Roster Moves And Jersey Debut

Two pieces of news tonight, a report from camp that some fo the trialists and younger players are being moved around or released, and the official launch of the jersey.  First to the roster.

Joseph Samuelson tweeted some news from camp.  Already signed players Niki Jackson and Abdul Rwatubyaye will be spending the rest of the season, and presumably the regular season, with the Switchbacks.  They're still Rapids players, but they will (I'm projecting) be loaned out for the season to Colorado Springs.  Similarly Brett Hundley is headed to Tim Howard's Memphis 901 team, presumably for the season.

As far as the trialists go, five of the nine have left camp.  Brian Lopez, Jacob Hauser-Ramsey, Kwadwo Poku, and Andres Alarcon have been released.  I predicted the first three were not likely to make the team but I'm a little surprised that draftee Robin Afamefuma was retained while Alarcon was released.  I expected the Argentinian to have the better shot at making the team.  Also, as expected, 15 year old striker Darren Yapi has returned to the Academy after getting a two week intro into the life of a professional.

That leaves draftees DM Jeremy Kelly, LB Robin Afamefuma, Academy CM, Will Vint, and former Academy/current Switchback GK Abe Rodriguez as unsigned players in camp.  My predictions on Kelly and Rodriguez are the same, they'll be signed, and I still expect Vint to return to the Academy for a year with a likely signing after he qualifies as a homegrown player.  The question mark is now Afamefuma.  We'll have to keep an eye on his playing time during the second half of camp.

While this news was circulating MLS had its official jersey launch.  For the Rapids that means our first official look at the "Nine Six" kit.  Overall no surprises if you've seen the earlier leaks, the one little touch I hadn't seen is that the 9 remaining inaugural teams are getting a "Founding Club" tag on the seam of the kit which is a cool look.  Otherwise the jersey is pretty meh in my opinion.  There's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't blow me away either.  I would likely buy one, except that its been reported that later this year there will be a launch of throwback merchandise for the original clubs, so I'm saving my money to get some classic green Rapids swag.