Roster Notes and USOC Bracket News

German Mera

Three roster notes today:

• As you can see by the above picture, German Mera has arrived in Colorado and is eligible for selection on Saturday
• MLSSoccer.com's Rapids beat writer Chris Bianchi has tweeted that he expects resolution, probably in the Rapids favor, of the Charles Eloundou saga in the near future.
• Jaime Castrillon received his green card today, which brings the Rapids back down to a total of 8 internationals (assuming Eloundou does end up here), which is how many slots they have.  They still have 31 signed players against a roster cap of 30 though, but that's not a problem until every single one of them is healthy, which I'm not sure is ever going to happen this season (though Calderon and Eloundou were the only ones not at training today).

Also today Colorado found out their possible USOC 4th Round matchups.  If they beat Orlando City SC next week they'll face the winner of the matchup between Sporting Kansas City and the PDL's Des Moines Menace.  If its Des Moines they'll host the game at 7pm MDT on June 12th.  In the more likely case that its KC, they'll travel to KC for a 6:30pm MDT kickoff on June 12th.

At this point, with one guaranteed road game against possibly the best non-MLS side in the competition and a highly likely road game against a good MLS team to follow that, I'm actually going to do a complete 180 from my normal feeling on the USOC and suggest the Rapids punt the competition by sending a reserve side to Orlando.  The odds of us winning both those games and making it to the quarter-finals is low, while the team is finally getting healthy and putting together a decent string of results in league play.  There's no reason to risk more injuries to players like Buddle, Mastroeni, Powers, etc. by taking a number of first-team players across the country in mid-week between home matches against Western rivals in Chivas USA and Dallas.

If the backups and reserves beat Orlando and we find out we'll host the quarterfinal if we beat Sporting, the team can then consider sending a top side to KC, especially since the prior weekend will have been an international break and the team will be rested.