With the ink now dry on his contract with Minnesota United, forward Darwin Quintero was formally introduced at a press conference on Monday at the Midpointe Event Center, just a few hundred yards from Allianz Field. While fans got to meet him on Saturday night when he came out on the capo stand during the team’s match against Atlanta United at TCF Bank Stadium, this was one of the first chances to hear both from the man himself as well as Head Coach Adrian Heath and Director of Player Personnel Amos Magee as they discussed how and why they went after the Colombian star.
Magee talked about Quintero’s name recognition among anyone following world soccer and how he, Heath and Sporting Director Manny Lagos had all scouted Quintero separately prior to coming together with MNUFC. When the sporting staff took a trip to Panama City just ahead of the team’s home opener, it was less to assess him as a player and more to get to know him better and to talk specifically about his desire to come to MLS and Minnesota in particular.
What the club’s plan had been from the very beginning, stressed Magee, was to build a core around a set of shared values and a vision for how the team should represent the community and those values. Once they had built that solid foundation, they knew they would be on the lookout for the right kind of player who could further that vision of the team and take the club to another level, and Quintero was a unanimous choice among them to be that player.
Heath emphasized that Quintero would provide the Loons with a scoring punch and re-iterated what he’s said before about scoring and creating goals being the most difficult thing in the game and the reason why forwards were almost inevitably the highest paid players on the pitch. He referenced Quintero’s (frankly awesome) nickname of "The Scientist of the Goal" and said that the supporters would love watching him play.
Quintero himself spoke (via PR Manager Jessica Lopez) about his feeling that Minnesota United has tremendous ambitions and that he wants to put in the work to take the team to the top. Smiling broadly, he held up his #25 kit with Heath and Magee on either side of him with Heath quipping that he was especially excited because the 5-foot-5-inch Quintero is even shorter than he is.
Quintero wrapped up his afternoon with a tour of the snowy construction site of Allianz Field and seemed none the worse for wear despite the squall that moved in and blanketed Midway during the event.
