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Loon Droppings: MNUFC acquire Zendejas from Nashville SC

With a lack of depth at GK, the Loons have just acquired another Adrian, to address that lack of depth

By Ashle Paige
MLS: Sporting Kansas City at FC Cincinnati Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports

Minnesota United announced this afternoon that the club has acquired Adrian Zendejas from expansion side Nashville SC. Normally this would be outside the transfer window, however MLS revised those dates with FIFA. The transfer window is now running from August 12th to October 29th, about 2 1⁄2 months. The trade sends Nashville SC a Fourth Round pick in the 2021 MLS SuperDraft and $50K in GAM up to $100,000 in GAM “if Zendejas meets certain performance-based metrics with the Loons.”

This now does mean that Minnesota has five goalkeepers on their roster with those being: Tyler Miller, Greg Ranjitsingh, Dayne St. Clair, Fred Emmings, and now also Adrian Zendejas.

Currently MNUFC is fighting depth issues all around and the GK spot is no exception. With Miller out for the season initially Ranjitsingh took up the starting role with DSC backing him up. After three games as the starter Greg Ranjitsingh took the backup role and DSC took the start. However in the Loons last match at SKC, Ranjitsingh was listed out and 16 year old Fred Emmings had to back up St. Clair.

With Miller out for the season and Ranjitsingh also currently out due to injury this gives the Loons a decent pair of goalkeepers to choose from. As either Dayne St. Clair or Adrian Zendejas can get the nod and the other can back up. This also means Emmings, at 16, can focus more on development in training with the first team and matches with the Youth teams.

A majority of Zendejas’ career was spent with the Sporting Kansas City system, mostly on the reserve side in the USL Championship. Across all competitions he made 5 starts with SKC and 54 starts with Swope Park Rangers (now Sporting KC II) from 2016-19 before being signed by Nashville this season. In those 54 starts he had 20 clean sheets with SPR and a single clean sheet with SKC in the 2018 USOC.

The lack of depth also brings us to another part we have today. News broke last week that Young DP Thomás Chacón was be loaned back out to his former Uruguayan club Danubio. However the Pioneer Press’ Andy Greder broke this today.

This does mean that Chacón will stay in the North Star State for the time being but also does not rule out the possibility of a loan in the future.

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