MINNEAPOLIS -- The Twin Cities have never had something quite like what's coming in 2018. But long before Major League Soccer entered the country's 15th-largest media market, there were the Kicks, Strikers and Thunder.
Here's a quick look back at the history of professional soccer in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Minnesota Kicks: The Denver Dynamos relocated to Minnesota in 1976, and from then till 1981, the renamed Kicks played at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington and drew as many as 45,000 fans for big matches. Playing in the old North American Soccer League -- not the current one to which Minnesota United FC belongs -- the club went 104-70 before folding after the 1981 season.
Minnesota Strikers: Three years after the Kicks broke camp, the Fort Lauderdale Strikers of the NASL moved north and became the Minnesota Strikers. The league folded after their one season here, 1984, but the franchise survived for four more years as a member of the Major Indoor Soccer League. During their one season at the Metrodome, the Strikers averaged 14,262 in attendance before moving into the Met Center for MISL play.
Minnesota Thunder: After four years as an amateur side, the locally-established Minnesota Thunder joined the United States Interregional Soccer League starting in the 1995 season. In 1997, coach Buzz Lagos' group joined the USL A-League. The Thunder played at the National Sports Center in Blaine until 2009. At that point, the team was losing money and the National Sports Center formed a new one to replace it.
Minnesota Stars FC: Starting in 2010 (then known as NSC Minnesota Stars), this National Sports Center-owned team joined the new North American Soccer League, a Division 2 professional league under the United States soccer umbrella. In 2011 -- the same year Minnesota claimed its first league championship -- the NASL assumed ownership of the team and gave it three years to find a new, non-league owner.
Minnesota United FC: That owner came in the form of Dr. Bill McGuire, who bought the team in 2012 and renamed it Minnesota United FC. Coached by Manny Lagos -- the son of Thunder visionary Buzz Lagos -- United reached the NASL semifinals and saw midfielder Miguel Ibarra called up to the United States men's national team last year.
