Rapids Hope To Break Losing Streak Against The Crew

This unending series of games continues with another midweek tilt.  This time Colorado heats east to Columbus to face a Crew ide that are technically not a playoff team (due to a tiebreaker), making it one of only two non-playoff teams the Rapids have faced during this run.  The other was FSL, and well, we saw how that went.  Kickoff tomorrow is at 5:30pm MT.  The English announcers are Chris Wittyngham and Jamie Watson, the Spanish announcers are Sergio Ruiz and Miguel Gallardo.

Availability Report:

OUT: GK Abe Rodriguez (lower body injury, formerly ankle), M Max (unavailable), F Kevin Cabral (yellow card accumulation), F Darren Yapi (U-20 World Cup), F Diego Rubio (upper body injury, formerly ankle)

QUESTIONABLE: Braian Galvan (lower body injury), M Ralph Priso (lower body injury), F Michael Barrios (lower body injury)

So we got Bassett off the injury report and Nicholson and Acosta back from suspension, but Cabral takes this game off due to yellow card accumulation.  But fear not, Cabral will be available.  His twin brother Remi has been called up from Rapids 2 along with Vargas (for his fourth and final time).  Who plays forward with no Cabral, Yapi, or Rubio?  Beats me.

Yeah, I'm just throwing darts at this point.  With the work load and the injuries just getting 11 players on MLS contracts to start is a challenge.  I won't expect to be anywhere close with my lineup.

Prediction: 2-1 loss, goal by Wilson.  Columbus has one of the better offenses in the league but their defense is questionable.  Wilson gets his head on a Ronan corner to score, but we can't possess the ball and the waves of attacks are too much to deal with, leading us to another loss.

Rapids Lose, Again

Of course Badji would get his first goal since leaving the Rapids a season and a half ago when he was back at DSG.  And of course it would be in a 1-0 game.  Because that's exactly who the Rapids are at this point.  5 game losing streak.  Outscored 11-3.  xG all under 1.4.  We can't score goals so as soon as we give up 1 its all but over.  That's who the Rapids are, there's no hiding from it.

In Saturday's game it took a bad turnover from Rosenberry and Ronan failing to make a play (to be fair, it would have been a really good stop had he pulled it off) to leave our defense at 6's and 7's.  Cinci took advantage and it was 1-0.  But that happens.  What's worse is that the only two players with an xG over 0.1 were a rookie centerback (Bombito, 0.43) and a Rapids 2 winger on short term callup (Hanya, 0.15).  Oh, and neither one of those two got into the game until halftime.  Cabral, our $1.8 million player?  0.07.  Lewis? 0.03.  Ronan? 0.04.  Just not good enough.

Hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel right now.  We've got Columbus on the road on Wednesday, an greatly improved San Jose team at home on Saturday, then finally a whole week without a game before we take a long road trip to Orlando.  After that we get 10 days off and then a Wed.-Sat. with Vancouver and the Galaxy at home.  That might be a place where we could pick up a couple of wins but by then it will be too late.  The Bodmer Line is already over 1.5 now and as I said after the Open Cup loss, that number seems soft.

Man of the Match: Moise Bombito.  Easy pick when your CB is your best attacker.

Lambs To The Slaughter?

Short and sweet.  All signs point to this being an ugly matchup for the Rapids.  We're on a four game losing streak.  Cincinnati is sitting on top of the league by 5 points.  And our injury and suspended list is a mile long (see below).  There's essentially no future where this combination works well, but this is MLS.  That's why they play the games.  Kickoff at the Dick is as always 7:30pm tomorrow night.  Assuming there are no thunderstorms.

Availability Report:

OUT: GK Abe Rodriguez (lower body injury, formerly ankle), M Bryan Acosta (yellow card suspension), M Max (unavailable), M Sam Nicholson (yellow card accumulation), F Darren Yapi (U-20 World Cup), F Diego Rubio (upper body injury, formerly ankle)

QUESTIONABLE: M Cole Bassett (lower body injury, formerly hamstring), Braian Galvan (lower body injury), M Ralph Priso (lower body injury), F Michael Barrios (lower body injury)

Oh yeah, on top of everything else we've reached the point in the season when the Rapids become even less forthcoming about injuries and now we're just getting "upper body" or "lower body" injuries listed.  Somehow Rubio went from an ankle last week to a upper body injury this week.  Beats me.  Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with a reasonable starting XI without using any of the names above.  Good luck.

Yeah, yuck.  And yes, we are wearing the New Day kits at home this weekend.  I have no idea what the lineup will be this weekend, between injuries and load management everyone is in play.  But that's about the best I could come up with without using a Questionable player.  The only midfielders and forwards left are Larraz, Hanya, and Vargas.  But we have 6 other defenders and a goalkeeper to use to fill out the bench.

Prediction: 2-0 loss.  Nobody in their right mid would predict anything but a loss in this one.  Its going to be an ugly grind it out game for us to get anything more than that and I just don't see it happening.

Good Season Everyone

With last night's loss to FSL (again) and elimination from the Open Cup the 2023 is over for all intents and purposes.  Well, unless you think this team will make a sudden surge in the Leagues Cup.  The Open Cup is over.  The league season comes down tot he Bodmer Line, so lets discuss that.

To remind everyone the Bodmer Line (named after former Class Vi Grand poobah Mark Bodmer, who suggested the metric to me) measures how well (in points per game(PPG)) the Rapids need to play over the rest of the season to reach teh average number of points for the last playoff spot.  In 2023 0 teams make the playoffs, so we're aiming for the average number of points for a 9th placed team.

The problem is, there's only been 5 full seasons where the 9th placed team was something more than last place in on of the conferences (or non-existent).  So we're dealing with a small sample size here.  If you were to take the average point totals for both 9th placed teams in 2017-22, skipping the COVID shortened 2020 season, you get an average of 41 points.  But that number has been steadily increasing over the 5 seasons.  41 points would have made it in 2017, 2018, and for one of the conferences in 2019, but not in 2021 or 2022 (or the remaining conference in 2019).  That suggested to me that as the league expands the point threshold goes up, and we've seen that when the playoff line has been at 5th or 7th, though not as dramatically.  So while the Bodmer Line is officially set at 41 points, my gut tells me that's a soft number and we need to be aiming for 43 or 44.

Even with the goal being 41 points though, the Bodmer Line is already at 1.45 PPG.  If we move it up to 43 points it goes up to 1.55 PPG.  Even at 1.45 though, that would be equivalent of playing at a level that would be the 7th best we've ever played over a full season.  1.55 PPG would be the 4th best ever (behind the 2021 and 2020 seasons under Fraser and the 2016 season under Pablo).  Regardless of what number you use, our current PPG of 0.857 would be the worst season PPG in our history.

So you have a team playing at the worst its ever played and in order for them to have a shot at the playoffs they need to start playing at a level in the top 25% of their seasons all-time.  A team that has only beaten the two teams below them in the table so far this season and just just to the team above them in the table.  Twice, At home.  And they're a rival.  Does that seem like a realistic scenario for 2023?  I can't see this team making that kind of turn around.  Thus, barring a miracle Leagues Cup run, 2023 is over.

Open Cup Or Bust!

With the loss on Saturday it feels like the season is a lost cause, as we discussed yesterday.  That leaves the U.S. Open Cup as the only achievable goal this season, and we should go all in on it.  We know that a win tomorrow night means we'll host tonight's LAFC-Galaxy winner in the quarterfinals, and the the Rapids have never hosted 3 Open Cup games in the same season.  It would also be our first quarterfinal since 2007 (And back then we only had to win one match to make it that far).  Lastly it would be our first victory over a MLS team in this competition since beating this same FSL team in 2006.

The Rapids haven't released an injury report for this one, so I'm not even going to try to predict a starting XI.  So far in the first two rounds we've seen a good mix of regular starters and younger backups starting.  Tomorrow ill be a good indicator of what we're prioritizing at this point.  A young lineup means that Fraser and/or Smith still sees value in the league campaign and is willing to write off the USOC, a veteran heavy lineup will indicate the opposite.  I hope we see the latter.

Obviously both teams are coming off the same game on Saturday, but Salt Lake did travel home and came back to Colorado rather than staying here so they have a bit of fatigue in their legs over that (its also the shortest road trip they have, so its not too bad).  Its hard to see a major turnaround from Saturday's result though, unless the Rapids decide they really want it, and FSL decides they don't

Prediction: 2-1 loss after Extra Time, goal by Lewis.  Hard to predict anything else based on the last three games by the Rapids.  Hopefully they surprise me.

Why Bother?

I could go into a bunch of detail about what went wrong in this game, who got beat on the goals, and everything else.  Really though, what's the point?  Once again the Rapids were in a must win game against FSL, and once again they fell on their face.  In the last 10 years no MLS team has beaten another MLS team as often as FSL has beaten Colorado.  And this came at a time when we could nor afford to drop another 3 points at home.  If we don't beat Cincinnati on Saturday, that's Supporters Shield leading Cincinnati, it will be the deepest we've gone into the season without a third win in the post-Shootout/OT era.  Its already the deepest we've gone into the season without a home win, by a number of games.

The reality is that if we can't beat a team at our level in 12th place at home with everything to play for, we're not going to beat much of anyone this season.  Its no surprise our only wins are against the two teams below us in the standings, and we only have 3 points against the teams in the top half of their conferences.  This is largely because we have maybe 8 MLS-quality starters on this roster.  Yarbrough, Rosenberry, Abubakar, Maxsø, Ronan, Bassett, Price, Rubio.  The rest of this roster are young guys who might become MLS-starter quality, older guys on the backside of their careers who show flashes of that level but not consistently, and a few guys who aren't and will never be that level.

We're not a good team and we're not going anywhere this season.  At this point its the Open Cup or bust.

Rocky Mountain Cup - Get It Done

I don't need to write much about this one.  We're on the ropes this season, its the Rocky Mountain Cup, its at home, its a must win.  Simple as that.  Annoyingly the AppleTV broadcast will have former FSL player Brian Dunseth on the call, while on the Spanish call "Celo will be working the battle of Missouri, not the RMC.  Kickoff tomorrow is at 7:30, like always.

Availability Report:

OUT: GK Abe Rodriguez (ankle), D Aboubacar Keita (hamstring), M Max (unavailable), F Darren Yapi (U-20 World Cup)

QUESTIONABLE: D Steven Beitashour (hamstring), D Keegan Rosenberry (groin), M Bryan Acosta (hamstring), M Cole Bassett (hamstring), F Diego Rubio (ankle)

Other than Galvan the report is the same as it was midweek.  However Acosta and Rubio were Questionable against Philly last week against Philly and both played, so I'm betting that their absence in Atlanta was more to give them time to recover and be ready for this one.

I really hope Rosenberry is back or this one as I don't like our other options at RB at this point.  Other than Galvan at LB and whomever partners Rubio I feel good about the other predictions.

Prediction: 1-0 win, goal by Rubio.  FSL has played three 0-0 games in their last four matches, and the fourth was a 3-0 loss.  So they're on a 360+ minute scoreless streak.  Their defense is slightly worse than ours as well (ours is actually pretty good when we're not playing playoff-caliber teams).  So I'm going to be wildly optimistic and predict a win.

Seattle Redux

Short and sweet, we sucked.  That's what happens when your starting XI includes about 4 players who have shown they can play at the level of a 2023 MLS starter.  After Yarbrough, Abubakar, Maxsø, and Ronan the rest of the 11 were players on the downside of their careers (Wilson, Barrios) or players who have flashes but who are not yet MLS starters or who may never be.  I was actually slightly impressed the team kept it to 1-0 for as long as they did, but eventually the dam broke in the last 10 minutes with some lousy defending and 3 Atlanta goals.  The 4-0 scoreline reflected the xG difference of 3.9 to 0.4.

In 13 games this season the Rapids have 12 points, only 3 of them have come against teams in the top half of their conference (draws against St. Louis, Charlotte, and LAFC).  Our only two wins are against the only teams below us in the Western Conference, namely SKC and the Galaxy.  We are exactly where we would expect to be given those data points.  As I mentioned last week about our schedule, the only games in the next 3+ weeks against non-playoff teams is this back-to-back series with FSL coming up.  If we can't win those the season is, for all intents and purposes, over because getting reinforcements through the summer window will be too late.  There are only 12 games left once it opens.

No man of the match after that mess last night.

One roster note, Calvin Harris got his green card today.  I thought the new MLS rule meant that players couldn't change international status after roster compliance day at the start of the season, but the Rapids announcement clarified the rule.  The player mush have appeared for his immigrant visa interview by the roster compliance date.  Essentially the player needs to have done his part of the work by the date, but won't be punished for how long the U.S. bureaucracy takes to actually process the application.  So Harris no longer takes up an international slot on the roster.

2023 Rapids Salaries

Its halftime in Atlanta-Colorado, we're down 1-0 with 0.1xG, and Atlanta missed a PK already.  I don't see it getting any better so on to the salary info.  Here's the raw data, the first number is the base salary, the second is the 2023 guaranteed compensation.

 

Lalas	Abubakar	$665,000.00	$702,125.00
Bryan	Acosta	$675,000.00	$731,667.00
Max	Alves da Silva	$232,000.00	$313,360.00
Sebastian	Anderson	$120,000.00	$121,667.00
Michael	Barrios	$650,000.00	$680,000.00
Cole	Bassett	$450,000.00	$450,000.00
Steven	Beitashour	$150,000.00	$172,500.00
Moïse	Bombito	$67,360.00	$85,572.00
Kévin	Cabral	$1,800,000.00	$1,800,000.00
Michael	Edwards	$125,000.00	$125,000.00
Braian	Galván	$365,700.00	$462,022.00
Alex	Gersbach	$230,000.00	$270,433.00
Calvin	Harris	$100,000.00	$113,000.00
Marko	Ilić	$350,000.00	$382,489.00
Aboubacar	Keita	$160,000.00	$160,000.00
Oliver	Larraz	$85,444.00	$85,444.00
Jonathan	Lewis	$410,000.00	$435,000.00
Danny	Leyva	$200,000.00	$224,900.00
Anthony	Markanich	$68,775.00	$68,775.00
Andreas	Maxsö	$1,100,000.00	$1,292,500.00
Sam	Nicholson	$325,000.00	$360,313.00
Jack	Price	$762,500.00	$825,000.00
Ralph	Priso-Mbongue	$89,716.00	$89,716.00
Abraham	Rodriguez	$88,200.00	$88,200.00
Connor	Ronan	$460,000.00	$512,400.00
Keegan	Rosenberry	$400,000.00	$400,000.00
Diego	Rubio	$660,000.00	$704,667.00
Jackson	Travis	$67,360.00	$69,860.00
Gustavo	Vallecilla	$336,000.00	$368,880.00
Collen	Warner	$85,444.00	$85,444.00
Danny	Wilson	$330,000.00	$354,750.00
Darren	Yapi	$85,444.00	$96,277.00
William	Yarbrough	$400,000.00	$475,000.00

A couple of notes.  About half of Kevin Cabral's $1.8M salary is being paid by the Galaxy.  $92K of Danny Leva's salary is being paid by Seattle.  All of Gustavo  Vallecilla's salary is being paid by Columbus.  I don't know why both Vallecilla and Leyva are listed as Rapids, it should be one or the other.  And I have no idea why Warner is still listed.

Using the raw numbers the Rapids are 20th in spending in the league, but when you make those adjustments I just listed they fall to 26th.

The Rapids spend the smallest percentage of their salary on their top3 and top 5 players of any team in MLS, but those numbers were calculated with the raw data above.  I can't quite figure out how the Athletic ran their calculation but I doubt its going to get much better for the Rapids if you use the adjusted data. Maxsø is the 6th highest paid defender in the league.

On to individual salaries, Cabral is not yet earning his $900K as a DP, but at least we're only paying that much and not all $1.8M.  I'm not sure he's even the most overpaid player on the team though, as Acosta is getting a ridiculously high $730K+, which makes no sense for a guy who wouldn't start if everyone was healthy.  Abubakar isn't good enough to be a max salary player but he's probably a $500K player so he's not far off.  Max is eating $313K while dealing with his match fixing accusation.

For the best deals on this list I'm looking at Rosenberry at $400K and Priso and Yapi at under $100K each.  Yarbrough at $475K is a good deal as well.  Gersbach and Cabral are overpaid for what they've contributed so far in their first season but the rest of the new guys all come in at decent numbers.

Its really hard to tell what cap space (if any) we have as we don't know how much GAM or TAM is being spent on this roster.  There must be a significant amount as our senior roster is way over the salary cap (as is most team's).  Hopefully there's room for some summer moves.

Rapids Make Long Road Trip To Atlanta

(The first drop of 2023 MLS salaries happened today.  No time to get a post up about them tonight but I may hammer one out tomorrow after the match)

Colorado is on its longest road trip not involving Florida as it travels to Georgia tomorrow night.  That makes for an early kickoff at 5:30 MT, and its a free game on Apple.  The good news is that the DisCo only handed out fines for the scrum that ended Saturday's game so only Galvan is suspended for this one.  He may not be out of the woods yet, we've seen additional suspensions handed down to a player between serving their one game red card suspension and the next game, but everyone else is available.  With the quick turnaround to playing FSL on Saturday it will be interesting to see who Fraser uses tomorrow.

Availability Report:

OUT: GK Abe Rodriguez (ankle), D Aboubacar Keita (hamstring), M Braian Galvan (suspended), M Max (unavailable), F Darren Yapi (U-20 World Cup)

QUESTIONABLE: D Steven Beitashour (hamstring), D Keegan Rosenberry (groin), M Bryan Acosta (hamstring), M Cole Bassett (hamstring), F Diego Rubio (ankle)

Um, yeah.  That's not good.  I can't imagine you're sending any of the questionable guys across the country and back unless they're at last 90% likely to start so its going to be a real thin bench.  My best guess, and its purely a guess at this point:

Yeah, I'm predicting that Maxsø gets a day off finally in this one.  He's got to take one soon and I'm guessing it makes more sense for him to do when he doesn't have to travel cross-country and can be rested for a bit match on the weekend.  Otherwise there's not many choices here with the injury report.  I'd like to see Ronan get a rest too, but who else are you going to put there?

Prediction: 2-1 loss, goal by Ronan.  I don't think this one is going to be pretty.  Its going to be a patchwork lineup on the road against a team that is playing better than we are.  I also expect heavy rotation in the second half, so coming from behind seems unlikely.

Rapids Lose Cool And Game

After going up early Colorado gave up two goals and then lost their heads in a extra-time scuffle that ended the game.  There's not a whole lot to write about this one, it really boils down to this.  The Union had two shots on target, both from outside the box, both scored.  Philly had a total xG of 1.0.  Colorado had five shots on target, only one went in, and a combined xG of 1.4.  However almost 0.8 of that came form the PK alone.  In the end, Philly finished its chances, Colorado (once again) did not.  What this game really showed is that our backups aren't MLS quality.  With our injuries, that's a problem.

The other big story from this match was is the scrum that ended the game.  For whatever reason both teams were playing chippy all night.  Referee Victor Rivas didn't do a great job of controlling the game but that's no excuse for what happened.  Colorado was clearly frustrated with the time-wasting tactics of the Union (including a ridiculous simulation by Blake when he hit his head on Cabral's boot, and somehow Cabral got the card).  That boiled over at the end of the match when Blake shepherded a ball out of play and Barrios took the opportunity to give him a shove.  That kicked off a melee involving at least half the players on the field.  In the end Galvan saw red, Barrios saw yellow, and Philly picked up a red and two yellows.

It was dumb.  Barrios has to be smarter, and Galvan has to learn to handle his emptions.  This isn't the first time he's popped off, and some of the footage suggests he may have spit on a Union player.  If he did, then he'll be out longer than a game.  If he didn't (or they can't prove it) then he'll just miss the Atlanta game.  Regardless, it was dumb to get roped into a fight like that.

We move on to Atlanta, and then the doubleheader with FSL.  Given that I wouldn't be shocked if we see more backups tomorrow night.

Man of the Match: Connor Ronan.  Back to back weeks where he was the best player on the field.  Nobody looked great in this one, but he showed he wanted it more than most of the team.

Rapids Look To Extend Undefeated Streak Tomorrow Night

Back to league play at the Dick tomorrow, with Philly in town for our one look at them this season.  The Union have had a busy season so far, coming off a MLS Cup runner-up in 2022 they played in the CCL and made the semifinals before losing to LAFC.  They also played in the USOC this week, going 120 minutes before losing in PKs in Minnesota, so they're feeling the same level of fatigue as the Rapids are.  As part of that, and the fallout from Max presumably, Colorado signed Yosuke Hanya to a short-team deal from Rapids 2 today.  Hanya has been ripping up MLS Next Pro this season with 7 goals and 2 assists in out of midfield the first 6 games, leading hte league.  He was also the Rapids 2 Player of the Season last season.  Short-term deals for MLS Next Pro players limited them to 2 league appearances a year, so I don't expect much from him in this week, but this might be a trial run for a move to the first team when the summer window opens?

Availability Report:

OUT: GK Abe Rodriguez (Ankle, D Aboubacar Keita (Hamstring), M Max (removed from team activities)

QUESTIONABLE: D Steven Beitashour (Hamstring), M Bryan Acosta (Hamstring), M Cole Bassett (Hamstring), F Diego Rubio (Ankle)

Not a great look but reportedly the questionable players were all participating in training yesterday so it sounds like they'll likely be available, though I doubt they start.  Yapi has not yet left for the U-20 World Cup yet based on this list, which is helpful.  Harris is also back from working on getting his green card and should be available.

If Beitashour can go I'd expect him over Nicholson, and if Bassett or Acosta can go they would rotate in for Leyva or Priso.  Rubio could go in for either of the strikers.  We also don't know how Fraser is going to rotate given our heavy schedule over the next month.

Prediction: 0-0 draw.  Both teams are tired, they have a busy schedule, and honestly a cross-conference matchup might be the least important game they play in a while.  Plus they both have pretty good defenses.  Both teams are going to be more concerned with not losing than they will be in winning, and I think by the second half you're going to be looking at some pretty conservative play.  If the Rapids think the altitude has Philly on the ropes I could see them making a push late for a winner, but a draw seems to be the likely outcome and given the fatigue, a scoreless one at that.

Open Rocky Mountain Cup

I was wrong about how today's draw for the Open Cup worked.  They did set the bracket for the rest of the tournament, but they still used regional groups to do it.  The Rapids were placed in a group with the three remaining teams west of them, namely the LA Galaxy, LAFC, and FSL.  And sure enough, the draw pulled out a Rocky Mountain Cup and a El Traffico matchup for the group.  The Rapids will host FSL on Wednesday May 24th at 8pm.  Yes, 8pm.  It seems like the game may have been picked up for CBS Sports' Golazo show and it needs to kick off after the earlier game finishes, including any potential overtime and penalty kicks, thus the late kickoff time.

The winner of this matchup will host the winner of the El Traffico matchup in the quarterfinals, and then the winner of that matchup will face the winner of the Central group (Austin, Houston, Minnesota, and Chicago) in the semifinals.  Hosting for the semifinals and final will be drawn after the quarterfinals.  This means the Rapids don't have to travel until the semis at the earliest, and even that would be a 50/50 coin flip.  There's never been a better chance for Colorado to go deep in this tournament.  Only one other time have the Rapids ever hosted two USOC games in the same season, and that run ended in 2014 in the infamous Atlanta Silverbacks game.  They have never hosted 3 games in the same season, and they would do that if they beat FSL.

The other interesting twist about the scheduling is that this game comes just 4 days after the Rapids host FSL in a league match, and the first of three Rocky Mountain Cup matches this season.  The teams will now play 4 times this season (not counting any possible playoff or Leagues Cup matchups) and three of those games will be in Colorado.  The U.S. Open Cup match will not count towards the Rocky Mountain Cup competition, but a rivalry game is a rivalry game, Cup or not Cup.

Overall this is a tough schedule for the Rapids.  Going back to the start of this week:

    May 6th - @LA Galaxy - Win

    May 9th - @Sacramento - Win

    May 13th - Philadelphia

    May 17th - @Atlanta

    May 20th - FSL

    May 24th - FSL

    May 27th - Cincinnati

    May 31st - @Columbus

    June 3rd - San Jose

    June 7th - LA Galaxy/LAFC (if the Rapids advance in the USOC)

    June 10th - @Orlando

Up to 11 games in 36 days, including three Eastern Conference road trips.  The good news is that 6 of the potential 9 remaining games are at home, and one of the road trips is at the end of the run where the team will get 10 days off afterwards.  Next week's trip to Atlanta is going to be tough though.  Also everyone of those teams other than FSL and potentially the Galaxy, are currently in a playoff position so none of them look like an "easy" match.

If we get through that run and are in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals or in a playoff spot I think that has to be considered a win.  If we manage both then Fraser is back in the running for coach of the year.

In the other big story there's not much new on Max and what there is isn't favorable.  The main thing is that Brendan Ploen of the Denver Post translated (with help) the statement from Max's agent, copied below:

He is very sorry and heartbroken about what happened. He sent me a text apologizing about the situation and thanking everything I’ve done for him. He will not hide,” Oliveira told the outlet. “… I talked to a lawyer and it would be ideal for him to come to Brazil. Since the investigation is in Brazil, I think he will be able to leave the United States.

That doesn't sound like somebody who's been misidentified or is completely innocent of what he's been accused of.  His agent also said he's willing to cooperate with the investigators.  I expect we'll hear shortly that Max has returned to Brazil to deal with this, and it will be a while after that before we get any resolution.