Catching Up On The News

Sorry for the lack of updates.  Since late February I've been unemployed and job hunting.  Good news is that last week I accepted a new position as QA Manager of the SketchUp desktop team so things should start getting back to normal as we come into the season.

For now, we've got a lot of news to catch up on.  Here we go, in no particular order.

• The USSF has once again revised the 2021 U.S. Open Cup due to COVID.  Now the competition will start with the Round of 16 with 8 MLS teams.  The top 8 teams on PPG on May 2nd will qualify.  This will be after the first 3 games of the season, except Columbus, FSL, and the Rapids will have only played two (thus why they're using PPG).  So if the Rapids can beat Dallas and Austin to start the season they should qualify to play in this year's competition (I suppose its possible that 9 teams could go 2-0-0/3-0-0 but it seems unlikely)
• The Rapids loaned Abe Rodriguez, Michael Edwards, Matt Hundley, Seb Anderson, and Philip Mayaka to the Colorado Springs for 2021.  The first four of those all make total sense.  There have been a few eyebrows raised for Mayaka, considered the consensus number 1 pick in the draft, being loaned out.  I'm pretty sure this has more to do with the Rapids internationals slots than him.  Mayaka requires an international slot and with him the Rapids have 8 international players and only 6 slots.  I know they are working on green cards for some of their longer-term internationals.  My bet is that they expect to get those green cards during the season for at least two players.  At which point they'll bring Mayaka back to Commerce City and send somebody like Yapi to the Springs.  Until them Mayaka will get more playing time than he probably would in MLS.
• As I'm sure many readers are aware, the U-23s lost to Honduras in Olympic Qualifying on Sunday, which means the U.S. fails to qualify for the 2021 Tokyo Games.  Lewis and Vines both started the game and both had off games.  For Lewis the tournament showed why people think he should be a starter in MLS...and why he hasn't yet locked down a starting spot.  Vines had arguably the best tournament of anyone despite his meh game on Sunday and is seen by many as the field player most likely to have an impact going forward.
• The Rapids continued their perfect preseason on Saturday, beating New Mexico united 1-0 on a Shinyashiki goal.  They've won every game so far, outscoring their opponents 6-0.  The lineup for this one:

Yarbrough

Rosenberry - Abubakar - Wilson - Beitashour

Price - Bassett

Namli - Mezquida - Barrios

Shinyashiki

After full subs in the 70th minute  (Trusty entered for Wilson at half)

Irwin

Beitashour - Moor - Trusty - Wilkerson

Warner - Toure

Bassett - Larraz - Benezet

Yapi

• Colorado dropped its Class 5 kit on Friday.  A mint green with darker green highlights.  I appreciate the Rapids doing something other than a white kit for the road/alternate kit, and I think this looks better than either flag kit they did.  Still, its not for me.  I don't particularly like the color mint green.  So while I'll pass on picking it up, kudos to the Front Office for the job they did on this (minus naming it Class 5 after climbing route and not Class VI after rapids).

Schedule Released!

We finally have the season schedule!  Just a couple of quick housekeeping notes before we get to it though:

• GK Andrew Rawls and D Jeremy Kelly have been loaned to USL Phoenix Rising for the 2021 season, with the right of recall.  This is not at all a surprise for Rawls, who sits behind Yarbrough, Irwin, and probably Rodriguez for playing time.  I'm a little surprised about Kelly given that he showed well in his limited time last season.
• The Rapids have added scrimmages on the 31st against FC Tucson and LA Galaxy II.  They're scheduled just an hour apart so I suspect these will be 45 or 60 minute scrimmages.

Now, the schedule.  As we already knew the season will start in Dallas on April 17th followed by our first look at Austin here in Colorado a week later.  Now we know the full season details.  Back to 34 games, but 31 of them will be against the Western Conference as the league keeps things somewhat regionalized to save costs and allow for same-day travel.  We play seven teams 3 times, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Minnesota, Seattle, KC, and of course FSL.  The rest of the West we play twice (once home, once away) and we go to New England and the new stadium in Cincinnati while Toronto visits Colorado.  

The bad news is that we have to go to Salt Lake not once, not twice, but three times.  Since cross-border travel for sports is still not allowed for pro sports the Canadian teams are at least starting the season in the U.S. and Vancouver is playing their home games in Sandy.  So our May trip "to Vancouver" is actually a trip to Salt Lake.  On top of that they get two of the three Rocky Mountain Cup matches at home.  We also go to Houston and KC twice.  Austin, Dallas, Minnesota, and Seattle we get twice at home.

The schedule has some gaps this year for international play.  The team has the first 3 weeks of June off for World Cup qualifying.  There's also a 10 day gap in mid July for the Gold Cup.  The Rapids have a long home stand around that with 4 home games in a row starting with the Sounders on the 4th of July and ending with Dallas on July 21st.  The Rapids follow that with their only 3 game road trip, going to Salt Lake, Austin, and Minnesota in 11 days.  They also have a 3 games in 10 days home stand in September.  Otherwise there's never more than 2 home or away games in a row.

Their toughest stretch is in mid August where they play in Houston on Saturday, in LA against the Galaxy on Tuesday, then come home for their only home Rocky Mountain Cup match on Saturday.  They also have a rough 5 games in two weeks right before the end of the season starting in Salt Lake for a RMC match, heading home for Seattle and Portland, then flying out to New England before heading back down to Houston for the 5th game.  Depth will be tested.  They get a week off after that before the season finale, facing LAFC at home on November 7th.  Snow Clasico IV?

Overall given the compressed schedule this works out pretty well.  The Rapids' youth and depth will server them well.  If you look at our 10 "extra" games after playing the 12 Western teams home and away we have the two worst teams in the West last year (both on the road), an expansion team, and the worst team in the East (also on the road).  New England finished 8th and wouldn't have made the playoffs if they hadn't been expanded.  So half of those games are against non-playoff teams going into 2021.  We also get 3 of the top 4 teams in the West last season and the second best team in the East, but all but one of those extra games (KC) are at home.  The last one is against Dallas, who finished right behind us, and is also at home.  Other than drawing KC on the road that's a pretty favorable mix.

The league announced on Monday that the Leagues Cup, which the Rapids qualified for, would be reduced this season and only 4, not 8, MLS teams will play in it.  Colorado no longer qualifies under the new rules but I think that's a good thing.  We don't need the fixture congestion.

Rapids Win, U-23s Win, And We Add GAM

Busy weekend for the Rapids.  They played KC on Saturday and won 1-0 on a late Drew Moor header.  That sounds familiar... anyway, here were the starters:

Yarbrough

Rosenberry - Abubakar - Wilson - Beitashout

Price - Acosta

Bassett - Namli - Barrios

Shinyashiki

Anderson, Benezet, Rubio, and Serna were listed as out, Lewis and Vines are still with the U-23s (see below).  Apparently Trusty still hasn't been cleared to return from international duty and was not available but as you can see Bassett made it back.  Makes me wonder if maybe Cole was released a couple of days earlier than Auston from U-23 camp to allow him to get back faster.  So that's pretty much the first team lineup given who was available.

At half Irwin came in for Yarbrough and Galvan came in for Barrios.  SKC made a complete lineup change at half.  At the 60 minute mark the rest of the starters were subbed out resulting in:

Irwin

Edwards - Ford - Moor - Kelly

Warner - Larraz

Galvan - Mezquida - Yapi

Toure

At 77 Hundley came in for Galvan.  Two minutes later Moor headed home the only goal of the match to make the Rapids 3 for 3 in preseason.

Also over the weekend the U-23s beat the Dominican Republic 4-0 to move to 2-0-0 in Olympic qualifying and clinch a spot in the semifinals.  The team will play Mexico on Wednesday, who is also 2-0-0, to determine who wins the group.  The winner gets the second place team in the other group in the semifinals while the loser gets the other group winner.  The semifinal winners qualify for the Olympics.  (If the teams draw Mexico will win the group on goal differential.)  Vines and Lewis have started both matches.  Lewis has shown flashes and in generally has been among the better players but has had lapses.  Vines might be the best player for the U.S. so far.  He's quickly locking down that LB spot and while he'll face competition to start once the European players are added to the roster, at this point he's almost a lock to make the Olympic squad as a backup at least if the team qualifies.

Lastly the Rapids made a trade today, sending an international spot to Atlanta for 2021 in exchange for $225K in 2022 GAM.  As I understand it that means we won't actually get the cash until next offseason, which is part of the reason that's about the highest amount I've ever seen an international slot go for on its own.  Good bit of business by the Front Office.  That leave the Rapids with 6 slots and 8 players, so I think its safe to say that some green cards are in the near future.

Rapids Win First Two Scrimmages, Send Players To National Teams

Yesterday the Rapids played two 45 minute scrimmages and won both 2-0.  The first was against Portland where they used the following lineup:

Rodriguez

Rosenberry - Abubakar - Wilson - Beitashour

Price - Acosta

Namli - Shinyashiki - Benezet

Barrios

For the first goal Danny Wilson found a streaking Michael Barrios.  The second was a great team goal involving Wilson, Namli, Benezet, and Shinyashiki before Acosta got the goal.

One note a number of players were out due to the Olympic camp or injury, including both Yarbrough and Irwin.  For the second match the Rapids played local USL side Phoenix rising with the following 11:

Rawls

Anderson - Ford - Moor - Kelly

Warner - Larraz

Hundley - Mezquida - Yapi

Toure

The goals in this one came from a steal and score by Larraz and a combo goal from Anderson, Yapi, and Hundley who got the score.  Midway through Edwards subbed in for Ford, Serna came in for Anderson, and Mayaka came in for Larraz.

Besides the positive results I think the real important thing from these games is that Kortne Ford was back playing in actual game (scrimmage) action.  That's been a long time coming.

Also over the last few days multiple Rapids have been named to National Teams.  Sam Vines and Jonathan Lewis are part of the Olympic Qualifying roster that kicks off the tournament against Costa Rica at 3:30 tomorrow.  Kellyn Acosta has been named to the upcoming full National Team squad for their pair of friendlies in the next couple of weeks.  Auston Trusty and Cole Bassett were cut from the Olympic squad and will be joining the team in Arizona once they pass through COVID protocols.

Season Openers Announced!

Here we are, a week and a half after the weekend that hosted the openers last year, and we finally have at least a partial schedule.  Today MLS announced the home openers for every team.  The Rapids will start their season with a Texas two-step.  They'll head to Dallas for a rivalry match in the season opener on April 17th at 6pm.  Then they'll be back for their home opener a week later on the 24th against expansion Austin FC.  Kickoff will be the traditional home kickoff time of 7pm.  As of right now there is no word on if fans will be allowed in to the stadium or not.  If you haven't had your first dose of Moderna yet or you don't get your first Pfizer does by Saturday you won't be fully vaccinated by the opener, unless you can get a Johnson & Johnson vaccine by the end of next week.

The Rapids should expect to get 4, hopefully 6, pints from these first two games.  There's no excuse for not beating an expansion team at home in their second ever game.  Dallas is going through a bit of a transition right now and I think we're likely better than them, but opening up on the road is difficult and its hard to say it should be a win.  Still a draw is a reasonable expectation.

We're reportedly still a couple of weeks away from seeing the full schedule.  Less than a week until our first preseason action though!

You Get a HG Contract! And you get a HG contract!

Coming off a day with two homegrown signings the Rapids decided to double up and sign two more homegrown players today!  The newest signings are both "trade and signs" in that we traded for the homegrown rights for both of them from other team and signed them as our homegrown players.  Which, yeah, don't seem to make much sense but MLS is going to MLS.

The first move was to send $75K in GAM to DC for defender Michael Edwards.  He's returning to the U.S> after playing in Wolfsburg's reserves after leaving the DC academy.  Depending on performance DC could get additional GAM in the deal.  Edwards signed a 2 year deal with 2 additional option years.  He had one look from the U.S. UJ-17s back in 2016.

After that the Rapids doubled up by sending $50K in GAM to RBNY for the rights to winger Dantouma "Yaya" Toure.  Again there's an incentive in the contract that could result in more GAM for RBNY, and they retain the rights to a small percentage of any transfer fee the Rapids may get in the future.  16 year old Toure signed a 4 year deal with 2 additional option years.  He has played regularly for the U-16 and U-17 U.S. National Teams.

With this week's signings the Rapids now have 12 homegrown players on the roster.  The squad's average age is 24.6 years old with a median at 25.  This is a crazy young squad right now which has its advantages and disadvantages.  We're going to need a lot of leadership from our older guys like Yarbrough and Moor.

Two Homegrown Signings!

 So the whole idea of this being a quiet week was a wrong one as the Rapids had a cascade of announcements today.  The two big ones were two new homegrown signings.

19 year old midfielder Oliver Larraz joins the club on a 2 year deal with 2 additional option years after having spent the last 10 years in various Rapids youth clubs.  Over the last two seasons he's spent time with the Duisberg youth sides in Germany and the Barcelona academy in Arizona.  Earlier this week I thought he was a long shot to make the roster.  Sorry Oliver, I missed badly on that one.

16 year old forward Darren Yapi becomes the youngest signing in team history.  He signed a 5 year contract with an additional option year today.  Yapi played for the Switchbacks last season and split training between the Springs and the first team in Commerce City.  He's also been capped 3 times by the U.S. U-17 National Team.

With the two signings the team is up to 31 signed players.  Obviously some of our younger players will be going on loan, probably to the Springs, so roster limits should not be an issue.

On a related issue the absence of Will Vint on the preseason roster is due to him missing the trip for personal reasons.

The other news is that the team announced its schedule of games in Arizona.  The last 3 games are part of the Tucson Sun Cup which will hopefully be streamed online.  The full schedule is below.

March 16th - 45 minutes against Portland and 45 minutes against USL club Phoenix Rising

March 20th - Sporting KC

March 27th - USL side New Mexico United

April 3rd - 5pm - FSL (Tucson Sun Cup)

April 7th - 2pm - LA Galaxy (Tucson Sun Cup)

April 10th - 6:30pm - Phoenix Rising (Tucson Sun Cup)

Preseason, finally

After a week of quarantine and physicals the Rapids started camp today in Commerce City.  The club announced their preseason plans, which will have the team in Colorado for the next week before heading to Tucson until the week before the season starts.  Down there they will play other MLS and USL teams in preseason friendlies to be announced at a later date.  There has been no official announcement of a preseason tournament in Arizona, but they usually have something so I'd expect there to be some sort of competition.

Along with the preseason plans the Rapids also announced there preseason roster.  While it was expected that Bassett, Lewis, Trusty, and Vines would miss most  of camp while being in the U-23 camp for the Olympic Trials (also announced today) Will Vint was also missing from the camp list, for unknown reasons.  It could just be a mistaken omission, as he's still listed on the website roster, but it seems odd it wasn't immediately fixed.

There are 5 extra names coming to camp.  Academy midfielders Oliver Larraz, Cullen 'Cam' Wilkerson, and Darren Yapi will all be taking part in preseason in Tucson.  Larraz is 19 and has been with the academy for 4 years.  I think he's likely looking for a pro contract after being passed over as a homegrown, and hoping that if he doesn't make the Rapids some other team will see/hear about him in camp.  Wilkerson is 16 and is joining the Academy this year, this might be a "get his feet wet" introduction to the pro game to give him a taste of what he's aiming for.  Yapi is only 15 but has already earned a U-17 callup and is probably the hottest prospect in the Academy.  I assume there's a contract already waiting for him when he and the team feel its right to sign it.

The other two names are very familiar to Rapids fans, Dillon Serna and Edgar Castillo.  I'm going to state this up front, I don't think either of them are under serious consideration for a roster spot on the Rapids.  I believe Serna's being given a chance to get an early start on his training for his new contract with the Switchbacks out of respect for his history with the club.  He'll get some good training in and be ready to somewhat be the face of the USL side.  they've really pushed his signing this offseason.  Castillo is looking to get back into the league at 34 years old. We know he has family in the area and I bet he probably still lives here in the offseason. He likely reached out hoping to be able to get fit and get some minutes while teams are watching, and hoping one of them gives him a shot.  He and Beitashour are the same age and backup the same position, as I don't see why the Rapids would sign a second older backup at this point.

I expect things to be fairly quiet for the next week, but if anything pops up I'll cover it.  The schedule should be released within the next 2 weeks, that should be the next big thing.