The most points in a single season. The first time qualifying for the MLS NEXT Pro playoffs. First playoff win. Second playoff win. First appearance in the Western Conference Final. All in all? Not a bad year for MNUFC2.
Not bad at all.
Since the inception of MLS NEXT Pro in 2022, Minnesota United has utilized the developmental league to do just that: develop. After four seasons of growth and change, it’s abundantly clear that MNUFC2 has become the bridge from the Academy to the first team that it was always intended to be, and now, they’re earning results of their own to further prove the concept. I sat down with Head Coach Jeremy Hall, along with standout contributors Britton Fischer and Logan Dorsey, to look back at what was a historic, statement season from their group.
Flying Start
Every season, the Twos start their journey on the road while they wait for the NSC Dome to come down. This year, that meant four road matches to start the year, a daunting way for any team to kick things off. How’d they manage, you ask? Well, four wins out of four doesn’t sound bad to me, and Coach Hall seemed pretty pleased with it as well.
The former MLS player turned coach reflected fondly on the start to the 2025 season, noting the work that went into assembling the team before anyone hit the field.
“I think in the whole process of building that team, we were very diligent on how we wanted to look, especially from the previous season,” Hall said. “We obviously wanted good players that we felt like could get into the first team at some point, but we also wanted really good people. People that could come in and really set the tone for what training looks like every day and who could come in and really help the Academy boys up and show them what that looked like. We added guys like [Luke] Hille and [Logan] Dorsey through that process. And then we had the other draft picks that joined in with us. Once we went into that Austin game, I just felt like we were ready for it.”
And ready they were. After 10 goals in their first four games, the Twos were alone atop the league standings, looking like world-beaters. It was the perfect payoff to a painstaking team construction process, and while it set a wonderful precedent for the season ahead, the form was bound to take a dip at some point.
“We hit the ground running,” Hall said. “We beat Austin, Houston, Sporting, and then we went to Colorado and finished 4-0. Going into that home game against North Texas, we were flying, we were confident, and I thought the performances were good. It was a special time. I think winning is a part of development, and those four road wins really set the tone for a long season.”
Part of Development
If winning is part of development, so is losing, even if it’s not as fun. After the hot start, the Loons cooled off, regressing to the mean with a few unlucky bounces here and there. From May to July, the ups and downs that come with a proper season were on full display.
“We were performing well, and I thought the performances were getting better, but we were just losing games through a lapse of concentration or an individual mistake,” Hall said of the middle stretch. “When you look at it holistically, the players were getting better and improving how we were playing, our style, and the things that we were doing. We just weren't finding results like we were in the first games.”
Coach Hall noted the focus on development, making it clear that the first priority for him and his coaching staff was to improve the players they were training every day. In the process of improvement, the Loons put together a 3-8-3 record (W-L-D), seeing them fall steadily down the league standings. But the coaches never doubted that progress was being made, and eventually, a turning point would come.
“I always pinpoint that 4-0 defeat in St. Louis,” Hall said. “That was probably the defining moment to close out that part of the season. We learned a lot about ourselves during that middle part. I thought we were really growing. We were still climbing, even though the results weren't going our way, but the performances were there. That St. Louis game is the part that really changed our season for the better.”
Hitting Stride
After holding a few team meetings in response to the heavy loss in St. Louis, something clicked for the Twos. They won or drew (and won the ensuing shootout) in eight of their last nine home games, putting together the kind of form that would see them extend their year well into the postseason. But after that dip in the middle of the year, the playoff push started early for MNUFC2.
“We came back to Minnesota, and we had another meeting about the last 10 or 11 games to finish the season,” Hall remembered. “They were all playoff games. All of them. And the majority of them were opponents that were in front of us in the table. We needed to see a response, and during that run, we just saw a different team. We weren't giving up soft goals, we were a bit more ruthless in front of goal, we were creating and scoring a lot of chances, and it set us up perfectly for our playoff run. I think the confidence that comes from winning games and feeling like we had to continue to win games to get ourselves into the playoffs helped us finish strong.”
Heading into the postseason, the Loons were buoyed by the goal-scoring efforts of forward Logan Dorsey, one of the club’s 2024 SuperDraft picks. Despite some early battles with various injuries, the former University of Kentucky striker scored nine goals in the team’s final 11 games of the season, and his form couldn’t have come at a better time. When top-scorer Luke Hille went down mid-season, Dorsey stepped in to keep the goals coming, eventually ending level with the injured Hille on 10 regular-season goals in 2025. While the trophy chase fell short in the Western Conference Final, the in-form striker reflected on the late push fondly.
“Halfway through the season, I think we were still trying to find our identity and who we wanted to be as a team,” Dorsey said. “Going into the end of the season and the postseason, I think our biggest improvement was that we found that. We found a way to get results in terms of, we’d go up a goal and we’d be hard to beat. Obviously, against Colorado in the final, we weren't able to finish it out, but you look at Austin towards the end of the year, you look at The Town towards the end of the year, you look at St. Louis in the [conference] semifinal: We went up and we didn't concede. We loved that. That was one thing that we wanted to do in games: get clean sheets and go up early and keep that lead. And so to be able to do that as a group repeatedly and kind of find that identity as a group was a huge improvement for us.”
Looking Back and Moving On
With a standard-setting season now behind them, there was no better player to reflect on the year than MNUFC2’s longest-tenured player, defender Britton Fischer, who just wrapped up his third season in Black and Blue.
“Every single year has been a little different,” Fischer said. “The first year coming in, I was just getting my feet wet and seeing what the league was about. And then the second year, we had a smaller squad and a lot more uncertainty. This year was really solid. Every single day, we had almost the same training group, relatively the same guys, and we were able to really build on performances. So I think this year in general, it was just about having the same group of guys that allowed us to understand each other a little more as the season went on.”
Standout performances across the pitch showcased the maturity and growth that Fischer identified, allowing a group that had been assembled through just about every player acquisition mechanism available to the club to really thrive. Whether they were top Academy players (Anderson Farris, Justin Sosnouski), SuperDraft picks (Logan Dorsey, Kieran Chandler, Roman Torres, Babacar Niang), international signings (Momoh Kamara, Troy Putt, Alpha Kabia), or domestic talent picked up through the scouting network (Luke Hille, Curt Calov, Muba Nour), the variety in player stories reflects just how much work went into putting this roster together.
With that work has come real results, both competitively and developmentally. Both Kieran Chandler and Darius Randell signed first-team deals this season, showcasing the efficacy of the player pipeline and showing future generations that there is indeed a path to top-level soccer within the MNUFC developmental pathway. For the likes of Academy standout Anderson Farris, that path led to more than 1,800 minutes played in MLS NEXT Pro, the third most of any MNUFC2 player in 2025.
“I’ve got a lot of love for Andy, because I remember last year when I first saw him, you could just see how fearless he is going into tackles, being brave in possession,” Hall said about Farris. “For me, I love guys with that mentality, and I always say that's number one. That's a non-negotiable. Because everything else you can work with and coach, but you can't coach that mentality. Andy had that from day one. And so I'm really proud of Andy. I think he has a bright future. He's committed to Georgetown, which I think will be a great step. I'm super excited to work with him again, because, like I said, I think he has all the ability to be a big-time player.”
Though the roster will continue to evolve as players progress, the foundation laid for MNUFC2 is stronger than it’s ever been. With top Academy players earning minutes, first-teamers adding experience, and up-and-comers waiting to make the jump to MLS, the environment has achieved that perfect mixture of level-appropriate talent, fully bridging amateur to professional in a way that Minnesota soccer has never seen before.
With the development of that bridge, we’ve seen the scope of player futures expand as well. Several MNUFC2 regulars earned national-team call-ups throughout 2025, with Momoh Kamara even earning a nomination for the CAF Young Player of the Year award, putting him among the best young African soccer players on the planet. Local signing Muba Nour made his debut for the Somali national team as well and is set to appear with them again later this month. Troy Putt (New Zealand) and Kayne Rizvanovich (USA) have been part of their respective youth national team setups as well, further showcasing the kind of talent that the Loons have the privilege of cultivating.
The offseason brings with it plenty of changes. New faces come and familiar ones go, but this standout season marks significant progress for the club as a whole. When asked to sum the year up in a single word, Coach Hall hit the nail on the head: special.
“You learn so much being in it day to day,” he said. “From a personal standpoint, I grew from being around [Fanendo] Adi, Cristiano [Costa], both special coaches that have really helped me out, and the whole staff, for that matter. When you look at a second team environment, it changes every day. To go from where we started to being 45 minutes away from a trophy, it's special, man. It was just such a fun year, the grind of it, the chaos of it all, and the wins just feel so much more special now than they did from when I was a player. Because I feel like when you get to see the learnings and see the growth of the players, that is just so meaningful. It was definitely a special year.”