In the lead-up to Minnesota United’s second home match, against Real Salt Lake, there was one thing weighing on defender Brent Kallman’s mind: getting enough tickets for his family. Two weeks earlier he had made his first MLS start for MNUFC against the Colorado Rapids.

“I know after the first game he played in Colorado, he was saying something about needing to get tickets for the next home game,” said his older brother (and former Loon) Brian Kallman. “I was like, ‘You think you're gonna start still?’ and he's like, ‘Oh yeah. No one's going to beat me, I'm not losing this spot. This is my spot.’”

The burly defender was used to fighting for position throughout his career, both on and off the pitch.

In 2013, the Minnesota Stars were a league-owned team in the NASL. When they came under new ownership after being purchased by Dr. Bill McGuire, the team became Minnesota United FC, the budget was expanded, the staff size increased and new players were brought on to fill out the roster. This is how a young Brent Kallman — a Woodbury native and fresh out of soccer powerhouse Creighton University — found his way onto the team.

“When I was coming out of college, I didn’t really have any other options,” he said. “I trialed with the club, and I ended up getting signed. It was the perfect way for me to get my professional career started. I got to do it at home, with a club that was on the rise with the new ownership group. We were only going to go forward.”

Yet in his rookie season, Kallman made it off the bench and onto the pitch of the National Sports Center in Blaine only once. He played the full 90, tallying one assist. In 2014 he recorded three starts in the regular season, and one in a U.S. Open Cup match against the Des Moines Menace, a 1-0 victory where he once again went the distance. MNUFC may have presented a perfect start as his hometown team, but it was a slow one.

Even so, in his first two years he grew as a player, largely through the positive influence of the veteran leadership on the team. He learned from them on the pitch and in the locker room, saw the way they worked on every aspect of their games.

As the club grew, so did Kallman.

Prior to the start of the 2015 season, it was announced that MNUFC would become the 23rd team in MLS at a later date, but there was still soccer to play and Kallman was looking to prove he belonged. The club’s attendance had grown to an average of nearly 9,000 supporters per match and the crowds were electric. Kallman started eight matches in the fall season, including one against Indy Eleven that saw him score his first goal for the club. 

In the spring of 2016, the club was preparing for its final NASL season and then its first in MLS. It was a move that Kallman saw as inevitable for soccer in his home state.

“It always made sense to me that we would eventually get an MLS team here,” Kallman said. “Minneapolis is such a great city. I think it’s a really underrated city, and an underrated market that we have here.”

But now it was actually going to happen. In 2016, Kallman became a mainstay on the Loons’ backline, playing nearly every match alongside teammates Kevin Venegas and Justin Davis.

“I like playing next to him because he’s always giving you direction,” said Venegas. “And he holds you accountable for the mistakes, or what he thought you should have done. And then also, if you get beat, you know he’s got the ability to cover ground, or to win the ball in the air behind you. So you know you’ve got a big guy in the back that’s going to cover you.”

All three players would make the transition with the club to MLS ahead of their inaugural season in 2017, with Kallman becoming the first Minnesotan to join the side when he signed his contract on January 23, 2017. Well before the preseason even began, Kallman could feel the buzz growing. Whether downtown at a restaurant or boating on Lake Minnetonka, it was almost certain he would run into someone sporting MNUFC apparel.

“I’m a guy, I play a lot of poker,” Kallman said. “If I’m ever playing poker, like at Canterbury or Running Aces, guys that I’ve played with before — they know I play for the team — they’ll ask me questions about it and stuff.”

The Loons spent 20 days on the road in February, preparing for the season with camps and matches in Arizona, Portland and Orlando. Kallman would have a new coaching staff to impress, a new group of players to find chemistry with on the pitch and a new position to earn in the starting lineup.

“I thought I had a really good preseason, and that was a big goal of mine coming in,” he said. “Because I knew that the new coaching staff, besides Ian [Fuller], they didn’t know anything about me. Every time you play for a new coach, you have to prove yourself again.”

“He’s had a great attitude from day one,” said Assistant Coach Ian Fuller. “But to have that attitude [going into MLS], saying ‘I’ve got to go on again and prove myself,’ was the right way to do it. And he completely did. After two or three weeks of preseason, we couldn’t stop talking about him and praising him. I think that he took that into the season quite well.”

Left out of the starting XI in the first two matches of the season, Kallman joined the backline for the walkout at Dick’s Sports Goods Park in Colorado. He played the entire 90 minutes that night, fighting tooth and nail for a 2-2 draw that felt like a win after the team was blown out by the Timbers and Atlanta United.

Seven days later, he tallied his first MLS goal, scoring in the 49th minute against the New England Revolution. The league recognized his threatening efforts in the box, awarding him a bench spot in the MLS Team of the Week.

Kallman was well on his way to cementing his spot in the lineup and with that came more and more preparation for the matches.

“One thing I’ve had to do is prepare a little more each week, because so many guys on these different teams, they present different problems,” he said. “So you gotta look forward and scout them a little bit more and try to get a feel for their tendencies and what they’re good at. I love the challenge to try to maybe shut somebody down, or not let them score. I take pride in not letting people score. I look forward to that week in and week out. It’s like, who do I get to battle with this week?”

Since the match against Colorado, Kallman has started all 17 of the matches he has played. In the 1,434 minutes he’s spent on the pitch, his goal has been reliability.

“I’m not trying to do too much. I know my role,” he said. “And my role is to be a solid guy. Dependable. Accountable. And consistent. I need to be consistent.”

Since he signed with the team in 2013, he has built a role for himself through hard work, persistence and drive. In many ways, his professional growth has paralleled the growth of the organization.

“It’s been incredible,” Fuller reflected. “Last year, Carl Craig and I gave him quite a big role, leading the team from back to front. And he’s just taken off with it when Adrian came in. He wasn’t first choice, or second choice or third choice going into preseason, but he proved himself every day. That’s the type of player that the boss is looking for. That it means a lot [for him] to play for the club, and the quality is there, and the kid has been great for us.”

From bench player and youngest of six soccer-playing siblings to MLS starter, Kallman’s star has risen along with the team’s, yet his favorite part remains something relatively simple: the badge he’s worn on his chest since he started here.

“The logo: the loon. When you’re on the lake and you’re a kid in Minnesota, loons are such a cool animal,” he said. “People from other areas, they don’t know. But if you’re from the state, you know what a loon is.”

Kallman is doing his part to make sure that soon, everyone will know.