Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of Minnesota United firing manager Adrian Heath — and what a sea change 12 months can make.

Under new head coach Eric Ramsay, the Loons clinched a return to the MLS Cup Playoffs after a one-year hiatus, and in the process, have broke a handful of club records.

MNUFC locked in a playoff spot with two matches to go and have guaranteed at least one home postseason game at Allianz Field. The match in St. Paul will come in either the wild-card match or a Round 1 best-of-three series. Minnesota’s final playoff seed will be determined after the home regular-season finale against St. Louis City on Oct. 19.

Over the previous year, new Chief Soccer Officer Khaled El-Ahmad has strengthened parts of the roster’s foundation, while others are still a work in progress. Since joining in March, Ramsay has established a more detail-oriented process and application for the daily work done at the National Sports Center in Blaine.

The Loons best player, midfielder Emanuel Reynoso, went AWOL again, played one half hour of MLS minutes and was jettissoned to Club Tijuana in May. They hardly missed him.

Heath was known as an offensive-centric head coach with a particular style of play and across nearly seven full seasons, his highest-scoring side totaled 52 goals in 2019. Ramsay’s first team has 54 goals with one game to go.

Kelvin Yeboah, a new Designated Player, has scored seven goals in his first eight games, appearing to be the prolific striker Heath was never able to add nor fully develop. Two other key attackers, carry-overs from the Heath era, have set MLS career highs for goals scored: Bongi Hlongwane (11) and Tani Oluwaseyi (eight).

None in that trio have turned 25 years old.

Minnesota has smashed the club’s single-season assist record of 46, which was previous set in 2018 and matched in 2019. United currently has 56 total assists through 33 games.

Robin Lod, who was lost to a season-ending knee injury in May 2023, has recorded 15 total assists in 31 matches this year. That matches Darwin Quintero’s single-season high in a United shirt. Lod currently ranks third in MLS in assists, behind Cincinnati’s reigning MLS MVP Luciano Acosta (19) and Portland star Evander (18).

The 2024 Loons have produced eight road wins — two more than the club’s previous best of six set in 2022 and ’23. Ramsay has achieved that through more flexibility to adjust formations and tactics between games and sometimes mid-game. Substitutions were so often left late in games under Heath, but with Ramsay are like clockwork at the one-hour mark and are often run out before the final whistle.

MNUFC has been able to return to the playoffs and raise the bar in these stat categories despite having an awful mid-summer. A shorthanded roster due to injuries and players on international duty resulted in a nine-match winless skid, including six straight losses, from early June to mid-July.

Ramsay was even-keeled throughout the downturn, calmly pointing out reasons why and looking for solutions, but that lull will keep the current club from setting a higher points-per-game mark this fall. The Loons 49 points will fall at lest one short of the club record 53 set in 2019.

The Loons are peaking at the right moment, going 5-1-1 in their last six.

As a defensive-centric coach, Ramsay’s team is riding a 405-minute shutout streak since Sept. 18, which in the 1-0 win over Vancouver on Saturday bested the club’s previous mark of 349 minutes in 2020. MNUFC is currently unbeaten in its last six road games (4-0-2), another club achievement for longest road run without a loss.

The Loons, however, have allowed 48 goals in 2024, which is nowhere near the club’s best of 26 conceded in 2020. More work remains on that side of the ball, but their midseason issues with defensive set pieces has subsided.

All this has been achieved as El-Ahmad has had only one full transfer window to upgrade the team. The club wasn’t able to finalize the addition of a defensive midfielder before the summer window closed and more reinforcements should come at that position and elsewhere on the back line this winter.

The Loons new leadership pair has emphasized and incorporated its academy prospects in training sessions on a regular basis and it has shown a clearer development pathway to the first team. The inclusion of Lakeville’s Loic Mesanvi in MLS is the most recent example.

Regular inclusion of academy players and nurturing more squad depth was not an emphasis under Heath, who would often ride the same small group of players, even during condensed schedules.

Opportunities abound under Ramsay with 36 total players seeing MLS minutes this season; that’s believed to be a league-wide high. Players can be asked to take on new positions they aren’t accustomed to, and if players display versatility in those roles, they can be rewarded with more chances to play.

Ramsay, the youngest coach in MLS at age 32,  has felt a level of vindication in the success so far this season but the Welshman is not sitting back.

“It has shown that when we got a reasonable group of players, we can be really competitive, right at the top of our conference,” Ramsay said last week. “And fingers crossed we are only going to be more competitive moving into next season. So there is definitely a sense of satisfaction, but also a sense that we want to go again.”