New Player Joins the Rapids

Colorado announced the signing today of Brazilian striker Luis Eduardo Schmidt, commonly known ad Edu.  He had trialed with the team last month and rejoined the team this week.  Edu is 33 and has previously played in Brazil and Spain's La Liga.  He's a big guy that would probably fill in well in Casey's target striker role.

In other roster news Harrison Henao is expected to join the team tomorrow or Saturday now that his paperwork is completed.  He may or may not be active for Saturday's game, depending on his travel fatigue, but he's expected to be available for next week's two games.  Also there have been multiple reports that Quincy Amarikwa is being "evaluated" and the team will make a decision on him as soon as he returns from Nigeria where he's dealing with family issues.

Today, with the help of the Rapids Media Office, I figured out the current status of the team's roster and international limits.  The team is limited to 30 players, 6 of which can be internationals.  Players on IR do not count towards those limits.  Also players who are still awaiting paperwork aren't counted either.

Right now the Rapids have 8 internationals "under contract".  Castrillon, Edu, Henao, Janniere, Rivero, Smith, Yamada, and Zapata.  They also have 32 players total "under contract".  There are some players that don't count though:

Edu - Awaiting paperwork
Henao - Awaiting paperwork
Mastroeni - On IR
Smith - On IR
Wallace - On season-ending IR

So without these 5 Colorado has 27 players and 5 internationals that count towards the roster limits.  That leaves 3 open roster spots, one of which could be an international.  Henao will take that international spot when he joins the team tomorrow or Saturday.  Then Edu will take one of the two remaining roster spots and we'll be short an international spot.  When Mastroeni comes off IR he'll take the remaining roster spot, which means when Smith comes off of IR we'll need another roster spot and an international spot.

So what this means is that if everyone is healthy (but Wallace) and eligible the team has one too many players and two too many internationals.  With the news about Amarikwa he could be leaving soon which would solve the extra player issue but not the international one.  I did hear a rumor that Smith is close to getting his green card, so that would reduce our international spot need to one.  My guess is that Janniere is the odd man out.  He and Smith are the only tow internationals that Pareja didn't bring in so he's the obvious cut.  The other possibility is trading Amarikwa for an international slot, but I'm not sure they can get that much for Qunicy.