Birmingham Legion acquires Derek Dodson on loan

The Legion announced today that it has picked up Derek Dodson on a season-long loan from Minnesota United of MLS.

Dodson is a name you may be familiar with; he scored the winning goal for the Charleston Battery last season in the quarter-final that knocked the Legion out of the playoffs. He was originally signed by Orlando City of MLS out of college (he was at Georgetown), but was sent on loan to Hartford Athletic in 2021. He then signed with Memphis 901 for 2022 and moved on to the Battery last year before being signed by Minnesota this past offseason. He has not appeared in any games for the MLS squad, but has played 5 games this season for the MLS Next Pro team, starting all of them and totalling 405 minutes.

Most notably, he played in every game except two US Open Cup games for the Battery last year, and went the full game in all but one of them. He plays primarily as a right-back but managed 3 goals and 5 assists last year and has 11 goals and 11 assists during his USL career to date.

Also important is that he will be very familiar with AJ Paterson, which should accelerate his integration into the squad. He will be available for this weekend’s game in Sacramento and will be relatively rested as he did not play in Minnesota United 2’s game this past week. What this means for the lineup is unclear, but it likely cements a 4-man back line for the remainder of the season.