Vacation Recap

I took a week off to go visit the in-laws in Orlando and do Walt Disney World, so a recap of some of the news that's come out in that time.

• Pareja will return next season
• No surprise.  The Bravo/Hinchey leadership team seemed pretty committed to Pareja's direction.  Honestly I prefer the stability of keeping the same coach over having Bravo fire Pareja and finding a Pareja-clone to replace him with.  If the Rapids wanted to make a change, it needed to start above Pareja.
• Top player priorities are securing Rivero and Thomas for 2013 and hopefully beyond.
• Good.  They should be the top priorities.  Though I was under the impression, based on reporting and announcements made at the time, that the Rapids had already secured Rivero for two years when they worked out his loan.  It will be interesting to see what happens with him.
• Pablo still hopes to play in 2013
• Obviously Pablo knows best what shape he's in, but the Rapids have to be very careful not to tie up a good piece of the salary cap on a player who could be just another head impact away from another long-term stint on the Disabled List, or even retirement.  I'd give him another chance, but at a significantly reduced salary.
• Colorado will preseason in Tuscon again in 2013.
• For purely selfish reasons I was hoping the Rapids would be part of the Pro Soccer Challenge at Walt Disney World in February (see the opening line of this blog post).  It appears that MLS is setting up their version of the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues for preseason training, with most Western teams expected in Tucson and most Eastern teams expected in Orlando.
• Bravo announced on From the Pitch that they are actively pursuing a DP-level attacking player
• Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it
• Colorado gets Chicago's natural 2nd round pick for Wells Thompson
• Whatever the "conditions" were for the conditional draft pick were meet according to the Rapids.  They couldn't have been that high since Wells only played 65 minutes for the Fire.
• One last note, apparently a top Crew player was available when we traded Beckerman for Ballouchy.
• So not only did we make possibly the worst trade in MLS history, we passed up a Eddie Gaven or Chad Marshall to trade with our rivals.  Clavijo really was an idiot.