Every Minnesotan has his or her own State Fair story, so, with the 2018 edition opening its gates on Thursday, we asked Minnesota United’s pair of natives — Woodbury’s Brent Kallman and Eric Miller — to share their fondest memories of the Great Minnesota Get-Together. If nothing else, this exercise reinforced the inalienable truth that nothing gets between Minnesotans and their Sweet Martha’s Cookies.

Brent Kallman: My family was not a big State Fair going family at all. I actually didn’t even go until I was 22 during my first year with the club in 2013 when we were doing some events with the club down there. That was my first time going. I have been back every year since usually for appearances and stuff, but I get some time to sneak away and go eat some food.

The cookies are always a go-to and then you’re eating them for like four days because you have 50 left over at the end. The line is worth it.

Kallman and his older brother, Brian, were the resident Minnesotans on the Loons’ roster during those years, meaning Brent often served as the cultural liaison charged with introducing his teammates — both foreign and domestic — to the splendor of the State Fair for the first time.

Kallman: It is always interesting for these guys to walk around and see the different kinds of foods that they have never seen before. Everything on a stick throws them off. Seeing all of the different kinds of food on a stick like deep-fried candy bars on sticks and all of that stuff. They are just like wow this is America, huh?

Eric Miller: I used to work at the State Fair a lot. My dad used to work for Green Mill and they used to have a pizza truck there, so I spent three or four summers working two or three weeks in the State Fair pizza truck. It was really fun and was always a good experience. It was a lot of my buddies and my siblings’ friends that got to work on it as well.

We did this really fun thing — because you got really sick of eating pizza — so we would get to trade pizza for Sweet Martha’s or rides at the end of the day, especially if we worked at night. The people at Sweet Martha’s Cookies probably eat 40 buckets of cookies over the two weeks, so they always wanted to trade with us. It was very VIP. At the end of the day when they were shutting up shop they would always make us a couple extra cookies and we would trade. It was a great time.

I love Sweet Martha’s Cookies and I also like to try anything on a stick. It is always a unique experience to see what people come up with.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR: GETTING ANGELO INVOLVED

With his standout hold-up play, Minnesota United forward Angelo Rodriguez has demonstrated the ability to coax other players forward and link up to get them involved in the attacking half of the field. That support, though, waned last week in Dallas and will have to return for the Loons to find success on the road.

Playing in a 4-3-3 formation, MNUFC struggled to get bodies forward against FC Dallas. The Colombian Designated Player was effectively isolated for much of the game, but did get a hold of the ball a few times in the opening 45 minutes. Without players behind him, though, he did not have opportunities to link up.

“He did not have a lot of support and did not get a lot of help,” Head Coach Adrian Heath said. “We have to get more support from behind him, certainly in wide areas and the attacking midfielders. We have to get more people in and around him to make sure we get the next ball, which will hopefully go in behind their back four.”

Part of increasing Rodriguez’s support will come from the Loons finding what Heath called a “happy medium” between taking chances to get forward and not leaving themselves open at the back. That could come this weekend against Sporting Kansas City with a potential return to a 3-5-2 formation.

“It has worked with having the three at the back,” Heath said. “That has helped us look like we can keep clean sheets and get the extra body forward. We went with the four and tried to box it off in the midfield. For a while it worked well, but the minute we started to push men forward we looked very vulnerable.”