9 Goal 9 Point Week

The Rapids capped off their most successful week since 2021 on Saturday night with a 4-1 win over Montreal.  9 points and 9 goals in 3 games with only 1 given up (and that an own goal).  Yes they were against an 8th, 12th, and 14th placed team (and the latter two were at home) but we've seen many Colorado teams in the past who would play down to their opponents and not get the points.

That's a significant difference in this team compared to many (most?) past teams.  They are largely beating the teams they're supposed to beat.  With the exception of the San Jose choke job every other team that's beaten us is in a playoff spot.  Seattle is the only team we've drawn not in a playoff spot   We've beaten the bad teams and held our own against the rest of the league.  Heck we beat the Utah Soccer Club and LAFC, and Miami had to bring Messi and friends off the bench to rescue a draw.

The score line on Saturday was a little deceiving though.  While Colorado was the stronger team there was a 20 minute period to start the second half where it felt like Montreal might climb back into the game.  Especially after the one goal in the 53rd minute.  Not much Abubakar could have done about the own goal, if he doesn't play it a Montreal striker is there to tap it in.  If there's anyone to blame its Maxso who watched the ball and allowed his man to slip behind him.  In the end though the shot that set up the own goal was Montreal's only shot on target.

Now it gets a bit harder.  After a week off we head to LA to face LAFC.  Last time we were on a good roll and went into a top team we hit FC Cincinnati who easily outplayed us.  We're going to have to up our game to get a result out there.  After that though we come home to two games that we should win, a weak SKC team on 4th of July and the St. Louis team we just beat.  Colorado probably needs 5 more wins to feel confident about their playoff chances.  That would put us at 47 points which should be enough unless its a really weird year.  4 of the remaining 6 games before the Leagues Cup break are at home, but 4 of th3 6 games are also against teams above us in the table, including both road games which have us facing the LA teams.

Man of the Match: Calvin Harris.  2 goals, all we needed to beat Montreal.

Wait, They're Still In This League?

If you think its been a while since we've seen Montreal, it has.  5 years to be exact.  The COVID scheduling in 2020 and 2021 really threw a wrench into some of the cross-conference matchups.  Hopefully things settle out from here.  Colorado goes for a 9 point week tomorrow night in Commerce City.  It's a huge day of soccer starting with Fiji-Tahiti at 1am (FIFA+) and running through the Euros, Copa America, and into MLS tomorrow night.   Kickoff is at 7:30, so fit those two hours in-between the other matches!

Player Availability:

OUT: D Moise Bombito (Team Canada), D Jackson Travis (stress fracture)

Good to see KSB back from injury and Fredrick available as well.  I expect we see some rotation tomorrow but the spine of the team will likely need to find another 60 minutes or so to get through this week.

I think Keegan and Fernandez get rests off the start, and there will likely be quick hooks for Cabral, Navarro, Mihailovic, and Bassett.  The back-line doesn't have much depth right now so they're going to have to power through.  Ronan rotates with Larraz like we saw last Saturday.

Prediction: 2-1 goals by Navarro and Bassett.  Montreal's defense is one of the worst in the league (worse than ours) and had this been a game with normal rest I probably would predict us scoring 3 goals.  With the short rest and warm temps though I'm not sure we're going to be able to push for that third, or keep Montreal off the board.  A shutout would me more likely than 3 goals though. 

Merry Christmas Colorado!

The team playing a guy named Klaus (h/t to Lino for that joke) decided to gift some goals to the Rapids and Djordje was more than happy to accept.  3 glaring defensive mistakes, 3 goals.  Make no mistake I'm not discounting what the team did yesterday by calling them gifts.  We've seen Colorado struggle in the past to take gifts when given them.  Last night this team kept its foot on the pedal and forced St. Louis into tough defensive positions where they cracked.  That said, I have seen harder hat-tricks scored. :D

Not only did Mihailovic get a hat-trip, it was the so-called "natural" hat-trick, scored with his right foot, his left foot, and his head.  Kei Kamara did that for the Rapids in 2019, the only other one in Colorado's history.  The three goals puts him at 8 for the season and on a path along with Navarro to hit double-digit goals this season.  Two players with 10+ goals only happened a handful of times in team history, most recently with Kamara and Rubio in 2019 (and before that it was C+C Goal Factory in 2010).  Bassett has a outside shot to get there as well, and having 3 double-digit scorers hasn't happened since the early 2000's (both times involving Mark Chung).

It wasn't all great last night though.  The defense pitched a shutout for the second time in 4 days but St. Louis helped with some poor shooting.  Unlike Austin on Saturday they were able to get into dangerous positions but they could not convert.  None was more dangerous than the PK they got, but managed to put off the crossbar.  Once again Lalas took a ball off an outstretched arm but unlike Saturday this one was called.  In both cases he was "unlucky" to have the ball hit his arm like that but he's responsible for where his arms are.  Most handball calls are "unlucky" like that.  He has to be smarter about keeping his arms tucked in.

With the win the Rapids sit on 28 points, one more than they had in all of 2023.  They're currently 5th in the West and have a 6 point buffer on the teams chasing for a playoff spot.  They'll go for a 9 point week back at home on Saturday night against Montreal.

BTW I wrote most of this while watching Moise Bombito and Canada play Argentina in the start of the Copa America.  Bombito had an up and down game, did some good things but was also partially responsible for both Argentina goals.   He also tried to take Messi's ankle out (not intentionally).

Man of the Match:  Djordje Mihailovic, obviously.

Tomorrow Will Be Hot And Humid

Big points if you get the title/picture reference

Way too many 3-game weeks recently so going to make this one fast.  The Rapids are off to wonderful St. Louis tomorrow for a nice summer evening of heat and dripping humidity.  Luckily no thunderstorms are called for so the game should go off as planned.  Still these are two teams like like to press and counter quickly, so expect a lot of back-and-forth action, at least until they run out of energy.  Kickoff tomorrow night is at 6:30p.

Player Availability:

OUT: D Moise Bombito (Team Canada), D Jackson Travis (stress fracture), M Wayne Fredrick (hip), M Kimani Stewart-Baynes (groin).

That's not great news on Travis, no timeline has been given for the injury, hopefully its not too long.  We're going to be under-strength on a tight turnaround so some guys are going to have to dig deep.

The backline really has no options due to injury.  If Vines can't go for some reason it would have to be Rosenberry on the left and Anderson on the right.  Michael Edwards is going to have to be our backup at center back if needed.  In midfield Bassett and Djordje will have to dig deep, as will Navarro up fromt.  Get an early lead and hope we can rotate them out in the second half.

Prediction: 1-1 draw, goal by Navarro.  This game is winnable, but I think the combination of missing players, tight turn arounds, and the weather will keep either team from really going as fast or as hard as they want to and in the end things fizzle out to a draw.

Texas. Messed With.

On Friday my prediction was:

2-1 win, goals by Navarro and Bassett.  I'm choosing to be optimistic going into the second half.  Austin is pretty similar to us, we're at home, and a couple of weeks off will hopefully have allowed us to fix our defensive issues.

Missed it by that much.  I didn't give our defense enough credit after pitching a relatively easy shutout on Saturday, especially considering our makeshift back line without Bombito (Canada) and Vines (illness).  Per FotMob Austin was held without a shot on target.

As an aside, I have no idea why Bombito wasn't listed on the availability report.  I think the Rapids were playing the MLS rules to the letter, since the callup wasn't officially announced until Saturday morning he technically didn't have to be listed as unavailable when the report was due on Friday, but I'm assuming that everyone knew what was going to happen.

I will say Colorado got a bit lucky on the shutout.  In the 59th minute, after going up 2-0, Austin was attacking and tried to ping a through ball into the box.  Abubakar was allowing an Austin attacker to slide by him which caused his arm to be outstretched and the ball hit it.  You could argue it was a natural position for the defensive move he was making, but IMO it was pretty clearly a handball and Lalas was in the box.  Austin should have had a penalty.

I don't think that would have changed the outcome though other than making my prediction 100% accurate.  The Broccoli was cooked by the 60th minute.  They weren't prepared to come off a two week break and play at altitude.  They were never dangerous after that point and I don't think only being down one instead of two would have changed that.

Enough about the defense, lets talk about our offense, who looked good coming off the break.  We could have, and probably should have, scored 4, largely due to Goal Bassett.  He had a great shot that was barely parried out of the way by Austin's keeper that would have given him a first half brace and then he had a golden chance in the second half that he should have just powered through but instead he tried to go for placement and shanked the shot.  It was wide-open for him and he knew it.  Meanwhile Navarro pulled off a wicked side volley that pinged off the crossbar.  Hitting woodwork probably saved us $500K on his transfer fee.  :D

Overall a nice complete game coming out of the break.  Now its a tight turnaround for a flight to St. Louis on Wednesday.  Lets hope its not a late night due to storm delays because we're back at home on Saturday facing Montreal.

Also, did anyone get a pic of Rapidman in his aloha shirt at the tailgate?  It was a good look for him.  :D

Man of the Match: Cole Bassett.  Youngest player in team history to score 25 goals.  Easy choice.

The Second Half Begins

After the international break we are back to MLS action to kick off the second half of the season.  Because of the Leagues Cup the second half is neatly split into the 9 games run in the next 36 days and the 8 games in the final 49 days of the season after the tournament.  6 of the next 9 are at home while the last 8 are split evenly home and away, so if we're going to make a move it needs to be in this next month+.  We start with Austin FC with old friends Gyasi Zardes and Diego Rubio at home tomorrow night.  This is the first of, again, 3 games in the next week so look for some heavy subs in the second half.  Kickoff is at 7:30.

Player Availability:

OUT: D Sam Vines (illness), M Kimani Stewart-Baynes (groin)

The Rapids availability information lists two internationals out for Austin, but it doesn't list Bombito away with Canada.  So I'm assuming he's back for this game before Canada kicks off against Argentina in the Copa America on Thursday.  But I won't be shocked if we see no sign of Moise and Abubakar starts on the back line.

I expect pretty much out standard lineup.  With Vines out I think Travis steps in, but we could see Rosenberry shift over and Anderson play right back.  I don't think we'll see a major shift in midfield, Armas will want to go with what was working before the break to see if we can regain some form or not.

Prediction: 2-1 win, goals by Navarro and Bassett.  I'm choosing to be optimistic going into the second half.  Austin is pretty similar to us, we're at home, and a couple of weeks off will hopefully have allowed us to fix our defensive issues.

(Now watch us lose 3-0)

Diack Out, Navarro In?

Tommy Scoops, aka The Athletic's Tom Bogert, had two pieces of Rapids news today.

Let's start with the more concrete one.  The Rspids will not be buying Lamine Diack.  This is no surprise considering how little time he's gotten, just 16 minutes across 4 games.  Later today Padraig Smith was on the DNVR Rapids podcast and talked about how Connor Ronan's injury really hurt Diack's chances, as that led to the successful double-pivot with Larraz and Bassett, which made it hard for him to get time.

I think that clearly explains why he never got a chance to start.  It doesn't fully explain why he hasn't made the gameday squad in the last 6 games, despite them happening in 2 sets of 3-games-in-a-week runs where squad rotation has been necessary.  Clearly regardless of the success of Larraz and Löffelsend dealing with injuries there was something that kept Armas from picking Diack.  Maybe its as simple as them figuring out by early May that they weren't going to pick up the option and prioritizing players under contract.

Diack got a guaranteed compensation of $864,150.  That number will likely be prorated for his time here though.  So since we're at the halfway point of the season we paid him $432,075 for 16 minutes of work.  That's $27K per minute of play.  Needless to say this move was a complete bust.  We spent $75K (prorated) of TAM plus his loan fee, used up an international slot, and didn't solve one of the biggest holes we had going into the las offseason, defensive midfield.  We landed on Diack as one of 4 players we were reportedly targeting in the offseason.  As I pointed out in January going with Diack over the other options was a very 'classic Rapids' move where we take a flyer on a young player on a loan with the hope it pays off instead of filling a need with a known quantity.  The only good news here is that we realized he didn't work before pulling the trigger and being stuck with him (see Ilic, Marko).

On to better news.  Tom is also reporting that the negotiations over Navarro are going well.  There's work still to be done but everyone is on-board with getting it over the line.  Unfortunately his improved play has sparked interest from other teams driving up the price, which means the hope of structuring the deal in a way that would allow him to be a max-TAM players instead of a DP is not going to work out.

Going into and through the first month of the season it didn't look like Navarro was going to be worth retaining.  He's really settled in ow and is looking like potentially the best striker we've had since the Conor Casey days.  Right now he's at 9 goals and 3 assists at the midway point.  Doubling that would be 18 and 6, which would be a new team record for goals and goals+assists in a season.  I think 18 goals might be a stretch given that he's had his last two PK's saved and he can't expect to get 4 more PK goals in the second half, but tying Casey and Rubio's team record at 16 seems possible.

I don't think he's worth the originally negotiated price of $4.5 million.  He probably needed to make those 2 saved PKs and have another couple of goals from the run of play to consider that.  But if we could get him for under $2.5M?   That would still be solid work.

Goalkeeping, How Did We Get Here?

I've mentioned a couple of times about how the goalkeeping is a problem right now and how just getting Steffen was necessary because of the goalkeeping hole we dug ourselves last season.  The more I thought about it though the more I realized last season wasn't the first time I had questions about our goalkeeper recruiting strategy under Padraig Smith.

Now I want to start by acknowledging the Rapids have always had a bit of a revolving door at keeper, at least in comparison to some of the long-term keeping situations in the league.  To enter the top 10 in appearances in net all-time in league history you need over 250 appearances.  The Rapids all-time leader is Matt Pickens with 116 spread over his 6 years with the team.  Only Clint Irwin (105), William Yarbrough (101), and Tim Howard (100) have also hit triple-digits for the Rapids.  Zac MacMath is 10th all-time at 31 games, less than a full season.

That said, looking at the Rapids history of keepers, especially after Howard retired in 2019, shows some "grass is greener" mentality.  First, let's setup where we started.

In 2017, when Padraig Smith took over the Rapids, we had 3 goalkeepers on the roster.  While Smith was involved in player acquisition for two+ years prior to taking over, the goalkeeping at this point was a pretty standard investment.  You had a clear number 1 that the team was highly invested in (Tim Howard, a move Smith has said he wouldn't have made if it were up to him), a solid backup (MacMath), and a young player as a third option (John Berner).  Combined the Rapids spent a two draft picks plus MacMath's original loan fee to acquire the three keepers (and of course spent a lot of TransAmerica's money to pay Howard).

Going into 2018 we released Berner and spent a 2nd round pick to acquire Andrew Dykstra from Sporting KC.  I remember at the time questioning that deal because it seemed like a waste of resources for somebody who almost certainly wouldn't play.  I was right that he wouldn't play, but losing a second round pick and an extra $25-$50K of salary was probably not much of a loss in hindsight.  

After the 2018 season we traded MacMath to Vancouver for $100K of xAM and Mezquida and got Irwin back from Toronto for a 2nd round pick.  We also picked up Andre Rawls in the Re-Entry draft while letting Dykstra go.  We were all happy to see Irwin back but he was still the clear #2 going into 2019 with Howard still here.  In the end Irwin played about a third of the season in 2019 and was set to be the starter in 2020.

This is where we first see the idea of having two #1s, with the idea that they would push each other to be better.  This is something Smith has talked about as a goal in the past.  Right after the season started, and then stopped due to COVID, we brought Yarbrough in on loan.  This was a move that confused a lot of fans because we all expected Irwin to get his chance again.  When the league restarted with the MLS Is Back tournament Irwin picked up a knock and Yarbrough stepped in, and then never really gave the starting role back.  Also in 2020 we added Abe Rodriguez as a homegrown signing from the Academy.

That was the goalkeeping force for the next couple of seasons.  Yarbrough starting, Irwin as the backup, and Rawls and Rodriguez as the 3rd option (Rawls was released after the 2021 season).  We were paying Will $375K and Clint $200K.  We also spent around $400K to acquire Yarbrough permanently after the loan ended, plus whatever we paid for a loan fee.

Before last year we let Irwin leave on a free, where he signed for Minnesota, and went searching for a European national keeper.  We of course ended up with Marko Ilic.  That move cost us a loan fee at first, then a reported $800K purchase fee.  It also upset Yarbrough to the point that he was happy to walk away at the end of the season, and we sent his rights to San Jose for a 3rd round pick.  We spent a combined $915K on their salaries too ($475K for Yarbrough, $40K for Ilic).  Ilic got the starts in and after the Leagues Cup and put up some of the worst advanced keeping stats in the league last season.

So this past offseason we had an upset keeper, a bad keeper, and an Academy player apparently going nowhere.  So we replaced them all.  Yarbrough to San Jose as mentioned.,  Ilic loaned out to Sarpsborg.  Rodriguez release.  In their place we had to go keeper shopping again and settled on Zach Steffen backed up by Adam Beaudry (and eventually Ethan Bandre) from the Academy.  The good news is that they were all available for free.  The bad news is that we're paying Steffen almost as much as we paid Ilic and Yarbrough combined last season ($900K) to put up some of the worst stats in the last decade of MLS keeping.

What I see here is an almost constant thought that the next keeper we get is going to be the big hit.  From MacMath to Irwin to Yarbrough to Ilic to Steffen its been about who can we bring in to improve, even if we didn't really need improvement (at least, not as much as in other positions *ahem* striker).  Of course Smith isn't alone one this.  Those of us in our third decade of fandom remember the infamous Joe Cannon/Jeff Bazooka/Jim Tommygun when we already had Scott Garlick/Scott Salt/Scott Pepper (one of the all-time great bits of MLS media banter).  That worked out as we ended up trading Garlick to Dallas while Cannon had a MVP finalist season (and should have won) in 2004.  None of our keepers in the last 5 seasons have been that good though.

2024 Midseason Review

Hard to believe, but we're midway through the season here in early June.  That Leagues Cup really forces the games to be front-loaded.  AS a midseason review I thought comparing some numbers from this season to our two outlier seasons in the past 3 years would be appropriate.  We had out best ever year in 2021, and our worst ever year in 2023, so those are our comparison points.

Points at midseason/total points:

2024: 22/??

2023: 13/27

2021: 31/61

Goals for:

2024: 29/??

2023: 14/26

2021: 25/51

Goals against:

2024: 31/??

2023: 25/54

2021: 17/35

It took a double-check but yes, our defense this year is worse than last years,  On the flip side, our offense is better than 2021.  In fact our offense has already scored more goals than it did all of last year.  You'll notice that in 2021 and 2023 our first and second halves are pretty consistent, no more than 1 point difference or 2 goal difference except our defense got a bit worse in the second half last year.

Given that I think its a reasonable assumption to double our numbers to get a rough idea of where we can expect to end up.  That would be 44 points, 58 goals for, and 62 against.  That is essentially identical to our 2019 season where we ended on 42 points, 58 goals for, and 63 against.  That's the season that started with a 10 game losing streak and the firing of Anthony Hudson, with Conor Casey serving as interim coach the majority of the season.  We missed the playoffs on the final day.

I feel like that's the likely result this year.  Since 9th placed began to mean something more than "not last place" (which was 2017) and disregarding the COVID season for obvious reasons, the point total for the 9th placed team averaged 41.33 points.  But that average is dragged down by those first couple of seasons when there were less teams overall.  The last 3 years the average has stabilized right at 44 points.  So if things stay as they are we're going to be riding that playoff line all the way until the final weekend.

That also feels like a fair reflection of the team we've seen in 2024.  At times we've been able to stand with the best teams in the league.  We beat Western Conference leading FSL in their house and we forced Messi and friends to come off the bench for Eastern Conference leading Miami to rescue a point at their place.  But we also lost at home to last-placed San Jose and struggled to draw a 10-man Seattle in Seattle.  We are better, in general, than the bad teams of MLS but that's really it.

Getting down to individual play we've had a couple of standout players in Bassett and Bombito (and arguably Larraz), a couple of big-money guys that took a while to round into form but are now leading the team in Navarro and Mihailovic, a mushy middle of guys doing well enough but not amazing, and a couple of guys that aren't living up to expectations in Vines, Cabral, and particularly Steffen.  As pointed out by Matt Doyle this week Steffen is having the worst shot-stopping season by a keeper in American Soccer Analysis's database (which goes back to 2013).  By 44%.  He should have stopped 8 more goals than he has, which would move our defense to better than last season.  That has to be solved, quickly.

If we don't make a couple of major changes in the upcoming window (finding a real defensive presence in midfield, sorting out Steffen or benching him,, and buying Navarro or getting another striker) I think its going to be an up and down season that will live or die on how healthy we can stay.

Call-Ups!

I should have gotten to this earlier but so be it.  During this international break the Rapids have three players out on various National Team duties.

Moise Bombito - Called up for the Canadian National Team in their warm-ups for the upcoming Copa America.  He got the start today against the Netherlands and was named player of the match, despite Canada losing 4-0.  I think its safe to assume he'll be on the Cope roster that starts in two weeks.

Cole Bassett - The first-half team MVP was called up to the Olympic team for their game against Japan on Tuesday in KC.  This is a great indicator that Bassett might make the trip to Paris next month, which means losing him for the Leagues Cup and probably a couple of games before that break (which, annoyingly, includes the final Rocky Mountain Cup match of the season).

Adam Beaudry - The homegrown goalkeeper is currently at the U-19 camp in South America where the team will play Argentina tomorrow and Uruguay on Tuesday.  This is a prep camp for the CONCACAF U-20 championship later this summer, where the top 4 teams will qualify for next year's U-20 World Cup in Chile.

All three of these players will likely miss more time this summer with their national teams.  That means more playing time for Lalas Abubakar and probably Connor Ronan, and we have to hope Steffen doesn't get injured.

Rapids Winless In 4

Another game, another late goal conceded, another loss.  In our last three losses in this four game run all of them had the winning goal conceded after the 70th minute.

While there's certainly blame to go around on both of Vancouver's goals we have to talk about the goalkeeping.  On the first goal Steffen completely misreads the cross on a ball he could have come for.  Instead he allows it to bounce in the 6-yard box with nobody around it.  Travis didn't see his man behind him, but Steffen still gets beat near post after the misread.  On the second Maxso steps up away from his man but Vines and Keegan don't, leaving he man onside.  Steffen gets the ball but not enough, then is slow (as is Vines) to reacting to the potential to still save it.

Steffen is the 4th highest paid keeper in MLS.  He has to make those saves, at least one of them.  The keeper is always going to be asked to come up big after a defender has made a mistake, that's practically the definition of the job.  The last few weeks Steffen hasn't.  From Matt Doyle' weekly recap column:

They’ve conceded 13 goals in those four games, and while I’m not pointing the finger solely at Zack Steffen, the bad data’s starting to pile up: in American Soccer Analysis’s database, which goes back to 2013, Steffen’s got the worst shot-stopping marks – by a mile – of any ‘keeper with more than 1500 minutes in a season.

To put it into perspective, Gallese’s giving up 0.30 more goals per 90 than he should be. No one in the ASA database has even gone +0.40 or worse. Steffen, right now, at +0.55.

 More on this during the international break, but keeping is a problem and its been a fairly consistent issue under Padraig Smith and Fran Taylor.

Credit should be given to Kevin Cabral, who made a nice off-ball run to free up the passing lane for Mihailovic's goal.  More and more I think Cabral just needs to be move back a bit more into a true mid spot instead of an attacking winger who's expected to score.  He can do a lot of the midfield work really well, he just can't shoot.

We're now at the midpoint of the season and have two weeks off to get some things figured out.  We need to get our defense focused for 90 minutes and get better performances from our keeper, while on the other end keep allowing Mihailovic and Navarro to round into form.

Man of the Match: Djordje Miihailovic.  Not only did he have the goal but he was dangerous throughout the game.  We're finally getting DP-level play out of him.