The ancient Romans used the practice of augury — studying patterns of bird movement — to predict the future. In a way that’s what I’m doing here: Trying to predict the future of Loon movements.

The transfer window is about to open and Andy Greder has at least a hint of a whisper of a possible target: 

Check-in: Word is #MNUFC identified a player to target in the World Cup, but he had a good tournament, especially vs. a huge opponent, so the concern is the price went up too high. That’s the issue: a club like #Loons want him to do well on int’l stage, but not too well that he’s now unaffordable.

— Andy Greder (@andygreder.bsky.social) 2026-07-03T18:22:08.098Z

Naturally, I was set to the task of figuring out who was being discussed. Naturally, I think I’m close. I’m not a prophet, certainly no Elijah, and I’m not calling my shot Just yet, but one player jumped out at me from his first moments, so I was glad to see him still standing at the end.

Here’s how I got to my short list:

Greder published that post on July 3 and the player “had a good tournament,” rather than “is having” or even “has had.” I believe this means the player in question had been eliminated by July 3. 

Most teams had at least one game against a huge opponent, that’s kind of the point of the World Cup after all, so that doesn’t eliminate a lot of teams. But not every team played well against their huge opponents, so the list I came up with of teams that were eliminated by July 3, but had played reasonably well against a huge opponent — broadly defined – before they were bounced is this.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cabo Verde, Congo DR, Curacao, Czechia, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, South Korea, Panama, Qatar, Senegal, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan.

That’s a whole mess of teams! 

Here it’s important to remember that this isn’t just about finding max value, the Loons have a transfer philosophy they stick fairly close to, which helps pare down the possibilities. Leandro Bacuna played well for Curacao against Germany, but I don’t think Minnesota’s front office is actively targeting midfielders pushing 35. So I put the cut at 30, but fully aware the team wants to go as young as possible when they can.

I used futi scores as a proxy for “played well.” Holistic value metrics are tough to build, moreso in soccer than in any other sport, in my experience, but everything I’ve seen of futi tells me it’s being built incredibly thoughtfully. I’m really impressed with the work John Muller has put in! 

That said, matching what any single metric says to what a GM or CSO defines as value is impossible. They can hew closely and often do for smart teams; but where game score, WAR, or G+ try to make a universalizable definition of skill or value, Minnesota United’s front office is tasked with finding value within the context of the team as constructed. That changes how skills and weaknesses are weighted, which can swing the overall scores quite a bit. 

As a result, I didn’t make a hard cut in the futi scores. Saying a guy had to score 50+ to be considered to have played well introduced false precision. 

So, cutting the list down to players 30 or under, that played well in a big game, and whose team had been eliminated by July 3 leaves just eight players. Club team and Transfermarkt value appear alongside name, position, and age. 

South Korea: Eom Ji-Sung, LWB, 24, Swansea, $2m

South Africa: Yaya Sithole, CDM, 27, Tondela, $750k

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Amar Dedić, RB, 23, Benfica, $18m

Scotland: Lewis Ferguson, MF, 26, Bologna, $16m

New Zealand: Elijah Just, LW, 26, Motherwell, $3m

Iraq: Ali Al-Hamadi, ST, 24, Ipswich Town, $2m

Jordan: Moussa Al-Tamari, RW, 29, Stade Rennes, $11.5m

Panama: Amir Murillo, RB, 30, Beştikaş, $8m

The Loons have still never spent more than $5 million on a transfer fee. I suspect they’ll need to before long, but even giving them a 50% bonus on top of Reynoso’s fee still makes $7.5 million a reasonable cut-off, which leaves us with: 

South Korea: Eom Ji-Sung, LWB, 24, Swansea, $2m

South Africa: Yaya Sithole, CDM, 27, Tondela, $750k

New Zealand: Elijah Just, LW, 26 Motherwell, $3m

Iraq: Ali Al-Hamadi, ST, 24, Ipswich Town, $2m

I thought about eliminating CONCACAF teams right from the start because I found the odds that Minnesota had suddenly discovered a target on a team that plays with or against several current and former Loons with some frequency to be fairly low. “Hey, have y’all heard of this Florian Bal-o-gun fellow, he seems pretty good!”

So I was pleased to see the last potential CONCACAF player come off the board.

I intend to go into more depth on each of these guys as I get time, but ranking them from most likely to be the player the Loons are – or were – targeting to least, I’d say:

Just, Al-Hamadi, Sithole, Ji-Sung.

Ji-Sung is last because his appearances for South Korea were cameos. A pair of 20-minute runouts isn’t going to change someone’s transfer value that wildly unless they really show out running at tired legs or, like, try to stab the AR with their own flag. He did neither. Even so, I kept him on the list because he’s a close enough fit, it’s worth keeping an eye on him.

The transfer window opens on Monday, so there’s a chance we’ll find out relatively soon who KEA meant, but given the Loons’ habit of leaving incoming business late, I suspect we may find out by process of elimination as players move to more aggressive teams.