What's this? Actual news?

 Well some news and a strong rumor.

First the news.  Cole Bassett, Jon Lewis, Auston Trusty, and Sam Vines were all named to the preliminary 48-man roster for the Olympic qualifying tournament next month.  The roster will be cut from 48 to 20 before the start of qualification.  General talk is that Vines and Lewis seem to have the best chance to make the final roster.  This is a full U-23 roster, almost completely from MLS and Liga MX.  If the U.S. qualifies for the Olympics the Olympic roster will include 3 overage players and will probably include a number of European based players like Christian Pulisic.  So it will be that much harder for any of the Rapids to go to Tokyo.

Now the rumor that broke tonight is that young center back Michael Edwards is coming back to the U.S. to join the Rapids from Wolfsburg's reserve side.  Edwards was signed out the DC academy two years ago and first played with the Wolfsburg U19s before getting bumped up to the reserve team.  He's turned 20 over Thanksgiving weekend so he's more of a long-term signing than likely to be an immediate impact player.  With Ford's availability being unknown, Moor nearing the end of his career, and Rwatubaye waived this gives the Rapids some added depth for a few years, should he make the grade.  Colorado will have to trade DC for his MLS rights, which is expected to be some amount of allocation money.

Season Start Moved To April 17

As reported earlier this week the MLS season start has been delayed due to the length of the CBA negotiations.  The season will now start on April 17th.  Commissioner Garber said they hope to release the season schedule by early next month.  That will be the latest start in league history, just barely beating out the inaugural season.

This will hopefully allow more home games at the Dick to be open to fans as we get further and further into the vaccination program.  For now though,, the assumption is that no games will be open in the early season.

Game On! (mostly)

Today the MLS Players Union approved the CBA agreed on with the owners over the weekend, clearing the way for the season to start on time.  That is currently scheduled for April 3rd but Sam Stejskal is reporting that the date may be pushed back a bit as some administrative stuff necessary for the preseason to start two weeks from today was put on hold during the negotiations, so things may need to be delayed a bit.

Also announced today is a not-so-open U.S. Open Cup for 2021.  US Soccer has decided to hold a reduced field tournament due to the pandemic with only 24 teams, only 8 of them from MLS.  How the teams will be chosen has not yet been announced.  Odds are the Rapids will not be one of them.  We weren't top 8 last season, we're not a trendy team, and we've never shown any real interested in the tournament.

Rapids Sign Yarbrough From Leon

In what might be the least surprising news of the offseason Colorado and Leon completed their deal transferring GK William Yarbrough to the Rapids.  As part of the deal Yarbrough has signed a contract covering the next three seasons, with a team-held option for the 2024 season as well.  The transfer fee, if any, paid was not announced.

With this move the Rapids likely have the goalkeeper of the present (Yarbrough) and the future (Rodriguez) on the roster, with Irwin pushing Yarbrough to keep his spot as the number one.  Rawls is also on the roster but realistically has no real present or future between the pipes here.  We will not need to invest in the position for a while hopefully.

Yarbrough took over as the number one during the MLS Is Back tournament last season and never relinquished the position.  Not only were his stats generally better than Irwin his command of the back line, something Fraser values, was also more evident.  He will be the natural number one going into preseason but Irwin waits to take over if Yarbrough falters.

With this move I feel like the Rapids have made most of their offseason changes.  I wouldn't be surprised if we bring in one more player that could compete for a starting position, but we could wait for the summer window, especially with the uncertainty around the CBA and the start of the season.  The transfer market is a bit strange right now, the window just closed in Europe with the least amount of money being spent in a while on average and I think the soccer world is kind of holding its breath to see what shape the professional game will be in once we get to the other side of the pandemic.  Combined with the league's labor issues I can't blame the Rapids for moving slowly right now.