Eric Ramsay was looking ahead to Minnesota United’s most difficult run of games since he was appointed head coach in March. A road trip featuring games in Colorado and Los Angeles in the space of five days, before returning to Minnesota, posed a logistical task as well as a sporting one. Tight schedules and travel have caught out many newcomers to MLS, but the former Manchester United assistant coach was keen to embrace that side of the league.
“Part of the appeal of this league to me, and part of the reason I wanted to take my first steps here as a head coach, was because some of the things we’re having to deal with are things you wouldn’t necessarily have to deal with at home,” Ramsay says.
“Altitude, heat, geography, travel, back-to-back away games with no home time in between – these are all things that from the perspective of first-time head coach, really help you cut your teeth. It’s very intense and very different. There aren’t many leagues that provide you with this variety.”
Minnesota United have started the 2024 season in promising fashion. They are third in the Western Conference through 15 games. Ramsay joined a few matches into the season after his now assistant, Cameron Knowles, steered the team through the opening weeks as Ramsay waited on his work permit. Those early months have been focused on instilling togetherness and tactical organisation. Ramsay preaches the collective, but his side have been driven by the creativity of attacking midfielder Robin Lod and the goal threat of Tani Oluwaseyi.
Oluwaseyi is having a breakout season. He scored 18 goals in 27 games on loan in the USL Championship with San Antonio FC last year and leads Minnesota in combined goals assists this season. He was recently named to Jesse Marsch’s first squad as Canada coach. Ramsay holds Oluwaseyi up as an example of growing quality across the board in MLS.
“There maybe wasn’t loads of expectation that he’d replicate [his season in USL] in MLS this year, but he’s done really, really well. I think the more cases you get of those types of players, who can visibly show that the difference in the levels isn’t huge, then I think you’ll get a much better sense of a proper pyramid,” he says.
The American sporting landscape is different to the majority of soccer leagues worldwide. There is no promotion or relegation, and leagues are made up of franchises rather than clubs. There is, though, a sense that soccer culture on both sides of the Atlantic is growing closer. European leagues are mooting salary caps and MLS-like super leagues at the top level. At the lower levels, US clubs are growing organically within communities rather than markets, in the style of some older European clubs.
Ramsay has seen signs of this growth around Minnesota ahead of a defining moment for the sport in the US – the Copa America starts this month and the 2026 World Cup is on the horizon.
“We’re almost on the limit attendance-wise every week with a crowd that is full of energy,” Ramsay says. “There’s a really strong supporter culture and you feel that in the city. We’re not the biggest sport in America, but here we seem to be talked about in the same way as the other sports.
“I think by the time these big international tournaments pass, I can only see it going one way and [the US] becoming one of the strongest soccer cultures and sporting environments in the world.”
While there will be some culture clashes as ideas of how to run soccer are exchanged across the Atlantic, more symbiotic is the exchange of ideas between sports at the coaching level.
As soccer increasingly becomes a game of managing transitions from attack to defence, coaches are taking lessons from US sports where transition play is more intense. Minnesota United’s good run of form prior to those back-to-back away games against Colorado Rapids and Los Angeles FC coincided with the Minnesota Timberwolves’ run in the NBA playoffs, where they reached the conference finals. Their coach, Chris Finch, started his coaching career in the UK with Sheffield Sharks before working his way up to the NBA.
Ramsay is keen to use his time in America to learn how coaches work in the big US sports leagues. He speaks regularly to Finch and has been following the Timberwolves story this season, occasionally from courtside seats.
“I’m learning the intricacies of basketball,” says Ramsay. “There are some parallels [with soccer] in how teams develop mismatches, how they think about the game from a one-on-one, individual versus individual perspective, and how you place individuals in the best set of circumstances within a game that is so fast-moving.
“I think, arguably, that’s the biggest transfer, but with basketball, there’s also a reasonable transfer to set-play situations such as using screens and blocks to get people free. Particularly in basketball and hockey, the transition from attack to defence takes place so quickly, just because of the nature of the size of the playing area, so they have to be almost perfect in executing those moments and transitions.
Beyond the court, Ramsay is looking at how to adapt US sports vernacular to fit his style.
“There are always terms and pieces of language that can transfer from one sport to another and help you capture a concept in your sport that may currently be clunkily captured,” Ramsay says. “It was part of the appeal of coming here because, in Minnesota, you’ve got all of the other big sports in America. Our sporting director Khaled El-Ahmad is very big on trying to push cross-pollination across these sports. There’s a healthy flow of access to watching games and training: I’ve so far been to hockey, basketball and baseball, and we’ve got the NFL to come in a couple of months. I think I’ll take a lot from that by the time I leave, which is an opportunity that is very hard to come by.”
Regardless of the perceived quality of play, or pros and cons of soccer’s structure in the United States, it has reached a new peak as an appealing destination in which to play and work. If Lionel Messi, one of the greatest players of all time, views American soccer as a destination ahead of other options, there must be something in it.
“I think it was, for me, as good as good timing as I could have hoped for with the hype currently around the game here and the fact that it’s definitely not reached its maturity,” Ramsay adds. “It’s reached a level where, week after week, you’re playing in relatively full stadiums. The infrastructure is really good, the atmosphere is very good, and the level has kicked on enormously.”
There is also the draw of the country itself. Has Ramsay had time to see much of America?
“I had a run up the Rocky Steps in Philadelphia one morning, so hopefully we’ll tick off a few of the iconic places and pieces of culture by the time I leave here,” Ramsay says. “On a trip like this where we go from Colorado and then spend three days in LA, we’ll certainly see a bit of LA and we’ll train at their training ground over the course of a couple of days.
“This goes beyond the sporting stuff. It’s a really nice life experience for me and my family, with two young children. I think the chance to see America and the chance to do something very different as a family and have a bit of an adventure was certainly part of the appeal.”
Embracing the uniqueness of US soccer and the surrounding sporting landscape can reap big rewards for a young coach. For Ramsay, who was highly rated back at Manchester United and the Wales national team setup, to have the chance to learn his trade in a distinctive environment is what made MLS such an attractive move.
