Old-Look Rapids Play To Scoreless Draw

Before yesterday's preseason scrimmage the Rapids finally released a camp roster.  The only unsigned players on it were our 3 draft picks and a handful of kids from the Academy.  No surprise trialists or anything.

Based on that, and my schedule yesterday, I decided not to watch the scrimmage.  Because the other things we know is that two of our three new signings weren't in camp.  Bryan Acosta is with the Honduran national Team (and was just ruled out of today's game with a positive COIVD test) and Max is still posting pictures from Brazil on Instagram.  Nobody knows why he's not in camp yet.  Aboubacar Keita has no reason to not be in camp, but he has yet to appear in any photos from camp.  So odds are 9t was going to be our 2021 Rapids getting warmed up for the season with some minutes sprinkled in for guys who will end up playing for Rapids 2 or on load this season, unless Keita got into the game.

Sure enough, the only players who got minutes yesterday that weren't on the 2021 roster were our three draftees, who all got 28 minutes.  So, I don't think I missed much.  The big talking point from the game was a run-in between Lucas Esteves and Khiry Shelton.  On a free kick there was some jostling between the two of them and Esteves came up complaining that he had gotten hit in the jaw.  He then spit and this is where the stories diverge.  SKC captain Johnny Russell made the claim after the game that Esteves spit blood at Shelton.  The Rapids released a statement last night that Esteves said he spit blood on the ground as a way of showing the ref there must have been contact due to the fact that he was bleeding.  Colorado's statement says they've reviewed the footage and found nothing to show that Esteves is lying.  Notably all of this happened "off-camera" from the live stream so we as fans only have what Russell and the Rapids are saying to go on.  All that can be seen is Russell reacting to something that leads to him and Esteves getting into a heated argument.

Obviously if Esteves spit blood at Shelton that is inexcusable and is grounds for at minimum a large fine and suspension, and possibly for termination of his loan from Palmeiras.  If he just spit on the ground though and Shelton or Russell interpreted it otherwise then that's something different.  Things have been quiet since the Rapids' statement last night, so I tend to think that this was a misunderstanding more than anything, but it should make the matches against SKC this season interesting.

Our next match is a closed door game against Seattle on Tuesday.  No stream, so we'll have to rely on whatever reports the teams provide.