Lionel Messi and Inter Miami to face Minnesota United on May 10 at Allianz Field

Lionel Messi is coming to Minnesota.

Though Minnesota United released its entire 2025 schedule on Thursday afternoon, there’s no use in pretending one game doesn’t stand out: May 10, against Inter Miami, 3:30 p.m. at Allianz Field.

“We’re really excited, just for our fans to potentially have the opportunity to see the greatest player of all time play at Allianz Field,” Loons CEO Shari Ballard said.

MLS’ schedule has made visits from Miami a bit of a lottery ticket, among Western Conference cities. Each team in the league plays only six of its 34 games against the opposite conference, and so Miami will make only three away trips to the West next year — and the Loons were lucky enough to claim one of the 2025 visits from the league’s most star-studded franchise.

Minnesota, unlike many other cities that receive Messi and his compatriots, won’t shift the game away from its usual home stadium. Ballard said the team discussed trying to move the game to Huntington Bank Stadium or U.S. Bank Stadium, to give more fans the chance to see the game (and to take advantage of the obvious revenue opportunity), but ultimately decided the game belonged at Allianz Field.

“What it really came down to for us was it would just not be congruent with who the club is and how we’ve grown,” said Ballard, who said the team’s ownership group was “adamant” that the game shouldn’t be moved. “We feel really strongly that we want our season-ticket members to be able to watch the Miami game from the seats that they’ve spent their money on and supported us from.

“We didn’t want to disrupt our partners who have helped us build the club, we didn’t want to move it out of the community — we just felt like Allianz Field was built for playing games like this.”

Though Ballard said it didn’t factor into the team’s decision, the Vancouver Whitecaps’ experience in 2024 might have been a learning experience for MLS teams. Vancouver won last season’s Miami lottery, made the game into a showpiece on its schedule and sold as many tickets as possible to fill 54,500-seat BC Place — and then looked on, horrified, as Messi, Luis Suárez and Sergio Busquets all simply skipped what was, for them, a very long trip and a game on artificial turf.

Minnesota opens the schedule on Feb. 22, with a Saturday afternoon trip to play LAFC — a difficult opener, given that LAFC has the best home record among MLS franchises.

The Loons’ home opener is Saturday, March 1, against Montreal — and is a 7:30 p.m. start, potentially a frigid evening for the league’s two coldest cities. All but three of Minnesota’s home games are scheduled for 7:30 p.m., a continuation of the Apple TV broadcast schedule that has annoyed some fans with its inflexible late-evening scheduling.

Minnesota closes the year with another visit to Los Angeles, to play the defending MLS Cup champion Galaxy on Oct. 18 — another tough ask, especially if the Loons need points for playoff positioning on the season’s final day.

After a season in which the Loons were heavily affected by international absences, Minnesota again will miss players for five games. On March 22, the Loons play the Galaxy at home, right in the middle of a FIFA window that includes World Cup qualifying and the CONCACAF Nations League finals. Minnesota also has four games scheduled between June 14 and July 6, the dates of the CONCACAF Gold Cup.

San Diego FC joins the league for 2025, so 28 of Minnesota’s 34 games will be against Western Conference teams — one home and one away against each of the other 14 teams in the West. Apart from the visits from Miami and Montreal, the Loons will also host the Chicago Fire from the Eastern Conference, and will travel to Toronto and make two trips to New York, to play both NYCFC and the NY Red Bulls.

The league has not yet announced the format for the Leagues Cup competition between MLS and Liga MX teams but did announce that the tournament will take place between July 29 and Aug. 31. Given that Minnesota’s regular MLS schedule breaks only between July 26 and Aug. 10, this likely means that the knockout rounds of the Leagues Cup will run alongside the usual MLS schedule.

This could mean a very busy August for a few teams — unlike last season for Minnesota, when they went almost the entire month of August without a game.

Feb. 22 — at LAFC, 3:30 p.m.

March 1 — vs. CF Montréal, 7:30 p.m.

March 8 — at San Jose Earthquakes, 9:30 p.m.

March 15 — at Sporting Kansas City, 7 p.m.

March 22 — vs. LA Galaxy, 3:30 p.m.

March 29 — vs. Real Salt Lake, 7:30 p.m.

April 6 — at New York City FC, 4 p.m.

April 12 — at Toronto FC, 1:30 p.m.

April 19 — vs. FC Dallas, 7:30 p.m.

April 26 — vs. Vancouver Whitecaps FC, 7:30 p.m.

May 3 — at Austin FC, 7:30 p.m.

May 10 — vs. Inter Miami CF, 3:30 p.m.

May 14 — at Houston Dynamo FC, 7:30 p.m.

May 17 — vs. St. Louis City SC, 7:30 p.m.

May 24 — vs. Austin FC - 7:30 p.m.

May 28 — at Vancouver Whitecaps FC, 9:30 p.m.

June 1 — at Seattle Sounders FC, 5 p.m.

June 14 — vs. San Diego FC, 7:30 p.m.

June 25 — vs. Houston Dynamo FC, 7:30 p.m.

June 28 — at New York Red Bulls, 6:30 p.m.

July 4 — at FC Dallas, 7:30 p.m.

July 12 — vs. San Jose Earthquakes, 7:30 p.m.

July 16 — vs. LAFC, 7:30 p.m.

July 19 — at Portland Timbers, 9:30 p.m.

July 26 — at St. Louis City SC, 7:30 p.m.

Aug. 10 — vs. Colorado Rapids, 5 p.m.

Aug. 16 — vs. Seattle Sounders FC, 7:30 p.m.

Aug. 23 — at Real Salt Lake, 8:30 p.m.

Aug. 30 — vs. Portland Timbers, 7:30 p.m.

Sept. 13 — at San Diego FC, 9:30 p.m.

Sept. 20 — vs. Chicago Fire FC, 7:30 p.m.

Sept. 27 — at Colorado Rapids, 8:30 p.m.

Oct. 4 — vs. Sporting Kansas City, 7:30 p.m.

Oct. 18 — at LA Galaxy, 8 p.m.