giovanni Savarese, was let go by Portland Timbers after leading the team to two MLS Cup finals in 2018 and 2021. The other, Marc Dos Santos, is in the second year of his second stint as an LAFC assistant after splitting those eras by taking the top job in Vancouver.
However Minnesota decides to act, the Adrian Heath era will likely be remembered fondly in hindsight. The team enjoyed lively support from the home crowd even after dropping results in 2023. Several players established themselves into beloved figures under Heath’s coaching, from Ibson and Darwin Quintero in the early years to Boxall, Hassani Dotson, Reynoso and Hlongwane on the current side. Even this, the most disappointing year of his tenure, still sees the team in legitimate playoff contention on Decision Day.
Minnesota went from a league laughingstock in its first days to one that garnered the respect of peers across the league. Now, however, they finally have a chance at a radical reinvention under new leadership.
Deep into stoppage time of this weekend’s 5-2 win, the capo stand was rocking. The final whistle began the countdown for the supporters’ post-win singing of Oasis’ “Wonderwall,”’ which sounded a bit more impassioned after Friday’s events. That’s an image that should be at the heart of the team’s pitch deck for whoever they hire as the next head coach.
“That’s what we have been fighting for every week here,” Boxall said of the home faithful. “It’s a combination of luck or lack thereof, that led to this only being the fourth time (winning at home) in league play. Our home form has been disappointing, but in the last regular season home game, we wanted to send our fans home happy. Even through all those tough games and gut-wrenching results where we’ve dropped points, they’ve stuck with us.”
The support is there. Much of the roster is playoff-tested and could again be depended on for a similar success. Nobody knows what comes next for the Loons, but at the least, Heath will hand the next coach with a far more promising bedrock than the one he inherited in late 2016.
(Photo: Adam Bettcher/Getty Images)