The new Minnesota United FC team played its first match on Friday in the MLS. We got the unlucky draw of facing the Portland Timbers, a team that a couple of years ago was at the top of the heap. To say that our first outing was a bit of a rough ride, would be an understatement. I didn’t get a chance to watch the game live, but I’ve seen some highlights, and it’s apparent that we have a lot of work to do. There were a lot of basic mistakes that were made, that need to be corrected quickly as we head into the new season.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the youngest expansion team is struggling. We came to the table late, and only filled out our roster recently. We’ve got a new coach, and a bunch of people that are still learning how to play in the top league. It does suck though that we need to go through a couple years of pain before we’ll probably have a competitive team. That’s the woes of having an expansion team.

I’m hopeful that our home opener this Sunday will go much better, as we’re facing off against the other expansion team in the league, Atlanta United. They were also defeated in their opener, but not by such a large margin. One thing we have to our advantage is playing in cold weather. It’s going to be in the mid-30s at game time, and hopefully some of those warm weather Georgians will wilt in those types of temp.