Friday, January 26, 2018

A Decade Of View From The Couch

10 years ago tonight I wrote my first post on this blog.  Sadly it was ripping into the team for doing nothing in the offseason but the point is that it started something I didn't expect to last this long.  A MLS Cup, a Supporters Shield runner-up, many failed USOC campaigns, and 1760 posts later I'm starting my second decade of blogging this team.  Gone are the days of Cory Gibbs and Jovan Kirovski, in are guys like Tim Howard and Edgar Castillo.  I'd say that's a significant step forward in 10 years.

Just so this isn't completely self-congratulatory there are a couple of interesting Rapids player connections floating around.  Multiple reports from Scotland have Rangers CB Danny Wilson in Commerce City for a medical today.  It seems like we'll be adding another defender next week.  This probably also explains the rumor last week that Axel Sjoberg was on the trading block.  Its likely that if Wilson is signed Sjoberg would be pushed to the bench.

The other bit of news is out of Bulgaria and (translated) says the Rapids have offered Claudiu Keseru $1.1 million a year plus added benefits to transfer but the decision has to be made by the middle of next week.  It sounds like Keseru isn't convinced but he would be a good signing if he came here happily.  You don't want to beg a guy to come though so it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

Of course the one road block in all of these moves is the number of international slots we (don't) have.  We're already 1 player over our limit and adding 2 more just makes that issue worse.  The two moves we can control is Badji getting a green card (which based on the talk I think will happen soon) and loaning out Wynne to Charlotte.  That would free up two slots.  if Sjoberg is really on the block trading him would likely include getting a slot back as part of the deal, which would be a third.  That would cover us but other teams have to know we're going to need slots so expect the cost to be high.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The Rapids look to have a couple more moves to make this preseason a success:

1. Create several more international slots by March 1

2. Use one (or more) of them for a top notch striker

We're gonna find out what Pádraig, Hudson and Petal are made of in the next few weeks.

Without at quality scorer it's gonna be hard to imagine a scenario where the Rapids are significantly better record wise than last season.

Congrats on the 10th anniversary of the blog!