Ok, I’ve said it plenty of times by now: but I really struggled to keep up daily writing routines when I was teaching full time. That’s what happens to me when I spend most of the day supporting 70 other people’s writing, and the rest of it trying to be a parent.

So rather than write one post covering six months of eleven teams in action, I’m going to break it up with posts as best as I can, I’ll fill you in on how the games have gone, who has excelled and any other news and stories worth knowing.

Match Results: 20 W – 8 D – 12 L ; GF: 103 GA: 49

Minnesota United: 10 W – 6 D – 11 L; GF: 40 GA: 41

The Loons have veered between world beating confidence and inexplicable distress. At the season’s start, there were some excellent showings despite upheaval in the roster and confusion on the coaching search (more on that in a little bit). But the team came together after the introduction of new manager Eric Ramsay and came into May as one of the top three teams in the Western Conference.

And then the wings fell off the high flying Loons.

That’s not fully accurate: the wings fell off the Loons and caught on fire and crumbled into ash and then got vacuumed up by a strangely aggressive cleaning crew who took them out and spat on them and called them names.

Just in case you think I’m being hyperbolic, please consider that over the first 14 games of the Loons schedule they won 8, drew 4 and only lost twice. But in June and July the Loons only won and drew 2, which means they quadrupled their loss total by dropping 9!

Minnesota Aurora: 10 W – 2 D – 1 L; GF: 63 GA: 8

To the south of St. Paul, Minnesota Aurora continued to light up their competition. They poured in 21 goals over two matches with Kenosha, and another 26 in the four matches against Chicago Dutch Lions and Bavarian United (a side out of Milwaukee).

Once again Aurora seems to be a proving ground for talented young players en route to the professional ranks as they dominate the games and share the love in racking up goals. But, once again, heartbreak awaited them in the knockout stages. Fortunately, instead of getting to the final match before the suffering began, the Minnesota side was dropped out with a sudden shocking twist of fate against Indy Eleven.

Other Stories:

There were a few shifts in personal in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Nicole Lukic, who oversaw the first two supremely successful Aurora seasons left before things got started to take over youth squad recruitment for the US Women’s National Team. The USWNT is arguably the most prestigious soccer program in the country (many World Cups/Gold Medals will do that for you), and Lukic had a tremendous run bringing in great young players to the Twin Cities, so she should be superb there, while Aurora barely missed a beat in the league with Colette Montgomery taking over.

The men’s situation was a bit more…uh…chaotic. You may recall that Sean McAuley was going to be in charge temporarily…then left to get rid of that “temporarily”. Cameron Knowles stepped up, but was still labeled as an “interim” manager even after the squad looked strong for the first few matches. Finally, the Loons landed a high profile manager from the other MUFC (Manchester United Football Club). Ramsay is young, but has a bright future…provided these summer doldrums don’t undo him.

As if coaching upheaval wasn’t already chaotic, Minnesota United had to deal with some transfer sagas as well: Kervin Arriaga has been a great defensive midfielder the last several years, and now he’ll get to try to show the same thing in Europe (albeit for Partizan Belgrade…against our pals at Vozdovac). But Kervin’s upward trajectory is nothing in comparison with the death spiral of the supremely talented Emmanuel Reynoso. From the fulcrum of the club who could demand his heart’s desire, Reynoso has spent two years preferring to hang out back home in Argentina rather than training with teammates. I don’t blame him, I’m a home body too…but when you hang out with guys who attack random teenagers with guns …uh…that’s not so cool. Ultimately Minnesota moved Reynoso to Mexico just to be rid of the discomfort…even though dropping him probably didn’t help the squad get better…but it did make the club less violent so…I’ll take it as a win.

Star Players:

Sophie French and Cat Rapp once again dominated defensive lines all throughout the uppermidwest. This year they were helped by newcomer Sage Wimes, and midfield maestros Katie Duong, Addison Weichers and Mariah Nguyen.

The Loons seemed happy to give up the “hope for Reynoso to do something magical” strategy and found a good balance in their team. Tani Oluwaseyi has emerged as another goal scoring threat (even while the boys’ favorite Bongi struggles with lingering injuries). Oluwaseyi even managed to make the Canadian national team alongside permanent highlight reel goalie: Dayne St. Claire. St. Clair had help from Joseph Rosales’ very good defense in the backline and the all around creation and goal scoring accumen of Robin Lod and Hasani Dotson.