Minnesota United will try to change brief, ugly history vs. Atlanta United

For longtime Minnesota United fans, Atlanta United — whom MNUFC visits on Saturday night — is one of a few teams with which the Loons have, shall we say, a history.

The two clubs entered MLS together in the all-United class of 2017, but Minnesota’s expansion brethren have had the upper hand from the very beginning. Not only do the Loons have just three points in four MLS games — their worst record against any team they’ve played at least twice, save for Seattle — Atlanta has been the architect of two of the most painful losses in Minnesota history.

The first came in MNUFC’s very first home game, played in a snowstorm at TCF Bank Stadium. The visitors hammered the Loons 6-1 — still the team’s only five-goal loss in MLS play. The second came two years later, in the 2019 US Open Cup Final, a 2-1 loss in what remains Minnesota’s only chance to claim a trophy since joining MLS in 2017.

Manager Eric Ramsay is trying to do his homework on this sort of thing, even though he’s going week-by-week to try to prepare for each opponent in turn.

“I’ve been pretty inquisitive in that sense,” he said. “Obviously Mr. Durkee [senior director of public relations Eric Durkee] helps me out, and Cam [assistant coach Cameron Knowles] is really good in that sense. As soon as I finish one game, I’m on to giving the staff pop quizzes on the opposition, and the history. A lot of that stuff doesn’t escape my attention.”

In some ways, the clean slate of having a new coach might be useful for MNUFC, just to start fresh without the weight of what came before.

Atlanta represents the first of a few tests in this regard. Others will come later. The Loons have three games with Seattle on the docket this year, two in MLS and one in the mid-summer Leagues Cup; Minnesota has won just once in 14 tries against the Sounders. And MNUFC won’t visit Sporting KC until September, a stadium where they’ve claimed zero points in nine regular-season games.

Loons midfielder Hassani Dotson is out for Saturday’s game with a hamstring injury, but midfielder-turned-center back Kervin Arriaga is questionable — not because of injury, but because he became a dad for the second time on Wednesday.

Having missed midweek training for the birth, Friday’s session was Arriaga’s first back with the team, and the 26-year-old appeared even more alert and awake than might have been expected.

Ramsay, who has a 2-year-old and a 9-month-old at home, knows what Arriaga is going through. “It’s certainly not lost on me, having had two children pretty recently — I know how that feels after the first couple of nights,” he said. “I’m certainly more empathetic than some of the others who’ve got slightly older children, or not having had children yet.”

It’s a way in which the 32-year-old coach’s youth might be an advantage for him, in that he is going through the same life stages as many of his players off the field. And for fans who also have young families, and who can’t quite get in all of the soccer-watching they would like to — well, Ramsay knows what you’re going through there, too.

According to the coach, he hasn’t been able to see much of the midweek CONCACAF Champions Cup games this year, even as the Columbus Crew have plowed their way through Mexican giants Tigres and Monterrey to reach the final against Pachuca — and for a very relatable reason.

“I haven’t watched loads of the games,” he said. “With keeping my eye on the Premier League … I think if I popped my wife in front of Columbus-Monterrey on a Wednesday night, it wouldn’t be welcomed.”