Heads or tails?

Minnesota United FC and Atlanta United will watch as a coin flips in the air on Oct. 16; the results will determine the opening moves the clubs make as expansion franchises joining Major League Soccer franchises in spring 2017.

The coin-toss winner will be able to determine if they want to have the first pick in the expansion draft on Dec. 13, the first selection in the league-wide SuperDraft — or the first available pick in one of four other categories. The loser will have the second pick, and they will alternate until all categories are determined.

The expansion draft will be Dec. 13, and Minnesota and Atlanta will have five picks apiece from a list of eligible players currently on other MLS clubs. In the most recent expansion draft in 2014, New York City FC and Orlando City SC selected 10 players apiece.

“The expansion draft provides a unique opportunity for us as a club entering Major League Soccer to help develop our roster immediately,” United sporting director Manny Lagos said in a statement.

Each of the existing 20 MLS clubs can protect 11 players as well as players under two other distinctions, Homegrown and Generation adidas players that are rising up development ranks. Existing clubs will only lose one unprotected player in the expansion draft.

The other four categories for selection order are: allocation ranking order, 2016 waiver draft and re-entry draft rankings, discovery player ranking and USL/NASL player priority ranking.

In 2011, the Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps were the two incoming expansion franchises. Portland general manager Gavin Wilkinson did not like having to share resources back then.

“It’s an absolute nightmare,” Wilkinson told the Pioneer Press in February. “You are just sharing every available asset. … If you come in a year where you can control the expansion draft, you get to work out all your picks in advance, but when you come in with another team, it’s all hypothetical. If they take that one, where do you go? … There are a lot of moving parts, and Manny will have to manage that problem.”

Back in 2011, Wilkinson said the Timbers were fortuitious with having the second pick in the SuperDraft, which is similar to drafts in other sports. First overall, Vancouver picked Omar Salgado, who is no longer with the Whitecaps, while at No. 2, the Timbers took Darlington Nagbe, an MLS All-Star and member of the U.S. men’s national team.

“We were very lucky,” Wilkinson said.

Minnesota and Atlanta will be bring the league to 22 teams when the new season commences in March. United, which is playing its final season in the North American Soccer League, will move to the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium for the 2017 MLS season. Its proposed 20,000-seat stadium in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood is expected to open sometime during the 2018 season.