Bombito Is Nice

First reported by Fabrizio Romano this morning and confirmed by a number of different sources Moise Bombito has been sold to Ligue 1 side Nice for 7 million Euros (about $7.7 million) with an additional $3M in add-ons and a sell-on clause.  The move won't be official until he passes his medical later this week but the deal is agreed upon and Bombito is travelling to France.  He has played his last game as a Rapid.

This is, by far, the biggest sale in Colorado history and that's before the add-ons and any additional income from a future sale.  There was never going to be a better time to strike than right now, with Moise coming off a great Copa run and showing to be one of the better defenders in MLS this season.  After just 40 first-team competitive appearances after being drafted last year he's off to a big 5 league and a team in European competition as they've qualified for the Europa League group stage this season.  A huge move for the young Canadian.

Well done to Smith for holding out for more after the $5.5M offer from Lyon.  And a great job by the Front Office in drafting him with the pick they got in the Mark-Anthony Kaye trade.  In fact, lets talk about MAK and what we managed to do.

We acquired MAK for $1m in GAM and he came with a 2022 draft pick.  We traded that pick for $125K in GAM and a lower pick that became Anthony Markanich.  He was traded to St. Louis for $150K in GAM and a draft pick we later traded for $75K in GAM.

So in the end to get MAK we spent $650K in GAM.  We then turned around and traded MAK to Toronto for $1M in GAM, Ralph Priso, and a draft pick that we used to select Bombito.  We traded Priso to Vancouver for $150K in GAM and a first and 3rd round pick next year.

So in the end, from that original $1M in GAM, we ended up with $1.5M in GAM, two picks next year, and a almost $8M sale of a player.  Oh, and all the playing time we got out of MAK, Bombito, Priso, and Markanich.  Just a ridiculous bit of business.

The downside to this, of course, is that we lose Bombito and have 24 hours before the window closes.  And there's been no rumors of any signings by Colorado.  So our CB depth the rest of the way is Maxso, Abubakar, Edwards, and Chacon.  That's...not great.  I'd like to see the Rapids make a move tomorrow so we're not standing pat (actually, getting worse with Bombito's loss) while everyone else in the West is getting better.

The cynic in me notices that the $7.7M we got for Bombito is pretty close to the $8M we spent on transfer fees on Mihailovic, Navarro, and the other pieces we acquired in the offseason.  Are we going to see this Bombito money reinvested in the team or will we find out it was pre-spent on those players?  Our track record on summer signings has been pretty bad, so I'm willing to give them until this offseason until I get too worried, but we need to see another round of investment then.