Major League Soccer announced this month that Minnesota United has been named Medical Staff of the Year for the 2025 season, an honor the team previously earned in 2019.
“I’m so proud of our team and of what this recognition represents,” said Dr. Robby Bershow, MNUFC’s Chief Medical Officer and sports medicine physician with Allina Health Orthopedics. “Keeping the guys supported on and off the pitch is a year-long effort that requires hard work, problem-solving, and most of all, collaboration. We have an impressively talented group of athletic trainers, performance specialists, doctors, and experts in nutrition and physical therapy, and this award reflects how their expertise and dedication came together to accomplish something truly unique this season.”
Three clubs are nominated by the league for this honor each year based on a scoring matrix. Because attention to detail is so critical in the medical field, clubs earn points for adherence to league policies, webinar attendance, and administrative excellence, including timeliness and completeness of data entry and submission.
This season, Minnesota United was nominated alongside Columbus Crew and Sporting Kansas City. Following nomination, each club is allowed one vote (cast by a Chief Medical Officer or Head Athletic Trainer/Therapist) to select a winner, a component Head Athletic Trainer Kayce Godwin says often encompasses more of the in-action aspects of the team’s work.
“Your peers vote on the hospitality piece, like when we travel, taking care of other teams and such,” she said. “We also had a significant reduction in injury rate this year.”
Godwin started at MNUFC in 2019 as a member of the Academy staff and has seen firsthand how integral every level of care, from the Academy to the first team, is to the overall success of the club. Though the recognition is a first-team award, Godwin likes to include everybody because she knows how first-team practices trickle down to the rest of the medical teams and vice versa.
“We all just kind of work together,” she said. Along with two assistant athletic trainers and a physical therapist, the first team works with five primary Allina Health doctors who are critical to the club’s success and the players’ ongoing care.
“At the end of the day, I, as the head athletic trainer, feel super honored and really proud of our medical team,” Godwin said. “The rest of the athletic trainers and PT, all of that working together to one, even be nominated, and then two, to win the award again. We had a really, really solid year, so I'm super happy.”
Minnesota United’s first-team medical staff includes:
- Robby Bershow, M.D., Chief Medical Officer/Team Physician – Allina Health
Aimee Klapach, M.D., Team Orthopedic Surgeon – Allina Health - Joe Bellamy, M.D., Team Orthopedic Surgeon – Allina Health
- Greg Folsom, M.D., Team Orthopedic Surgeon – Allina Health
- Ryan Fader, M.D., Team Orthopedic Surgeon – Allina Health
- Kayce Godwin, Head Athletic Trainer
- Hillary Bell, Assistant Athletic Trainer
- Neil De Cleene, Assistant Athletic Trainer/Physical Therapist
- Calvin Mai, Physical Therapist