MINNEAPOLIS – (Nov. 21, 2013) The Minnesota United FC season concluded in early November and this week the team held a press conference to reflect on the past season and to look ahead to 2014.
The team had previously announced a price reduction on a large number of tickets for 2014 and this week team owner Dr. Bill McGuire announced where the team will play its 2014 schedule.
“We’ve also renewed a contract for future years with the National Sports Center in Blaine and we are going to be working hand-in-hand with them to take some of our learning’s of this year and improve and expand the experience that’s available to fans coming up to Blaine for the teams home games and other related events may be occurring,” McGuire said.
In signing the three year extension with the National Sports Center as its game day site, the team also announced that it will be moving its training facility to a newly renovated facility in Woodbury.
The training and development of players is something that the organization wants to put an emphasis on as they continue to grow professional soccer in Minnesota. That desire led into the second major announcement at the press conference from team president Nick Rogers.
“Starting next year we’re going to be fielding a second team,” Rogers said. “There’s a league called the National Premier Soccer league, the NPSL and starting next year we’re going to have a team playing in that league so we’re starting to build out sort of the pyramid of our club, where there’s a first team, a reserve team, and again this is the effort to lay a foundation for a professional soccer club.”
The reserve team will play home games at East Ridge High School in Woodbury; its season will run from May through August.
