Starting with the schedule the big change this year is that San Diego joins the league, so its 14 home and away against the West and 6 against the East, split 3 and 3 home/away. No 3-game Rocky Mountain Cup anymore. Speaking of, we defend the Cup at home on May 17th and then finish our road slate in Salt Lake on October 4th. We start the season in St. Louis on Feb. 22nd before the home opener against Dallas on March 1st.
Unfortunately for all of us who wanted a new road trip, or away day at San Diego is midweek right before the RMC home game which makes it a difficult road game for most of us, since we all want to be back in time to support the boys against FSL. (Specifically for me I'll likely use that week for my spring work trip to the UK and fly back Friday night so I can be at the game on Saturday). San Diego comes to the Dick on April 12th.
There was hope that Apple would spread out the game times this year and they have, but not so much for Rapids home games. All but two home matches kickoff at 7:30, the season finale is at 7pm and Charlotte's visit on March 29th is at 2:30pm. The Galaxy's visit on June 25th (Wed.) and KC's visit for the annual 4th of July match (Fri.) are the only home games not on Saturday. We have two Wednesday road games in May, one in July, and a Sunday away game in August, the other 13 road games are also on Saturdays.
May is going to be tough with 7 matches. We start the month in DC and then come home to San Jose the next weekend. Then the rest of that week is the trip to SD and the FSL home match. Then after 7 days off we get St. Louis at home before a midweek trip to Portland followed by a trip to SoCal for LAFC on the weekend. Those are our only two 3-game weeks (at least for league play) though.
In June we have 3 straight home games before finishing the month in New England. We only have one home game between Vancouver at home on July 12th and Houston at home on September 13th, that's Atlanta in mid-August. Otherwise we play in Seattle, Philly, and Minnesota before the ATL game and at the Galaxy and SKC after. That's going to be a tough stretch. But that's the only times we have more than two home or away games in a row. We finish the season at home against, you guessed it, LAFC.
Now, onto the Superdraft. We already covered the trade for all of Philly's picks but we were busy trading on the day of the draft. Summing it all up we traded $287,500 in 2025 GAM, a 2025 International Slot, and the #8 pick for the #4, #6, and #12 picks and $50K in 2026 GAM. That left us with 5 first round picks and nine picks total. So we went to town on the draft, The full list:
Round 1: Alex Harris (No. 4) - F, Cornell
Round 1: Matthew Senanou (No. 6) - D, Xavier
Round 1: Efetobo Aror (No. 12) - M, Portland
Round 1: Sydney Wathuta (No. 16) - F, Vermont
Round 1: Joshua Copeland (No. 26) - F, Detroit Mercy
Round 2: Charlie Harper (No. 38) - D, UNC Chapel Hill
Round 3: Donovan Phillip (No. 62) - F, North Carolina State
Round 3: Shawn Smart (No. 68) - D, Las Vegas Lights
Round 3: Matthew Van Horn (No. 75) - M, Georgetown
Most reviews of our picks were positive, with the caveat that we shouldn't expect much from this group in 2025. Specifically Aror could return to school for a year before coming out. Also Smart is already signed and playing for Las Vegas but Colorado retains his MLS rights now. Reports are that we're happy to let him play out his contract in Vegas (he has one year left) before negotiating with him and we're not looking to pay a transfer fee to get him here this season. He's also being scouted by Sparta Rotterdam and a couple of Championship clubs so this seems more like a flyer on somebody we might be able to flip quickly than any expectation he will have a notable impact on results.
We'll see how many of these guys join camp next month and how many of them make the team. I expect most of them to be on Rapids 2 if they're not back in school (or in Las Vegas).
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