There was much ado about Freddy Adu when the soccer prodigy and his U.S. under-17 national team played in Blaine in 2003. In a 3-1 victory over Canada, Adu scored in front of a capacity crowd of 10,511 at the National Sports Center.

At 14, Adu was hyped as the boy wonder who could take U.S. men’s soccer to heights unseen in decades. But the spectators just weren’t into it on that sunny Sunday afternoon.

A fan sitting behind diehard soccer fan Bruce McGuire tried to start a “U-S-A!” chant. “Everyone around him turned and craned their necks,” McGuire recalled. “They stared at him like he was yelling curse words.”

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National Sports Center in Blaine to double in size Since then, the vibe has changed drastically at the National Sports Center. On Saturday, it will be raucous — if a bit nostalgic — as Minnesota United FC plays the final professional soccer match at the 26-year-old stadium. There will be joyous singing, waving flags and giant signs known as tifo and maybe even a smoke bomb or two because Minnesota’s pro soccer teams, from Thunder to Stars to United, have primarily called NSC home since 1990.

United also will conclude its final North American Soccer League regular season in a match against New York. The Loons have an outside chance of making the four-team playoffs, but even if they do, those matches would be on the road.

Next year, United will play its debut season in Major League Soccer at TCF Bank Stadium on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis. The Loons are expected to keep NSC as their training grounds through their transition to MLS. In 2018, United is scheduled to open its sterling 20,000-seat stadium in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood.

While United has outgrown the National Sports Center — and its temporary bleachers, Porta Potties and rented Jumbotron — the stadium resembles what the Metrodome was to the Vikings and Twins in the late 2000s: a past-its-prime arena filled with memories.

United’s TV play-by-play commentator Chris Lidholm has called NSC his second home since he started calling games in 1993. Before the press box was remodeled, it was a three-sided wooden shack. If it rained from the west, a gap in the shack would allow Lidholm’s back to get wet.

“It’s gonna be a little sad, a little emotional, because I’ve spent so much of my life at that stadium,” Lidholm said. “I’ve experienced a lot in that building.”

CHAMPIONSHIPS AND BIG GAMES

Buzz Lagos, forefather of soccer in Minnesota, recalls coaching the first Thunder match as an amateur team in 1990. They had to be play on an adjacent field called “U2” while the stadium was being completed during the season.

His top memory came in 1999 when the Thunder beat the Rochester (N.Y.) Raging Rhinos for the A-League Championship before about 10,000 fans in Blaine. It was the only title a Minnesota team won at the National Sports Center. That year, Rochester won the U.S. Open Cup, a nationwide tournament that included MLS clubs.

After an MLS playing career, Manny Lagos, Buzz’s son, came back to be president of the Thunder, then coach of the Stars and coach of the United once the team was rebranded in 2013. He is now the Loons’ sporting director.

“It’s a long list of memories,” Lagos said.

Near the top is the NASL title run in 2011. Lagos’ team eked into the playoffs and then beat Fort Lauderdale in the first leg of the championship series at NSC.

There had been a huge evolution since the church-like crowd that watched Adu play in 2003. By 2011, the NSC crowd, led by the Dark Clouds supporters group, was free to sing and revel how it saw fit.

“There were flares of smoke going up; it was brilliant,” said Carl Craig, then a Stars assistant and now the United head coach.

The Stars went on to win the NASL title five days later in Florida. The next year, the Stars beat Tampa Bay in the first leg of the championship series at NSC.

“There was an iconic moment of (defender) Connor Tobin sliding into the sign boards and the Dark Clouds spilling over onto the field,” recalled former Stars player Kevin Friedland.

However, the Stars lost the title to Tampa Bay in Florida the next week. The franchise was close to shutting down under league ownership, but Bill McGuire stepped in and purchased the team, in part, because he saw the lively atmosphere at NSC.

The crowds were sparse in 2012, maybe a couple thousand, but attendance grew steadily as did the temporary bleachers on the stadium’s east side to accommodate them. In 2014, United hosted Swansea City of the Premier League for a friendly, and a then-record 9,064 fans came out.

“I think that woke the community up to what we can do here,” Craig said. “That we are a good football team. That it is a good level of football.”

Justin Davis joined the team in 2011 when it was owned by the league. He scored in the first half of the 2-0 win over Swansea, a club from one of the top leagues in the world.

“I’m sure the atmosphere here (at NSC) played a big role in the connection with the fans,” Davis said. “I think just the camaraderie. Hopefully we keep that going to a bigger venue next year. I think it’s something special, and not every club has what we have here.”

GREAT AND GHASTLY GOALS

United’s leading scorer Christian Ramirez has scored a lot of wonderful goals at NSC since he joined the club in 2014. His most recognizable goal came on a bicycle kick against Indy Eleven in August 2014.

The most infamous goal, however, came last summer. United keeper Sammy Ndjock scored an own goal when he inadvertently threw the ball into his own net during a 4-0 loss in the international friendly match against Bournemouth of the Premier League on July 20. Video of the self-inflicted error zipped around the world and was universally panned.

Ndjock poked fun at himself in a spoof video about how the mishap was — wink, wink — caused by jelly that ended up on his gloves in the locker room before the match. The light-hearted move resembled how most of United’s diehard supporters treat their fandom.

BEERS AT NESSIE

To the faithful, NSC goes by Nessie, as in Loch Ness Monster.

“You take the letters NSC, and you just say it fast: ‘Nessie.’ It was just that simple,” said Bruce McGuire, one of the Dark Clouds’ founders in 2004 when the club played games at St. Paul Central High School.

Once the nickname was christened, McGuire said, “Then we just dove in head first.”

Loch Ness Monster recreations came in all shapes and sizes: hand puppets, 10-foot-long wooden depictions, a giant overstuffed python that McGuire thought might have been won at the State Fair.

“Never afraid of being too goofy or too odd or silly or just obtuse,” McGuire said.

The Dark Clouds currently reside on the east side of the stadium within the erector-set bleachers, opposite the main grandstand on the west side. They used to set up shop on the west side, immediately behind the opponent’s bench, chanting a whole bunch of immature things.

For five minutes, McGuire and Dark Clouds would tell a player to pull up his socks until he relented and just yanked them up. Or they would go after the coach.

“I’m yelling, ‘Sit down, coach! Sit down, coach!’ ” McGuire said. “And just going on and on and on and the second the coach sits down, then it becomes the next command you tell your dog. “Roll over, coach! Roll over, coach! Sit up and beg, coach!’

“Just really idiotic stuff like that is so much fun.”

Goalkeeper Matt Van Oekel played in Minnesota for six years, through three name changes and a couple of ownership groups. He returned as a member of FC Edmonton last year.

“Some of the new fans were calling me some pretty choice words in the stands by the beer garden, but then I could hear others say, ‘He was our goalie for so long,’ ” Van Oekel said. “There was some mutual respect there that was pretty cool.”

Craig and Davis have joined in with the fans’ revelry. Last season, Davis scored a goal and signaled to fans in the north end’s beer garden that he wanted a slurp of their cider beer. He found a willing fan, hopped on the retaining wall and sipped some of a fan’s Strongbow.

“You’re not going to see Sam Bradford do the same,” Lidholm said of the Vikings quarterback. “It’s that type of stuff that builds the memories for fans for years to come.”

Davis started having a drink immediately after wins this season with members of the True North Elite supporters group. Craig has sometimes come over for a drink, too. He adds a couple of hoots and hollers.

After Saturday’s match, Davis and Craig might come over for a toast, win or lose.

“What we’ve had over the last 20 years is going to end,” McGuire said. “It will never be like that again. I’m fine with that, and I’m not a person that is afraid of change. There will be things that I miss, and it’s the informal atmosphere of the National Sports Center.”