Minnesota United made the addition of Julian Gressel official on Tuesday morning. The 31-year-old right-sided player did not play for Inter Miami this season, but his skills will help fill needs for the Loons.

“If you were to sort of script the type of player that we need,” MNUFC coach Eric Ramsay said, it would be Gressel, whom Ramsay called “a serial winner” and “a steady character.”

Gressel, who is under contract through 2026, with a club option for 2027, has played 245 matches in MLS, winning an MLS Cup with Atlanta and Columbus, and the Supporters Shield with Miami last season. He totaled nine assists and one goal in 2,340 MLS minutes. Gressel’s lack of playing time this year was a decision from new coach Javier Mascherano.

This acquisition was not an intra-league trade, nor the new for-cash transfer, but rather Miami waiving Gressel and the Loons claiming his rights. Rights are awarded, in part, by the order in which the claim was received and how much of the player’s salary budget charge a team is willing to absorb.

“I think the second he became possibility, we started to have some conversations,” Ramsay said.

Gressel made $1.09 million in guaranteed compensation with Miami in 2024, according to the MLS Players Association. This move will lower his salary for MNUFC somewhere between his former salary and the MLS senior minimum ($104,000). That won’t be known until the Players Association releases its salary figures later this spring. Gressel is American, so he will not occupy an international spot.

While Gressel hasn’t played this year, in 2024 he was primarily a right wing or right midfielder as Inter won the Supporters Shield. In 2023, he finished that season at right wingback as Columbus Crew won MLS Cup.

Ramsay was noncommittal on Gressel’s best spot in Minnesota but narrowed it down to right wingback, a right-sided central midfielder, or No. 8, which would help fill a need with Hassani Dotson sidelined indefinitely by a knee injury

“I feel like the plus point for him is that he can do both,” Ramsay said. “I think he’s a player that does take a lot of pride in his versatility, from the conversation I had with him.”

Ramsay said if the club isn’t going to fill all its senior roster spots, versatility is a bigger necessity. If Gressel can fill in at right wingback, Ramsay said a “knockdown effect” would be current right wingback Bongi Hlongwane might spend time at his more-natural position of forward.

The right side, Ramsay said, “is an obvious point in our squad where you’d say that we, between right-sided (No. 8) and wingback, having lost Hassani, could do with some options and competition and depth.”

Ramsay also sees Gressel providing right-footed service on set pieces, something the team doesn’t currently have.

One of the Loons best teams — the 2019 edition — was constructed, in part, from within MLS with Ozzie Alonso coming from Seattle and Ike Opara from Kansas City. The Gressel move is from the same playbook, and the opposite of how the Loons tried to add diminutive right back Matus Kmet from Slovakia last summer.

Kmet never fit and is out on loan in Poland this season.

“We we want to bring players in that you can say with certainty are going to have a level of influence on the team’s success,” Ramsay said. “… The fact that (Gressel) has not played for five or six months with any real regularity doesn’t seem like it will be an issue. I think he’s a guy who will have looked after himself really well and should be able to hit the ground running.”

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