Finlay: “Minnesota wanted me, and they wanted me bad.”

Minnesota United have done their best in recent weeks to cope with a string of injuries that has made earning three points in any given match far from certain. But the final days of the secondary transfer window proved to be a critical turning point for a club in need of backup.

Ethan Finlay, a veteran winger with Columbus Crew, will join the club after Minnesota secured his services with a sizable $425,000 offer in allocation money. He spoke to Soccer By Ives about the move.

“It seemed like the right time to make that transition. At first, I thought, ‘Do we wait until the end of the year or wait this out because injuries can happen, anything can happen,’ but I felt this was the right time. The fact that Minnesota came in as strong as they did, there were other suitors as well, but this was the right time. You want to be somewhere where you’re wanted and Minnesota wanted me, and they wanted me bad.”

By all accounts, Finlay is a fantastic person and teammate and will be sorely missed in the Columbus locker room.

“You rarely have it that you trade a guy and the whole team’s around him wishing him goodbye and he’s saying goodbye, and I can’t picture tomorrow without him,” Berhalter said, according to the Columbus Dispatch. “He’s been such an important piece of what we’re doing and tomorrow when we’re training, he’s not going to be here and it’s going to be strange. He was a huge part of this group and for me personally I’m going to miss him.”

Read the full writeup on Soccer By Ives.