Well, This Season Is Off To A Rough Start

90 minutes of play, 1 shot on goal.  This goes with 0 shots on goal in Guatemala and 2 shots on goal against Comunicaciones at home before they went down a man.  That's 195+ minutes against full 11 man opposition, 3 shots on goal, 0 goals.  This is a pretty significant problem.  With Atlanta and Sporting KC coming up the next two games its a problem that needs to be fixed ASAP.

What we saw in this game wasn't just a failure to have a pure goal scorer (though that would certainly have helped).  We only seemed to have one strategy, get it out to Esteves on the left and cross it in.  Once that became obvious it was very easy for LAFC to just sit in the box and clear balls all day.  Our midfield felt non-existent most of the match which reduced the pressure on the LAFC defense allowing them to do that.

On the other side of the ball things weren't great.  A stupid play by Abubakar gave up a PK (to Kellyn Acosta no less).  Danny Wilson sleeping on the offside trap let Vela get through with a free run at Yarbrough.  Then the third goal was ridiculous.  A long outlet punt from the LAFC keeper went three passes and in the net, without a single Rapid getting within playing distance of the ball.  Now a nod has to be given to Vela for his great shot, not many re going to pick up the upper corner from that distance and angle, but Trusty gave him far too much space an nobody put any pressure on the ball before that.

All in all, not a good performance from much of anyone.  Some of it may be due to tired legs, all four teams who played in the CCL last week lost and went scoreless, but at least those other teams racked up a CCL win in exchange for it.  Fraser has work to do, and fast.  It would also help if we went out and traded for Gyasi Zardes or Ola Kamara this week.

Man of the Match: Jack Price.  This is really an award for not having a bad game more than rewarding a good one.  He was at least trying to drive the team forward in the second half.  Though his free kicks are still rusty so far this season.

And So It Begins

Well with CCL sadly out of the way its on to the regular season.  First up, a trip out to LAFC in LA-LA land.  If you remember we ended the season by beating them 5-2 at home, but they seem to be everybody's trendy pick for this season, getting the best odds to win MLS Cup.  And of course, they now have Kellyn Acosta who seems to have a (ridiculous) chip on his shoulder about the Rapids.  Needles to say people aren't giving us much of a chance in this one.  Kickoff tomorrow is at 1:30pm because the match us in Univision and TDUN (and in English on Twitter).  So we can all watch it!  That's the good news, as Altitude announced this week that they'll be carrying 31 of the 34 regular season matches.  thier dispute with Comcast is still not resolved.

Injury Report:

OUT: D Aboubacar Keita, M Briain Galvan*

* - I'm listing Galvan for this first game, but as we known he's gone for the season so I'm not going ton list him again unless/until his status changes

So other than Keita we have everyone we expected for this one.  That includes first round draft pick defender Anthony Markanich, who's agent announced today that he had signed with the Rapids.  Still waiting for the official word from the team.

Its a tight turnaround after the CCL match on Wednesday, a match that probably took a bit out of the team in cold weather.  Despite that I think Fraser asked the back line to go another 90 as its early in the season and we have a week off after this.  Plus its not like they had to do much defending on Wednesday.  I expect we'll see rotation in the attack, with none of the starters from Wednesday starting this one.

Prediction: 1-0 loss.  Sadly, despite having a couple games under our belt unlike LAFC, I don't think this is going to go well.  We're going to be tired after our CCL match and lets face it, there are questions about our offense.  I think we keep the game close but never look like we're going to take a result home with us.

If It's CCL, It Must Be An Embarrassing Night For The Rapids

*sigh*.  I don't know why I thought it would be different, but I did.  Instead the Rapids did what they've always done in the CCL.  Crash out in the first round in a generally embarrassing fashion.  I didn't start following the team until just after the 1998 appearance, so I can't speak to that, but in 2011 it was Gary Smith not even bothering to travel to a road CCL match and the Rapids looking decidedly minor league from top to bottom when hosting Santos.  In 2018 it was Anthony Hudson openly stating before the matches that he didn't care about the result and was using the games as preseason warmups.  Last night it was a team playing up a man, at home, for 75 minutes and then not getting the result they needed before losing in penalty kicks.  Oh, and being apparently outdrawn in their home stadium, in sub-zero temps, by Guatemalan supporters.  But remember, we're taking it "seriously" this year.

Comuicaciones haws 2 shots on target in the series, both in the first match, and is moving on.  This despite having at least 6 players not even make the trip to Colorado and having another sent off in the 15th minute.  For 75 minutes the Rapids had complete control of the game, and they came up with a single goal.  Now credit to Cremas' keeper, he had a good night, but we didn't really make him work that hard given the difference in talent level (no knock on our opposition, they even admitted they were the less talented team), man power, and home field advantage.  In our last 3 games we've scored a single goal when 1 more goal in any of those games would have been enough.  We haven't win a knock-out game/series since the Open Cup in 2017.  This team is desperate for the guy who can step up and score when we need a critical goal.

Can we stop pretending that the answer to our hole at striker is Rubio or Lewis or Shinyashiki?  They had their chances this series and none of them answered the call.  It felt like Lewis lost the ball more than he kept it over the two games.  Rubio had the chance to be the hero, and couldn't manage to stay onside (that was correctly called by VAR).  Shinyashiki could barely get time in the series, and when he did he failed to do the thing he need to do, namely make his PK.

Robin Fraser put out a good lineup in both games, but this lineup has no ability to break down a bunker.  We saw it last year and we're seeing it again this season.  The lack of the necessary talent on this roster isn't on Fraser, its on Smith.  He talked a month ago about having targets identified at striker, but apparently he can't get the deal done.  Something he's consistently failed at, despite his success with the rest of the roster.  Literally every preview I've read for this season has talked about how the Rapids need a 9, and somehow we went all offseason without signing one.  I understand we're playing Moneyball because that's what our owner gives us to work with, but Moneyball ended the same way our season did last year.  Why will anything be different this season?

It was also embarrassing to see the crowd makeup in the stadium last night.  I'm going to make this perfectly clear up front, this isn't a knock against those of us who did show up, or even those fans with more brains than us and decide to watch from a warm home.  There's no way a random Guatemalan team should be outdrawing the home team in snow and single-digit temps in Denver.  It shows a failure of the Front Office, over 25+ years, to connect with this community and build a fan base.  There should be plenty of committed/insane fans who are willing to come out to this game despite the weather and overwhelm the couple of thousand Guatemalan fans.  Instead we sounded like the visiting support in our own stadium.  It doesn't help when that visiting team shows more respect and love for their supporters than the burgundy boys did.  Outside of Jack Price pretty much the whole team just turned and trudged their way to the locker room after the Shootout instead of acknowledging the fans.  Poor show guys, and thanks to Captain Jack for taking the time to show some love.

In the end this is another series where we failed to show up, on and off the field. and we got the expected result.  Now we go into the regular season where we have the talent to, over 34 games, finish in a playoff spot and have a "successful" season, but its going to end quickly in the playoffs again unless we add some real firepower.  And ever if we do we'll still have to wonder what could have been had we added it before the season.

Man of the Match: Max.  Hey, he scored on his home debut, which is all you can ask.  If only the rest of the team had lived up to that standard.  Honorable mention to Yarbrough, who started out the shootout looking like he wasn't going to save anything, but then came up big forcing the kicks to go 7 rounds.  But he had nothing else to do last night not facing a shot on target.

If It's CCL, It Must Be Single-Digits

That was my weather app at kickoff of Frozen Taps I, 4 years ago Sunday night

I don't know if we'll call this Frozen Taps II or Snow Clasico IV, but we're all set for another frigid game at the Dick tomorrow night.  At kickoff the forecast calls for 14 degrees and a 32% chance of snow.  Needless to say this will be a shock to Comunicaciones, not to mention a few of our own players (welcome to your first home game Max!).  Kickoff tomorrow is at 6:30, with the game on FS2 for those who can't make it, or don't want to deal with the cold.

The Rapids expect to have everyone (other than Galvan) available, while a number of the Cremas players will not be making the trip due to being vaccinated with the Sputnik vaccine, which isn't recognized by the WHO and thus, U.S. Customs and Immigration.  There's also a couple of players who reportedly hive visa issues, with one report that its due to them being Cuban.  Regardless of why, we can expect a weakened Comunicaciones squad in Commerce City tomorrow.

 

With the first leg at 1-0 to the bad guys, the Rapids have to score two tomorrow night to avoid PKs.  A 1-0 win means straight to Kicks From The Mark, no 30 minutes of extra time.  Any other 1 goal win (2-1, 3-2, etc.) means Comunicaciones goes through on away goals.  A two goal win means the Rapids are through regardless of the score.

This is the lineup I predicted last week before we went a bit more defensive.  This week we need goals so I expect a more aggressive lineup.  Unfortunately being down a goal means that Cremas can park the bus in the cold, and that's something a number of teams did successfully against us last year.  We're going to have to figure out how to break through that kind of block and score.

Prediction: 2-0 win, goals by Rubio and Barrios.  Yeah, this feels optimistic but the only time Comunicaciones got close to scoring last week was on free kicks.  With the home advantage, cold, and the weakened Cremas side we should pull this out, but it shouldn't have been this hard.

Let's Talk About GAM, Baby

With a nod to Salt-N-Pepa's 'Let's Talk About Sex'

Ok, as the league season gets started on Saturday the elephant in the room for the Rapids is the lack of investment in the squad.  Now the Front Office can't control what kind of budget they get from KSE for Designated Players, or how much discretionary TAM they get to work with, but they can control how they spend the General Allocation Money(GAM) they have.  While most of that information is private, we can make some educated guesses about where we're at.  Right now it seems like we have a lot of GAM we're not spending.

WARNING: Lots and lots of numbers ahead

GAM can be spent in roughly three different ways:

• An unlimited amount can be spent on transfer or loan fees
• A limited amount can be spent per player to buy down their salary hit.  As is typical with MLS the exact numbers allowed are a little murky, but any player making more than $1.6M is a DP no matter what, while some rules refer to up to 50% of the budget charge being covered by GAM.  For the Rapids it doesn't matter much as we don't have a player right now that falls into the grey area (more on that later)
• It can be traded

An important note, given people's opinion of Kroenke/KSE, there is no benefit to the owner to not spending GAM.  they can't pocket it in cash.

Teams get GAM three different ways:

• A yearly stiped from the league (this year its $1.625M for everyone), teams in the CCL get an unknown amount more
• Player sales, up to $1.05M of a transfer fee received can be converted to GAM
• Trades

So given that we can zero in a bit on what the Rapids have, and what they've spent.  The one piece we don't know is how much GAM they had at whatever point we start counting.

For this exercise I'm going to start counting with the Sam Vines sale last yea, and I'm going to assume that we had $0 at that point (worst-case scenario).  This is a clean place to start, because teams have to be roster compliant with salaries at the start of the season, so all 2021 salary requirements for GAM would have been covered by then, and none of the players who needed GAM in 2021 are on the roster now.

So lets talk about GAM the team has received since then:

• $1.625M - League stipend
• $1.05M - Sam Vines sale
• $1.05M - Auston Trusty sale*
• $550K - Kellyn Acosta trade (We get another $550K next year, plus up to $400K in performance bonuses)
• $225K - International slot trade with Atlanta
• $50K - Nicolas Benezet trade (plus up to $50K more if he met performance metrics, unlikely)
• $X - Additional league stipend for being a CCL team
• $X - Cole Bassett loan fee

* - We don't know how much we sold Trusty for, but Sam Stejskal is comfortable using Transfermarkt's $2M, so who am I to disagree?

Grand total: $4.55M + the CCL and Bassett GAM.  I think its safe to say we've received over $5M in GAM in the last 7 months.

Now lets talk about what the Rapids have spent GAM on:

• $1M - Max transfer fee (reportedly we spent the Vines GAM on getting Max)
• $300K - Aboubacar Keita trade (plus up to $150K more)
• $50K - Dominique Badji trade (it was for 2022 GAM)

That's the easy stuff.  $1.35M spent.  The third category, spending it on salaries, takes a little more analysis.  First of all every player has to have a max budget charge of $612,500 in 2022.  If their salary is less than that, fine.  If you make more than $1.6M, you're a DP and you hit the cap at $612,500.  Its that in-between area where GAM comes in.  If you don't want to use a DP slot on a player making between $600K and 1.6M you use GAM (or TAM, but that comes out of KSE's pockets) to buy down their cap hit to that $612,500 number.  Using the 2021 salary guide (because the 2022 one isn't out yet) here's who did, and who likely, needs GAM to buy down their contracts.

2021:

• Kellyn Acosta - No longer on the team
• Michael Barrios - $40K
• Younes Namli - No longer on the team
• Jack Price - $45K
• Diego Rubio - $15K

So, based on last year's salaries coming into 2022 we had $100K in GAM commitments.  Things have changed slightly so we'll go through them:

2022:

• Bryan Acosta - He was a DP for Dallas last year, but its been confirmed we won't be making him a DP.  He was on $700K last season, but we passed up picking him up on his 2022 option from his last contract and renegotiated with him.  So its safe to say he's not going to be making much more than that $700K, and quite possibly less.  So I'm going with less than $100K..
• Cole Bassett - He got a new contract as part of his loan to Feyenoord, and you have to figure he's making significantly more than his $120K last year.  But we're getting an unknown loan fee for him as part of the deal with Feyenoord.  Basic negotiation is probably good enough to get back from Feyenoord at least enough to cover any GAM we'd have to spend on him.  So I'm going to cancel out his possible GAM hit with his GAM addition and call it $0.
• Jack Price - Team captain, was already over the limit, and got a new long-term deal.  It would not shock me to see that he's getting $800-$900K or a bit more.  So lets call it $300K of GAM for now for him in 2022.
• Michael Barrios - Contracts typically have a least a bit of a raise in them, so lets be generous and say we're spending $100K on him this year.
• Diego Rubio - See Michael Barrios.  Call it $100K
• Marc-Anthony Kaye - Got a new contract but he was only on $250K last year.  Do we really think we tripled (or more) his salary?  Lets be generous and say $100K which would be almost tripling.
• Max - Was signed on the U22 Initiative which means he makes under the max salary charge and hits the cap at even lower, so no GAM needed.

Anyone else who got new contracts or on existing contracts would have to have surprisingly large escalation clauses in order to need to use GAM.

So estimate $700K in GAM needed for our salary charges combine that with the expenditures above and you're looking at around $2M in GAM we've spent/committed to spending.

So cancelling out Cole Bassett, we're still looking at close to $5M of GAM we've stockpiled in 7 months, and $2M we've spent.  That's a difference of $3M!  Even if I'm off on my assumptions we've got enough GAM to sign a top-level non-DP player!  And we probably have enough to sign two of them!

So all of those numbers boil down to a simple question.  Why aren't we spending our GAM to improve the team before the season starts?

Boy, it sure would be nice if we had some strikers, don't you think?

The wit and wisdom of Jayne Cobb, paraphrased.  Last night the Rapids looked exactly like they did at the end of last season, toothless in attack.  90 minutes, 0 shots on goal.  The rest of the team was adequate enough, only getting beat 1-0 on a late free kick that got past Yarbrough because of a deflection off Bryan Acosta's back.  There were 1-2 other good looks for Comunicaciones, but only one that was really dangerous, an early corner kick that Yarbrough made a blind save on.  Hard to complain about a loss when you don't have any sort of attack though.  The lack of a striker signing this offseason is looking like a bigger failure by the day.

This means the Rapids need to win by 2 next week, or keep it to 1-0 and go to Kicks From The Mark.  A 1 goal win where Comunicaciones scores means they'll go through on away goals.  Important note, there is no extra time next week.  If the game is 1-0 Colorado after 90 minutes we go straight to kicks, there is no extra 30 minutes played.

Random Thoughts:

• Colorado really struggled to adjust to the heavy field.  Passes were dying about 75% of their way to the target all night
• Starting Warner over Barrios left us with 7 defenders and 3 attackers, and that gulf between midfield and the attacking third was huge.  We could not cross that divide without going outside, which made defending us far too easy
• We looked like we still had a lot of rust on us.  Any chance we could arrange a scrimmage this weekend against the Switchbacks to knock some of it off before Wednesday?
• The bad part about this result (well, besides the loss itself) is that Comunicaciones can now just park the bus here in Colorado on Wednesday.  As we saw last year that's the best way to control the Rapids at home
• Jack Price struggled with his (limited) free kicks last night.  Hopefully that's just some of that rust
• The guys didn't seem to have stamina issues at least, they just couldn't generate offense
• Lewis had a rough game.  For a guy Fraser talked about last week as a good option at 9 he sure wasn't showing that in this game

Man of the Match: Max.  He only played 10 minutes but had our best chance of the night.  A flash of what we're hoping to see long-term.

Off To Guatemala!

Well technically the team flew in yesterday, but our thoughts turn south to Guatemala with the start of the CCL, and the start of the season, tomorrow.  Our first chance to see the Burgundy Boys in a meaningful match in 2022 and unlike most games the last 2+ years we will be able to see them.  Kickoff is at 5pm tomorrow and the game is on Fox Sports 2.

Comunicaciones will reportedly be without 3 of their more notable players as midfielders Rodrigo Saravia and Lynner Garcia and forward Oscar Santis have reportedly tested positive for COVID.  to the best of our knowledge everyone for the Rapids should be available for selection, other than Braian Galvan obviously.

Two rules items to keep in mind.  This is a 2-legged series and away goals are the tiebreaker.  Also VAR will be in use for these matches.

This is essentially the lineup and formation the team has been playing to start the preseason games.  The only change is Kaye for Warner.  Kaye missed most of camp with the Canadian Nats but is a clear starter.  If he's not quite ready we'll see Warner, but I'd be shocked if anyone outside those 12 players start.

Prediction: 1-1 draw, goal by Rubio.  This is a hard one to predict because I don't know that much about Comunicaciones and its our first match of the season.  I'd be shocked if either team wins in a blowout, and I'd be slightly surprised if the Rapids lose given the absences for the home team.  Worst case I think the Rapids lose by 1 but overcome it in the home leg next week, and I think they'll actually be taking home a point.

Rapids Unveil Best Home Kit In Years

 

Coloraod dropped their new home kit for 2022 and 2023 today and it looks great.  The classic Rapids burgundy with light blue trim and a sublimated mountain design on the chest.  Some people think that sublimated design should have also been outlined in blue, and I'd love to see how that would turn out, but I think this is a pretty good looking kit without it.  Reportedly it will be paired with light blue shorts and socks.  We'll get our first look at our home CCL match next Wednesday.

That does leave us the question of what jersey we're going to wear on Thursday night in Guatemala.  I thought we'd unveil the new jerseys there, since Comunicaciones wears a primarily white kit as their home kit.  I would expect the Class V road kits wouldn't be enough of a contrast but maybe with the green shorts its good enough.  Or we could be wearing last year's burgundys for that match.

Speaking of last year's kits, looking back at the last few burgundy kits this new one is bay far the best.

2020-2021:

This is pretty plain, being forced into the 25th anniversary template Adidas used for most of the kits in this timeframe

2018-2019:

Can you say "burgundy t-shirt"?  This was very meh.

2016-2017:

This at least had some interesting touches with the white sleeves.  This is the last one I bought, only because I wanted Jermaine Jones to sign it.  Haven't worn it since that 2016 playoff match and Jones' FREE AGENT BABY!!! tweet, but it looks good hanging in my home office.

2014-2015:

That sublimated C from the state flag was a nice look.  I like this year's mountains better but this is in contention.  This year's light blue instead of white is also a better move.

2013:

Still my favorite burgundy jersey.  Putting the season ticket holder names on the kit was a great move by the FO, and they were ahead of the trend when this hit a couple of years later (or the images on the numbers, and other such things).  This has been my goto for home games for 9 seasons now, so much so that I had to buy a second one from a friend because my first one wore out.

2011-2012:

I mean, that's a burgundy kit all right.  Very meh.

2009-2010:

No, that's not the same as the 2010-11 kit.  Those stripes were white, these were light blue.  And the Adidas logo is in a different spot.

2007-2008:

The first burgundy kit.  Looking back that RAPIDS across the front isn't a great look.

So out of the 9 burgundy jerseys I rank this new one 2nd overall.  I'll be getting it.

Season Preview and Predictions

Hard to believe, but its game week!  The Rapids start the 2022 season Thursday in Guatemala for the Champions  League.  We'll have more on that match on Wednesday.  Tomorrow is the official jersey reveal which I'll post tomorrow.  So that leaves tonight for the Sean Preview and my annual Predictions.

Before we get to that though, a quick update on our final preseason scrimmage against Orlando on Friday.  The teams played to a 1-1 draw, with the Rapids giving up the goal in the first 3 minutes and Rubio levelling it just before half.  The starting XI is the same group we've seen most of preseason, while Kaye, Max, and Bryan Acosta all got their first minutes with the team this preseason in the second half (MAK and Acosta played the whole half, Max got the last 30 minutes).  I think its clear that the first half group, with MAK probably replacing Warner, is likely what we'll see on Thursday night.

We finish off the preseason and go into meaningful games with Shinyashiki and Mezquida being the big names to have gotten no game time.  I believe this is likely due to their travelling to complete green cards which is more beneficial in the long run.  Matt Hundley and Abe Rodriguez also got no playing time, but as players that would be very surprising to get any time in the regular season that's not a concern.  None of our draftees got time in this one, and only Markanich travelled to Orlando with the team.  Also Galvan has gotten no time this preseason, but we sadly know why.

So that's how we enter the season.  That is to say, we enter 2022 pretty much how we left 2021.  With a quality squad of 'distressed assets' that is greater than the sum of its parts, but with nobody who will put the team on their shoulders and will them to victory.  This is still a group effort with no true stars.  There are certainly advantages to that strategy, but we've seen the drawbacks in the last two years when we hit the playoffs (but hey, we're hitting the playoffs in back-to-back years!).

The positive side to this strategy is the drop-off from the best player to the eighteenth best player on this roster is probably the smallest in the league.  If Price/Trusty/Yarbrough are your top players, having Warner /Keita/Irwin at the end of your bench is a solid place to be.  You don't have much concern mix and matching to put together a lineup.  We're two deep with acceptable MLS starters in almost every position, which defense being a little questionable.  Our apparent plan to play 5 in the back though helps with that, because if things do get thin we can morph into a 4-man backline.

The problem is the same one we saw last year.  There are going to be games where it just doesn't work.  The passes aren't linking together, the forwards aren't finding space, and the back line isn't in sync.  When that happens there's not enough "top-level" MLS talent to find a way to win without a majority of the team being on.  The one top piece we can rely on though is on the sideline.  Fraser should have been coach of the year last year, and there's no reason his ability to analyze tactics and adjust should be any worse this season.  So there will be very few games where we're played off the pitch.

The lack of real investment in this team this offseason will be the Achilles' heel.  A vast majority of MLS teams went out and spent real money this offseason to increase the talent in the league.  We're one of the few that didn't.  Spending money doesn't mean you win (see the 2021 Rapids success) but when everyone is doing it and you aren't your already thin margin for error shrinks to almost zero.  We're going to have to be perfect for 34 games to repeat our finish from last year, and we won't be.  That said, we still have good MLS qualify.  This is easily a playoff team, but this year is going to be a lot more work and less fun than last season.

So with that, on to the predictions!  As always I'll circle back at the end of the season to see how I did.

• The Rapids make the playoffs without too much sweat, but in 5th place so they don't host a playoff game
• Because of that they're one and done again
• Colorado beats Comunicaciones in the first round of the CCL, marking the first time they've ever advanced in that competition, but then gets knocked out by NYCFC in the next round
• Because they get a bye to the 4th round of USOC play, to allow for CCL play, they end up facing off against another MLS team and do not advance from their first game
• We win the Rocky Mountain Cup, somehow
• We will not make a significant signing before the season starts in 12 days
• This summer we sign what is a notable #9 for the Rapids, but he does not have a significant impact on the 2022 season (but looks like a good signing for the future)
• Barrios wins the Golden Boot again
• Rubio does not finish the season in Colorado
• Max shows us what the Rapids saw in him, but it takes a bit before we see it
• Bassett has a quiet end of the 2021-22 season for Feyenoord, but comes out on fire in the fall
• Trusty leaving hurts the team in the last third of the season as Keita won't really be starter ready until after he takes his lumps this year.
• Trusty becomes a late scratch from the WC roster.  Kellyn Acosta goes to Qatar (yes, we qualify) as does Sam Vines

Galvan Out For Season

The rumor that trickled out over the weekend was confirmed accurate today as the Rapids announced that Braian Galvan had surgery on his knee for a blown ACL with medial and lateral meniscus damage.  The recovery time is expected to be 9 months, which puts any possible return somewhere around MLS Cup.  I'm sure that if that recovery time looks accurate over the next couple of weeks we'll see him placed on the season-ending injury list by the roster compliance day.  This would allow the Rapids to sign a player to replace him and not Galvan count against the cap or take an international slot in 2022.

Needless to say, this sucks.  I think everyone was excited about the steps Galvan was likely to take this year and expected him to be a core part of the squad.  Our attacking options take another knock and we're going to have to lean heavily on Max and Bryan Acosta now to make up for what we've lost in Kellyn Acosta, Badji, Namli, and Cole Bassett.  (13G and 8A).

Reviewing The Rapids' International Signings

Before we get to the main thrust of tonight's entry the Rapids lost for the first time this preseason, going down 2-1 to Houston on Saturday.  The starting XI was the same group that started against Seattle on Tuesday and who I largely expect to start in Guatemala.  A nice cross from Esteves (who was probably the Rapids MotM) set up Rubio for the header.  Houston equalized a few minutes later, and then a dumb foul allowed them to score from a set piece on the last kick of the game.  The other thing of note from the match is that Aboubacar Keita played his first minutes of the preseason as a sub.  Still nothing from Shinyashiki, Galvan, Mezquida, Hundley, or Max (who's latest IG shows him at the airport in Brazil so maybe he's on his way?).

Now on to the focus of this post.  There's been a lot of grumbling the last couple of weeks over the lack of a #9 signing, and some people questioning if the Rapids can really recruit internationally or not.  Certainly its safe to say that historically the Rapids have done their best when acquiring players from within MLS and the larger U.S. Soccer sphere.  2010, 2016, and 2021 all came on the back of two offseasons with almost zero transfers outside those groups.  So I decided to review the track record.

My parameters for this was any player who came to the Rapids from a team outside the U.S.  So no intra-league transfers (except for trading for their rights), no USL signees, and no draftees.  I also decided to go back to the beginning of the Padraig Smith era that started in mid-2017 when he was named General Manager.  I did this for two reasons, one it makes a logical break point as the focus of the club changed when Smith took over and the league has changed significantly from what it was before that.  Secondly it gives me a nice round number of 10 transfer windows  (including this offseason).

In those 10 windows the Rapids have signed, by my count, 16 players internationally.  I may have missed a signing that never appeared for the Rapids but I'm pretty sure I got everyone.  That average of 1.6 international players per window seems low compared to the rest of the league, but that's just a gut feel as I haven't tracked all the league transfers.  So that's one data point, the Rapids don't sign as many players as many other teams.

Now on to quality.  For this I'm going to rank the 16 players from worst to best, with some obvious break points as I do it.  The rankings will be subjective (obviously) but will take into account amount of first team playing time, contributions, and salary.  Only a couple of our signings included significant transfer fees and since we don't know how much they were they didn't really impact these ratings.

Group 1: The question marks, because we haven't seen them yet:

Michael Edwards, 2021 winter- Signed from VfL Wolfsburg II but originally started out in the DC United academy.  Played 24 times for the Switchbacks last season and reportedly held his own, but it doesn't seem like he's going to be a big part of the Rapids in 2022.  I expect a lot of games for Rapids 2.

Max, 2022 winter - As mentioned above, he hasn't even gotten to the States yet so we have no idea how he's going to do.  He's go the right pedigree, but is he going to be a Brian Galvan or a Juan Ramirez?

Group 2:  The failures, no sugar-coating it, these were bad to horrible signings

Stefan Aigner, 2017 summer - Well, what can you say about the Aigner signing but train wreck?  Signed from 1860 Munich he played 10 times  in 10 months in Colorado, despite an $800K salary.  He clearly expected to show up, be "the man", and retire while getting paid.  Instead he just moped around and left.  Good riddance.

Yannick Boli, 2018 winter - Signed from Chinese second division side Dalian Yifang Boli seemed to be the backup backup option when we needed a striker in 2018 and were running out of time, and he played like it.  2 goals in 17 appearances for $900K.  Needless to say his option was not picked up at the end of the year. 

Joe Mason, 2018 winter - Signed from Wolves on season-long loan he only made it to July before having his  loan cancelled after 3 goals in 14 appearances.  Still that was better numbers than Boli.  He was on $650K salary, so when you combine that with the two above the Rapids had $2.3M in salary tied up in 3 players that managed 32 appearances and 5 goals in 2018.  No wonder that season sucked.

Nicolas Benezet, 2020 winter - Signed from French Ligue 2 sig Guingamp.  In 2019 he was on loan from them to Toronto, so unlike most of these other signings he was familiar with MLS.  Despite that he never found his spot in Colorado and was eventually pushed out of playing time by the likes of Lewis and Galvan.  It wasn't helped that he broke his nose in 2020 preseason and just as he got healthy the COVID shutdown hit.  Overall he made 22 appearances over two years, tallying 4 assists.  He was on a salary of $600K.

Younes Namli, 2020 winter - Our first big DP field signing in a while, hopes were high for Namli coming on loan from FC Krasnodar.  Unfortunately his adjustment period was blown up by COVID and he lost most of his second season to an ankle injury.  All in all he made 28 appearances with 3 goals and 5 assists.  This was a signing that had things broken other ways (no COVID and/or no injury) might have worked out but was a disaster of a DP signing because of bad luck.

Group 3: Replacement level MLS players or overpaid for their decent production

Giles Barnes, 2018 summer - Barnes was in MLS for most of his career, then left for Leon after the 2017 season.  The Rapids brought him back 6 months later on a 6 month deal, and he was a player that filled out the roster.  6 starts, 12 appearances, 0 goals or assists.  For $200K it was worth a shot but didn't amount to anything.

Johan Blomberg, 2018 winter - Blomberg was signed from Swedish side AIK, and MLS was his first experience outside of Sweden.  3 assists, 0 goals, in 27 appearances meant he didn't amount to much and he was eventually loaned to GIF Sundsvall back in Sweden to finish out his contract.  At $250K it was low risk for low reward move.

Tommy Smith, 2018 winter - Part of Anthony Hudson's Kiwi invasion of Commerce City, Smith was signed from Ipswich Town at Hudson's urging after being a key part of his New Zealand national team squads.  Smith was an above average MLS player, but came with a high MLS price of a $600K salary.  A number he never really lived up to.  In two seasons he was a solid center back who was prone to a serious gaffe every other game or so (including one stunningly good headed own goal).  The club actually tried to bring him back in 2020 but couldn't agree on a price point that worked.

Edgar Castillo, 2018 winter - Signed on loan from Liga MX side Monterrey Castillo was a suitable stop-gap at left back between Marc Burch, who had been traded in mid-2017, and the young kid in the Academy everyone was talking about, Sam Vines.  More attack minded than defense focuses he was still a regular starter in 2018, scoring 3 goals.  After the season Monterrey got squirrely with the option to buy included in the loan and the Rapids (rightfully it turned out) decided to turn the LB position over to Sam Vines and move on.  They did manage to trade Castillo's rights in a 3-way trade that landed us Diego Rubio, so well done there.

Group 4: Solid contributing players worthy of the international spot (eventually)

Lucas Esteves, 2021 summer - Signed on loan from Palmeiras with an option to buy, Esteves was brought in to replace Sam Vines at left back after he was sold to Royal Antwerp.  It might be a bit early to put him in this group, but he's looked above average so far and at 21 years old he has room to grow.

Danny Wilson, 2018 winter - Signed from Scottish side Rangers, Wilson is a former Scottish young player of the year.  That, along with a large salary, put high expectations on him when he arrived in Commerce City.  Expectations he failed to meet.  As the Hudson era continued to get worse and worse Wilson took the brunt of the frustration from the fan base as his play was awful.  Then Hudson left, Casey and Fraser showed up, and Wilson turned out to be a decent MLS player.  A new contract that put his salary at a more reasonable $300K also helped.  He's now a regular starter on the back line.

Braian Galvan, 2020 summer - Signed from Argentinian side Colon in the winter of 2020 as a summer signing when his club dropped the ball on his contract renewal, to the point that Colon tried to protest the signing with FIFA and failed.  It took him the back half of the COVID season to settle in but he really came on last season, pushing for regular starting time, and is expected to be a large piece of the Rapids going forward.  So far only 3 goals and 4 assists in 33 appearances but at 21 years old he's going to be increasing those numbers.

Group 5: Top signings

William Yarbrough, 2020 winter - Signed on loan from Mexican side Leon Yarbrough is an American who had spent his whole career in Mexico.  His addition raised some eyebrows when he was brought in just as the season opened, as it seemed that Clint Irwin was finally going to get a run as the number one after Tim Howard retired.  Then COVID hit, Irwin had an injury at the MLS Is Back tournament, and by late 2020 Yarbrough had taken over the starting role.  He went on to have a great 2021 and could (should?) have been in consideration for GK of the Year, but wasn't the best in the league.  Of course, scouting an American who plays for Marcelo Balboa's second-favorite club is probably one of the easiest scouting jobs on this list.

Jack Price, 2018 winter - With Acosta's departure this winter Price is the longest serving Rapid (counting only Moor and Irwin's current stay) after signing from Wolves.  He's also the clear team MVP and the best dead ball setup man in the league.  Rightfully named team captain he's become the heart and soul of the current Rapids and if he sees out all 4 years of his new contract as a starter will probably end up in the Gallery of Honor.  Hands down the best international signing in years.

So what does all this tell us?  Well, first of all the Rapids haven't been very good at international scouting and transfers.  We've averaged one good international signing a year, plus almost one signing that was replacement level at best.  Oh, and we've averaged one horrible signing a year.  Being generous our international signings have cancelled themselves out over the last 10 windows.

On the plus side though,  take a look at the timelines involved.  A majority of the bad signings were at the beginning of this time period (and one of the two that weren't, Namli, was more bad luck than bad scouting).  And a majority of the above-average and great signings have been in the last two years.  So that shows that the FO is learning from its mistakes and improving.

In the long run its fair to approach the Rapids overseas scouting with some trepidation.  They have not yet built up a track record where was can have a ton of faith in signings.  But we can probably move from expecting the worst to some hope mixed with skepticism.

Two Weeks To Go

At this time two weeks from now we'll be in the second half of our road CCL game in Guatemala.  (Hopefully, Comunicaciones just announced their next league game will be behind closed doors due to COVID).  As part pf preseason prep we played two 75 minute scrimmages against Seattle on Tuesday, drawing 1-1 in the one with mainly first team players and winning 2-0 in the one with backups and youth players.  In fact the starting XI of that first match looks a lot like what we might see in Guatemala:

Yarbrough

Rosenberry - Abubakar - Wilson - Trusty - Esteves

Price - Warner

Barrios ----------------------------Lewis

Rubio

Through 3 scrimmages this preseason the following signed players have gotten 0 minutes

Max - Still in Brazil

Bryan Acosta - Honduran National Team (and now COVID)

Marc-Anthony Kaye - Canada National Team

Aboubacar Keita

Braian Galvan

Matt Hundley

Nicolas Mezquida - Left camp to return to Uruguay, almost certainly as part of the green card process

Abe Rodriguez - 3rd keeper may not have many chances with only 4/5 scrimmages

Andre Shinyashiki

#9 Striker signing

Galvan and Shinyashiki could theoretically be getting green cards processed and travelling for that (I believe the process requires a trip back to their home country if possible, and with COVID protocols it may not be a fast trip).  Other than that the only reason I see them not playing is injury.  Not sure why Matt Hundley hasn't gotten time.  Its concerning we haven't seen Keita yet, there's no reason other than injury or an extremely long move from Columbus to Denver that he shouldn't be playing.

Needless to say the likes of Max and any #9 we're going to sign not yet being in camp is a significant issue at this point.  We've got a scrimmage on Saturday that they're likely to get 0 time in at this point (if we eve sign a striker by then), which leaves only the closed-door (but streamed) scrimmage in Orlando for any of our new players to get integrated into the team.  And that match is a week from tomorrow, which means the window for signing a 9 and getting him into camp by then is closing quickly.

The reality of things at this point is that we'll be going to Guatemala essentially with the roster that succeeded in 2021, except without Kellyn Acosta and Cole Bassett.  I'm somewhat confident that Bryan Acosta can integrate fairly quickly, assuming he passes COVID protocols, given that he'll be fit thanks to his time with Honduras and his familiarity with the league.  Unless Max shows up this weekend I don't see how he'll be available for anything other than a few minutes off the bench.

Hard to believe the talk about hw we're taking the CCL "seriously" when we can't even get our new players in camp in time for them to be available for the first game...