Eric Ramsay reveals why he moved to America and how more ambitious managers should follow him to the MLS | OneFootball

Eric Ramsay is the future superstar manager many football fans have never heard of. That is set to change this year with the former Chelsea, Manchester United and Wales coach expected to show he is one of the brightest bosses in the game at the start of America’s new MLS season.

Minnesota United is the side that made Ramsay the youngest head coach in MLS history when they took a punt on the 32-year-old during last season. The left field appointment worked as led them on an unexpected run to a semi-final conference play-off where they were defeated by the ultimate champions LA Galaxy.

At the start of the 2025 season, the multi-lingual coach believes he has made the right career choice of moving to America rather than cashing in on his Premier League experience to manage an English club in the Championship, similar to his former United colleagues Michael Carrick and Kieran McKenna.

Ramsay revealed: “I did have some chances to go to the Championship but I felt like this (coming to America) was a good step. I do genuinely feel like I’ll be ten times better prepared for whatever comes next

“It’s not an easy profession, particularly in England where the level of scrutiny and media interest, even in League One, in the Championship is just insane. Getting managers sacked is a bit of a national sport.

“As a young British coach, you can get lots of hype around them very quickly, and end up moving through the steps very quickly, but then the sort of career can be over before it’s begun.

“As a first-time head coach, I felt like it was a perfect experience. The league here is everything I wanted it to be in the sense that it is high-level. It’s now the ninth-ranked league in the world and you feel that. It feels high-level infrastructure, media, interest, fans, but also generally.

“The length of a tenure here is significantly longer on average than it is in the championship, and I just feel like I’m not naive enough to think I would be the finished article as a head coach without having ever done the job.

“Coming to a place where the owners are very sensible, you’ve got really sensible people that are looking at the long-term vision of the club, I felt like this is as good a chance I was going to have to make sure that when I come out the other side of this, I’m as well prepared for whatever comes next as I could be.”

Shrewsbury-born Ramsay started coaching at Loughborough University, where he first worked alongside McKenna. That led to spells at Shrewsbury Town, Swansea and Chelsea where he became the youngest British coach to earn the UEFA Pro Licence.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was in charge at United when he was recruited to work there in 2021. He was then integral to Ralf Rangnick and Erik ten Hag’s coaching staff. The instability a polar opposite of what he is now experiencing.

He explained: “Being at Man United in the context of a league that is ridiculously competitive I can attest at first hand that that is a really, really difficult place to work. from that perspective.”

Still only 33, Ramsay could one day add his name to the growing list of thirty something Premier League bosses such as Brighton’s Fabian Hurzeler and his old mate McKenna at Ipswich. And maybe one day the top job at Old Trafford?

“Obviously I’m ambitious, I want to work at the highest level. Right now it is a million miles from being on my agenda, to manage a club of that size.

“All of the steps I’ve taken so far have come out blue. So as much as I think it’s human nature to have a loose plan as to where things might go and what you aspire to do, if I look back at every one of the steps that I’ve had, particularly Shrewsbury to Chelsea, Chelsea to Man United, Man United to Minnesota, I would never have anticipated any of those steps in concrete, so I’ve sort of learned to just try and focus on what I’m doing here. “