The look on Michael Boxall’s face spoke volumes.

As the Loons captain sat in front of a camera for a video conference call late Monday night. San Diego FC ended Minnesota United’s season with 1-0 result in a Western Conference semifinal at Snapdragon Stadium, and Boxall’s expression said it all:

Anguish.

San Diego FC midfielder Anders Dreyer (10) shoots past Minnesota United defender Michael Boxall (15) during the second half of MLS soccer’s Western Conference semifinal Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

“As soon as the final whistle went, it was all pretty somber,” Boxall said. “Grateful for what we do and really appreciate all the traveling fans that showed up (Monday). That’s always huge.”

The Loons amassed a club-record 58 points in 34 regular-season games to finish fourth in the 15-team Western Conference —  an even bigger achievement considering the club’s salary budget was 13th. MNUFC beat Seattle Sounders, a MLS gold standard, in a first-round series and reached the conference semis for a second straight year. Again, they hit their heads on that ceiling.

Seeking the first trophy in the club’s nine-year MLS history, United finished three games shy of winning the MLS Cup, and two games from hoisting U.S. Open Cup in September.

“I think there’s that sense of real frustration, a sense of realism, I suppose, with where we’re at and how that game reflects the entirety of the year,” head coach Eric Ramsay said late Monday night. “But then also some real pride. And we’re certainly leaving here feeling like we’ve taken some big steps forward over the course of this year, really moved the club forward.”

“We’re not leaving with the same feeling that we had in the semifinal last year as we left L.A.,” Ramsay said about the 6-2, semifinal loss to the Galaxy in 2024. “I am pretty capable of looking at these things fairly objectively, even in the immediate aftermath of it.”

But this Loons’ season comes with a heavy dose of what might have been?

Minnesota sold its leading scorer, striker Tani Oluwaseyi, in August for upwards of $9 million to Villarreal — a club-record transfer fee to allow the Canadian to follow his dream of playing in a top European league. Ramsay said that changed the trajectory of the season. And he acknowledged Monday, “We haven’t been the same threat.”

“I’m not going to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, I suppose, by speaking about it differently, but I haven’t wanted to dwell on that,” he added. “We haven’t talked about it internally all that much. Obviously (we) don’t talk about that type of thing with the players. And we have wanted to be super positive, constructive, and we have found a way in spite of the fact that we’ve lost a very obvious, key component of our team.”

When Oluwaseyi was sold, Loons Chief Soccer Officer Khaled El-Ahmad retorted that the “leading striker has not left,” a reference to Kelvin Yeboah still being with the team. But weeks after Oluwaseyi’s exit, Yeboah pulled his hamstring in the Open Cup semifinal loss to Austin and didn’t return until the regular-season finale a month later.

As he worked into better fitness, Yeboah was a non-factor during the Seattle series and had one shot in 90 minutes against San Diego.

To aid the attack, the Loons paid a $2 million transfer fee to Austria Wien for midfielder Dominik Fitz at the close of the summer transfer window. He didn’t play against the Sounders, and didn’t make an impact as a sub in seven brief minutes against San Diego. The 26-year-old will need to get up to speed by next season to show he’s worth a four-year contract.

Now that the season is over, the biggest questions pertain to the futures of a few key pieces in Minnesota.

Ramsay, in a move from the U.K in 2024, became the youngest coach in MLS at age 32. In two seasons, he has produced outsized success with a low-spending club. He has previously received interest from UK looking for head coaches, and those inquiries will likely rekindle this winter.

The key things for him to ponder are: How much further can he take a low-spending team? Will a potential regression in the standings hurt his ambitions to advance his career in Europe?

“I wouldn’t swap what we’ve built over the course of these two years here,” Ramsay said. “I’ve loved it as a coach. I feel like it’s really developed me and my staff, and we’ve loved working with the group of players. They’re a really honest group of players. … We can find solutions to problems, we can find a way of making our group far more competitive than our means and spend (as) those types of things would suggest. That’s a great challenge, and one that I’ve loved leading.”

The Loons in September led MLS with more General Allocation Money (GAM) than any other club ($4.9 million), which should help them reinvest in the roster. Payments on the Oluwaseyi fee also should boost the bottom line.

San Diego FC defender Christopher McVey (97), left, fights for the ball with Minnesota United midfielder Robin Lod (17) during the second half of MLS soccer’s Western Conference semifinal Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

But there’s always the question with United: Are they ambitious enough to spend more, or do they look at how they annually outperform their salary spending in the MLS standings and just bank on that continuing?

Three veteran players have uncertain futures: goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair and midfielders Robin Lod and Hassani Dotson. St. Clair and Dotson are pending free agents, while Lod has a contract option that has not been picked up.

Boxall and midfielder Wil Trapp had their contract extensions for 2026 triggered with on-field performances during the regular season.

St. Clair, the MLS Goalkeeper of the Year, seeks a salary that puts the 28-year-old in the top tier in the league (think $1 million annually), while Lod, 32, is the highest-paid player on the team ($1.6 million in 2025) and might need to take a pay cut if he wants to remain in Minnesota.

In preseason, Dotson demanded a trade but was retained. The 28-year-old then suffered a serious knee injury and was ruled out for the year, but he rehabbed and subbed on during seven games down the stretch.

“We would be a club that, I think, would want to improve in every window,” Ramsay said. “There are obviously some big decisions to make on players from our perspective, from their perspective, and that will gradually fall into place.”

With the Loons bounced from the playoffs, the club’s front office plans to meet with players in Minnesota on Wednesday and submit its end-of-season roster decisions soon after that.

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By R.J. RICO, Associated Press

Landlords could no longer rely on rent-pricing software to quietly track each other’s moves and push rents higher using confidential data, under a settlement between RealPage Inc. and federal prosecutors to end what critics said was illegal “algorithmic collusion.”

The deal announced Monday by the Department of Justice follows a yearlong federal antitrust lawsuit, launched during the Biden administration, against the Texas-based software company. RealPage would not have to pay any damages or admit any wrongdoing. The settlement must still be approved by a judge.

RealPage software provides daily recommendations to help landlords and their employees nationwide price their available apartments. The landlords do not have to follow the suggestions, but critics argue that because the software has access to a vast trove of confidential data, it helps RealPage’s clients charge the highest possible rent.

“RealPage was replacing competition with coordination, and renters paid the price,” said DOJ antitrust chief Gail Slater, who emphasized that the settlement avoided a costly, time-consuming trial.

Under the terms of the proposed settlement, RealPage can no longer use that real-time data to determine price recommendations. Instead, the only nonpublic data that can be used to train the software’s algorithm must be at least one year old.

“What does this mean for you and your family?” Slater said in a video statement. “It means more real competition in local housing markets. It means rents set by the market, not by a secret algorithm.”

RealPage attorney Stephen Weissman said the company is pleased the DOJ worked with them to settle the matter.

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“There has been a great deal of misinformation about how RealPage’s software works and the value it provides for both housing providers and renters,” Weissman said in a statement. “We believe that RealPage’s historical use of aggregated and anonymized nonpublic data, which include rents that are typically lower than advertised rents, has led to lower rents, less vacancies, and more procompetitive effects.”

Over the past few months, more than two dozen property management companies have reached various settlements over their use of RealPage, including Greystar, the nation’s largest landlord, which agreed to pay $50 million to settle a class action lawsuit, and $7 million to settle a separate lawsuit filed by nine states.

The governors of California and New York signed laws last month to crack down on rent-setting software, and a growing list of cities, including Philadelphia and Seattle, have passed ordinances against the practice.

Ten states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington — had joined the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit. Those states were not part of Monday’s settlement.

A crowd of protesters has formed in the 600 block of Rose Avenue in St. Paul, where it appears federal authorities may be conducting an enforcement action at a residential address. One person was removed from a home on a stretcher.

The St. Paul Police Department and St. Paul Fire Department are on scene, as are agents wearing federal Homeland Security Investigations gear.

The residential block sits near the intersection of Payne and Maryland avenues. On social media, the Immigrant Defense Network alerted activists to an “ICE raid,” though details have yet to be confirmed.

A crowd has formed a line behind the house, while a larger group of protesters is assembled out in front of it. Some St. Paul Police officers are wearing helmets and carrying police batons in hand.

St. Paul City Council Vice President HwaJeong Kim was speaking with a growing crowd of protesters as of 11:45 a.m., urging them to stay calm and not intervene when and if someone exits the residence to be transported into detention.

“We have a finite window of time,” Kim told the crowd. “Everyone needs to stay calm. … You’re fighting on the right side of history. Right now we’re working with that person to work with lawyers. … The options right now are one person voluntarily leaving this house. We can’t speak for the other people on the property. Allegedly, there is someone with child and a young child in the house. Right now there is someone who is voluntarily choosing to leave this property. … They are connected to legal services. They are connected to advocate groups. … When and if this happens, please stay calm. Please try not to intervene.”

This is a developing story. Check back with twincities.com for updates. 

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BEIJING (AP) — China launched the Shenzhou 22 spacecraft on Tuesday to help bring back a team of astronauts after a damaged spacecraft left them temporarily stranded on China’s space station.

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The Shenzhou 22, which successfully docked at the Tiangong space station Tuesday, will be used sometime in 2026 by the three astronauts who arrived on Nov. 1.

Earlier this month, another group of Chinese astronauts from the Shenzhou 20 mission faced a nine-day delay in their return to Earth after their craft’s window was damaged. They eventually returned using the Shenzhou 21 spacecraft, which had just carried the replacement crew to Tiangong.

While the three-person crew landed safely on Earth, three of their fellow astronauts on the replacement crew were temporarily left without a guaranteed way to return in case of an emergency.

The Shenzhou 20 spacecraft — the damaged one, which for now remains in space — will be brought down to Earth later and assessed, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The space program determined it didn’t meet safety standards for transporting the astronauts.

Chinese astronauts have been carrying out missions to the Tiangong space station in recent years as part of Beijing’s rapidly progressing space program, initially building out the station module-by-module.

China developed Tiangong after the country was excluded from the International Space Station over U.S. national security concerns, since China’s space program is controlled by its military.

Tiangong, which means “Heavenly Palace,” hosted its first crew in 2021. It is smaller than the International Space Station, which has been operating for 25 years.