Flying Kiwis – Michael Boxall Signs With Minnesota United
Fresh from being released by SuperSport United, Mike Boxall might wanna buy his agent a few bottles of something tasty and bitter because it’s only taken him a week to find a new club and it wasn’t exactly down the street either.
Yeah, Boxie’s gonna be doing his thing for Minnesota United now, an expansion MLS team midway through their debut season in the American top flight. He signs on an 18-month contract that’ll run for the rest of this season and the next and he becomes the sixth kiwi currently on an MLS roster. Jake Gleeson with Portland, Kip Colvey with San Jose and then the Vancouver All-Whitecaps trio of Deklan Wynne, Francis de Vries and Myer Bevan.
MNUFC head coach Adrian Heath: “We are really pleased to have added a player of his quality. He is a versatile player, can play right back, can play centre back. He’s got experience on the international stage with New Zealand and he’s gotten better as his career has progressed. We think he is a player who is going to push everybody for a starting role on this team moving forward, we know he is chomping at the bit to get going.”
These aren’t entirely new circumstances for Boxall. After playing four seasons of college footy at UC Santa Barbara (where Noah Billingsley currently attends, also the alma mater of one Tony Lochhead) he became the original Vancouver All-Whitecap when he was picked up in the 2011 MLS Supplemental Draft and he played in their first ever match, going on to log 19 MLS games and 21 all up for the Whitecaps before getting waived in his second season and returning to New Zealand to play for the Wellington Phoenix.
Now he’s found himself on another expansion team. And, let’s be brutally honest here, they can really bloody use him. Typically for a new team they’ve struggled to get much going in their first campaign, which began with a 5-1 thrashing away to Jake Gleeson’s lot before doing one worse and losing 6-1 at home to Atlanta United. They’ve been able to sprinkle a few better results in there since then but they hit the international break bottom of their conference. They’re scoring goals, that’s fine. But they’ve also leaked 42 goals in 19 matches, the worst total in the league. Hence signing the kiwi international defender.
Michael Boxall: “Excited to be here, I had heard a lot of positive things about the coaching staff here and that got me excited to join the club. Being involved in something from the very start and the opportunity to build something special here meant a lot. I’m very excited to get to know my teammates, the coaching staff and all the fans here in Minnesota.”
It’s likely he’ll be considered more of a right back in Minny. Boxall may have played every game at the Confeds with the All Whites as a centre back in their back three but he was always a RB for SuperSport. Minnesota clearly fancy his versatility though. Their captain is Costa Rican international Francisco Colvo and they also boast Jermaine Taylor in the middle, who plays for Jamaica and was a teammate of Jake Gleeson last season. Both are away on Gold Cup duty. Brent Kallman usually starts at CB with Colvo but he’s currently injured and so is depth CB Vadim Demidov. So… yeah, straight in at the deep end for Mikey. Mate, it can’t be any harder than marking Cristiano Ronaldo.
What’s a little weird here is that according to an interview with Minnesota Star Tribune over in Prince-ville, this transfer was in the works up to two months ago and was “pretty much done” before the Confederations Cup. Obviously with contract situations the inside parties sorta have a good idea what’s coming months in advance, so Boxall’s agent will have been taking calls once that SSU deal rounded the corner into its last six months. Boxall was called back early to SSU duty from his post-Confeds holiday. Then they released him. There’s more on the release in the last Flying Kiwis/Transfer Window thing but the club said they were definitely keen to have him back, albeit on revised terms. Sounds like Boxall went back with another offer in hand and everyone kinda understood what was gonna happen from that point. Sweet as.
Anyway, while there was no indication that the Minnesota deal was sorted when Boxall and SSU split, what’s said publically and what’s known privately are two different things. It might be that SSU wanted him to take a pay-cut so he looked elsewhere or it might be that he wanted to join Minny Utd and SSU obliged him with his contract running down already.
More Mike Boxall: “With the way I left MLS the first time, I wasn't happy with how that was at so I kind of feel like I almost had this unfinished business here that I'd like to get back to work and help this team, help this city.”
The manager over there is Adrian Heath, the same one who played a couple hundred times for Everton in the 80s. As a boss he’s done his best stuff with Orlando City in America. So well that they went from a fresh USL team to an expansion MLS team and he’s been tasked with doing something similar with a fresh franchise here too. Just like Mike Boxall, all about settling them new teams in.
Also, Minnesota United are known as The Loons. Just… something maybe worth knowing.
Boxall takes up an international spot in the squad which is handy because one just opened up with Swedish goalkeeper John Alvbage’s loan finishing up this week. How convenient. He landed in Minnesota a couple days ago and his first chance to take the park will be an international break friendly on the weekend, with the MLS getting back into things a week later where Minny hosts both Houston Dynamo and New York Red Bulls in a four day span.
Straight into it, bro.
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