The dejection Minnesota Stars coach Manny Lagos felt in October of 2012 was more than disappointment at losing the North American Soccer League title match on penalty kicks.

That team was owned by the NASL, and a repeat championship was seen as a chance to catch the eye of a prospective local owner.

After the match, then-league commissioner David Downs came into the locker room.

“He said, ‘Great effort … and we’re really working to maintain this franchise,’ ” assistant coach Carl Craig recalled. “We just lost the game. He comes in, and we still didn’t know if we had a job.”

Lagos has been coach of Minnesota’s professional soccer team for five seasons now, the longest tenure for the coach of any men’s pro team in the state. But that run has often been tenuous.

In 2010, the St. Paul native became head coach of the Stars, owned by the National Sports Center in Blaine. Shortly thereafter, the NASL took ownership, and the Stars won the title in 2011 before the crushing loss in 2012.

The team finally found a local owner in Bill McGuire, the deep-pocketed former head of UnitedHealth Group, and rebranded as Minnesota United FC. After a forgettable inaugural season a year ago, the Loons will square off in an NASL semifinal against Fort Lauderdale on Saturday night in Blaine.

United president Nick Rogers said Lagos should finally feel secure, about his job and the club. While grateful for the sentiment, Lagos deflected the support, perhaps out of habit.

“It’s a job that is based on merit in the success of the team,” he said.

Although United management won’t discuss it, the team is one of two Minnesota candidates (along with the Vikings) to receive a Major League Soccer expansion franchise in the next few years.

Tab Ramos, an assistant coach for the U.S. men’s national team in the 2014 World Cup, played alongside Lagos with the New York-New Jersey MetroStars in MLS in 1996-97. He believes Lagos would be well suited to make the transition to the top domestic league.

“If Minnesota were to have an MLS team, he’s definitely the guy to lead them in that direction,” Ramos said.

After losing the 2012 title game in Tampa, Fla., Lagos betrayed the weight on his shoulders in a postgame TV interview. He gracefully credited Tampa Bay on the win before emotion took over.

“I want people to know this (bleeping) team — sorry, excuse my language,” Lagos said as he dipped his head and choked up. “This Minnesota team, the guys, what they’ve done for two years without an owner: unbelievable.”

The Stars had shined without a lodestar.

“I can’t imagine playing under those conditions,” Rogers said. “You don’t know if the team is going to exist.”

The Dark Clouds, the team’s supporters group, took the expletive part of Lagos’ quote and emblazoned it on a risque team scarf. It served as a rallying cry for some fans.

“It was controversial among the Dark Clouds because some people thought it was too vulgar,” Rogers said. “Other people said it memorializes a special (time).”

Lagos said the stress of 2012 helps him live in the moment and cherish what he has established; not just a core group of veterans still with the club, but something more than a toehold for pro soccer in Minnesota.

That, he said, “I do take a lot of pride in.”

Of United’s core veterans, Lagos said, “All of them bought in to having soccer survive here, and now are part of the legacy of what this club is.”

SOMETHING TO BUILD ON

When Bill McGuire bought the Stars in 2012, the club’s front office had a skeleton staff, but there was Lagos and his substantial resume.

Lagos, now 43, starred at St. Paul Academy and his “biggest memory” was winning the 1990 James P. McGuire Cup, the under-19 boys national championship. Lagos believes that win put soccer on the map in Minnesota.

Lagos got his start professionally under his father, Buzz Lagos, the coach and co-founder of Minnesota Thunder — predecessor to the Stars and United.

“He was a wonderfully skilled player,” Buzz Lagos said. “He had great touch on the ball, great vision. He was a very intelligent player, very intuitive.”

Manny scored the winning goal over Kuwait in the 1992 Summer Olympics and earned three appearances with the U.S. men’s national team. In the meantime, he played overseas in France and Spain and for five teams in MLS before retiring in 2005.

McGuire and Rogers began looking at the club in the summer before the title-game loss in 2012.

“We didn’t know Manny at all,” Rogers said. “We just knew the name and his resume. It was encouraging. It was one of the things that gave us confidence that there was something here to build on.”

When United midfielder Miguel Ibarra was called up to the U.S. men’s national team in October, it was in part because Ramos had asked Lagos about Ibarra and United standout Christian Ramirez. Lagos candidly shared the players’ strengths, weaknesses and character traits.

“The thing about Manny is you can always count on his opinion, because he’s very level-headed and sees the big picture,” Ramos said.

‘WHY NOT?’

While watching Ibarra play with the national team in Connecticut, Rogers got a true sense of the respect Lagos has in the U.S. soccer community.

On the night before Landon Donovan’s final U.S. appearance in a friendly against Ecuador, Rogers introduced himself to Donovan in the hotel restaurant.

“I went up to him and said, ‘Hey, look, I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m not a fan boy; I don’t want a picture. I just want to say I run this club in Minneapolis. I work real close with Manny Lagos,’ ” Rogers said.

Donovan perked up.

“He said, ‘Manny Lagos? I love Manny Lagos! What’s your name again?’ ” Rogers recalled. “He all of a sudden wanted to meet me because I work with Manny Lagos. … That is just a great thing for this club.”

Once McGuire, Rogers and Lagos teamed up, expectations increased.

“One of the big things for me when the McGuire group took over, from Day 1, he started setting a vision for the club,” said Lagos, who was president of the Thunder for four seasons until they folded in 2009.

While McGuire has provided more money to sign better players, Lagos, the club’s technical director, has installed the best practices used by the U.S. men’s national team and leading international clubs such as FC Bayern Munich.

“You have to look at what the best clubs in the world are doing,” Lagos said. “I know people laugh at that, but how can we get to that level? It might be a little unrealistic because financially they have crazy means, and some of those products on the field are $500 million worth of players. But in some ways, why not?”

United has hired a fitness company to help measure analytics of how players train to help them reach optimum health and better prevent injuries.

“We are very serious about taking care of them,” Lagos said. “So they can be the best product they can possibly be on the field.”

Finally, that field seems wide open for Lagos and professional soccer in Minnesota.

Follow Andy Greder at twitter.com/andygreder.