Analysis: Zarek Valentin retires, but Minnesota United keeps him in a multi-faceted role

MINNESOTA UNITED | ANALYSIS

By the time former Minnesota United defender Zarek Valentin retired at the end of 2024 he’d already begun the transition into his post-playing life. Injuries and age limited him all season; he played just five times for the first team and four for the second team, and not at all after August.

Which is not to say that he faded away — indeed, he was seemingly ever-present: doing color on the team’s radio broadcasts, exhorting teammates from the sidelines. Every day at training, limping around and trying to help in whatever way he could.

“Those are tough roles,” said goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair. “Guys that obviously want to be playing and aren’t contributing as much as they want on the field — but you can still contribute to the team.”

So when you try to define what Valentin is doing for the Loons in 2025, maybe that should be his job title: Contributor. (Valentin himself struggled to remember it, but eventually came up with the title: player transition and development associate.)

He’s not listed anywhere on the MNUFC website — not as a player, technical staff or member of the front office — but just like last season, he’s around. He’s on the sidelines again with the first team during training, albeit dressed as a coach and not a player.

He’s hosting the team’s official podcast this season. He’s every player’s number-one cheerleader; if you listen to him talk to, for example, Devin Padelford on the team’s podcast, you’re left thinking, “Man, I wish someone believed in me the way that Zarek Valentin believes in everybody.”

“I’m in a position where the club and [CSO Khaled El-Ahmad] and [CEO Shari Ballard] and [manager Eric Ramsay] have kind of come together and essentially created a position where it’s allowing me to explore different roles and try to provide value in a variety of different places, and at the same time host the podcast and have a little bit of fun with that,” Valentin said.

He joked that he’s a “young Manny Lagos,” after the Loons chief development officer who has held just about every possible job at the club.

Even though Ramsay is fluent in Spanish, Valentin remains the team’s hispanohablante-in-chief. Ramsay relies on him for live translation, for the Spanish-speaking players. When the Loons sign a defender from a new Spanish-speaking country, St. Clair goes to Valentin to learn the correct words to scream in the heat of the moment, to communicate.

“He is just one of those personalities whereby you can rely on him to be pretty purposeful in how he mentors young players, how he communicates, and how he leads from within the dressing room,” said Ramsay. “I’ve really just encouraged him to pick that up where it was left off last year and run with it, albeit in a slightly more formal way.”

So far, Valentin’s personal favorite has been working with young players, from college draft picks down to academy players. It’s something he’s done before, of course; it’s just that now he’s doing it from the sidelines, wearing coaching gear, rather than doing it in real time on the field.

Center back Jefferson Díaz missed Saturday’s game because of suspension — and at least for the moment, there’s no obvious place for him to slot into Minnesota’s three-man backline.

Díaz, who is right-footed, mostly played left center back last season after his summer arrival. But now, the Loons feel they have other options at every center back position, meaning that Díaz — who has shown the ability to play all three spots — might be more of a utility player.

“I feel like he’s fallen into a little gray area at points so far, but he did really well for us last year,” said Ramsay. “He’s someone that I know that can play across any of the positions in the back line, in that middle three. I know that we’ll draw on him in a variety of ways over the course of the year.”

• Left back Joseph Rosales may be out two to three weeks after leaving the LAFC game at halftime. “Could be better, could be worse,” said Ramsay, who said that he was glad to have made the call to remove Rosales rather than let him continue, and have “three weeks become six,” in his words.

• Striker Jordan Adebayo-Smith will go on loan to a team in the second-division USL Championship. Minnesota has had good luck with loans to the Championship in the past few years, with successful spells from players like Tani Oluwaseyi and Morris Duggan.