Maybe the Minnesota Aurora’s goal for 2025 is simple: more of the same.
After all, this is still a team that’s never lost a regular-season game in the USL W League. It’s still a team that has averaged more than 5,000 fans a game in Eagan, one that’s still raising money through community ownership — pulling in $850,000 in its latest ownership drive, along with more than 2,000 new owners from around the world.
So you could understand why the Aurora’s fourth season, which opens Thursday at 7 p.m. at TCO Stadium against Rochester FC, might look a lot like the first, second and third.
“It’s hard to leave this place,” said Mariah Nguyen, who’s returning for her fourth year with the Aurora. “We have something really special here. I love the girls. I love the staff. The culture is amazing.”
Jen Larrick is the new coach; she was an assistant for the first two of those seasons. The roster will look awfully familiar to longtime Aurora fans; all three Rapp sisters (Cat, Elizabeth and Rami) are back again for another year, along with other original players like Nguyen and Jelena Zbiljic.
Larrick has a proud tradition to carry on, but she said she doesn’t feel the pressure.
“I just love coaching,” she said. “I love seeing good soccer happen on the field, so I really stick to, like, what are the process goals? Today, we wanted to get better at something in particular. I think we did. That’s a good day in my book.”
But while the Aurora have exceeded all expectations, in terms of earning a place in the Minnesota sports scene, they’re all too Minnesotan in another way: trouble come playoff time.
