Colorado put out a great defensive performance and a good second half on offense in a much needed rebound win over Charlotte. Honestly the first half was a bit of a snooze as neither team could get a good look at goal. The closest the Rapids got was a swerving long-range shot from Mihailovic right before half that was saved. After half though the home sider weathered a early flurry from the visitors and then stepped up the pressure with a pair of subs that changed the game.
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Rapids Shut Down Charlotte In Bounce-Back Win
Colorado put out a great defensive performance and a good second half on offense in a much needed rebound win over Charlotte. Honestly the first half was a bit of a snooze as neither team could get a good look at goal. The closest the Rapids got was a swerving long-range shot from Mihailovic right before half that was saved. After half though the home sider weathered a early flurry from the visitors and then stepped up the pressure with a pair of subs that changed the game.
Friday, March 28, 2025
The Dog Days Of Spring?
Monday, March 24, 2025
Storm Breaks In Commerce City
Do you remember last week in my delayed writeup of the San Jose game when I said:
That said I see storm clouds on the horizon.
Well, that storm hit on Saturday night. A 3-0 loss where Portland took advantage of Steffen's absence to show the flaws in this team. This was a game where the Timbers had more goals than we had shots on goal.
It wasn't like Portland really had to work on their goals either. The first goal, right before half, was bad luck. The Rapids had the attack well defended but an ill-timed poke by Atencio resulted in an own goal. The second goal after half though was an open thoroughfare right down the center of the field. After Moreno receives the ball at the center point he turns and is looking at a 4 on 4, with all 4 of our defensive line back. Despite that nobody steps to Moreno and nobody shadows Antony running right down the middle. Its an easy through ball into Antony's pass and a clean hit from outside the 18 goes into the corner. This one probably gets saved by Steffen but its hard to blame Beaudry when the defense made it so easy.
Then on the third goal was sadly similar. Fory got the ball out wide on our right. Maxso slides over but doesn't really pressure the ball in time. Meanwhile Kelsey splits right between Rosenberry and Awaziem for the easy header to finish. Two goals, two unpressured passers, two unmarked players right in the center of the field. Ugly.
Colorado has given up 9 goals this season (including the CCC). 6 of them have been in the last 5 minutes of the first half or the first 5 minutes of the second half. Throw in the goal given up at home to LAFC to start the season right before the final whistle and it shows an extreme lack of focus around the whistle. The halves are 45 minutes, not 40.
We were down Steffen for this game, but Steffen doesn't get us shots on goal. The only other missing parks were Ted Ku-DiPietro and Sam Vines. I don't think KDP and Sammy are the missing parts here. The current starters have to get better, and Armas needs to accept that he's not going to turn Bassett into a 10. Move Djordje back to the 10, put Bassett in the double pivot where he excels, and tell Oli he's going to be our spark off the bench.
Man of the Match: None. Not because everyone played bad, just because nobody stood out above anyone else. It was all just meh.
Friday, March 21, 2025
Rapids Try To Go Five For Five
Back home after a two week road trip the Burgundy Boys are looking to extend their record undefeated start to the season to five games. In their way are the Portland Timbers. The Oregon Trail gang have struggled to start the season with 4 points and 3 goals in 4 games (though they got screwed out of a last second PK last week that would make the numbers look a bit better). Both teams have players missing for international duty so we'll see a mix of starters and backups. Kickoff tomorrow is at the normal 7:30pm.
Availability Report:
OUT: GK Zack Steffen (U.S. National Team), D Jackson Travis (hand), D Sam Vines (thigh), M Wayne Fredrick (Trinidad & Tobago National Team), M Ted Ku-DiPietro (shoulder)
Other than Vines still being injured everything else is as expected. At this point we have to start wondering about Sam's durability. I still ove the guy, but his injury track record since he left for Belgium is not good.
With everyone apparently healthy and available other than Steffen the starting XI seems fairly obvious. The Rapids did call up Rapids 2 keeper Nicolas Hansen on a short-term loan to be the backup for Beaudry tomorrow night.
Prediction: 1-1 draw, goal by Bassett. I have a feeling without Steffen we're going to be defense-focused tomorrow night which will prevent us from getting many looks. We finish one we do get but we also continue to struggle to keep the pressure off the keeper and Beaudry allows one.
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
I'm Not Down
Sorry for going AWOL for a couple of days, things have been pulling me away from this writeup. At this point I assume everyone reading knows the details of our smash and grab win in San Jose on Saturday. Colorado was blitzed by the Earthquakes but Steffen stood tall and kept us in the game while Bassett, Fernandez, and Calvin Harris teamed up for a couple of goals against the run of play to steal the 3 points on the road.
Friday, March 14, 2025
Career Opportunities
Monday, March 3, 2025
Up And Down Match On Saturday
A whole bunch of highs and lows from this week's game. Colorado started on a hot foot with a quick goal from the captain in the 6th minute. A mishit cross led to a bloop goal and body language from Keegan that clearly said "well, I didn't mean to do that!". Maybe we'll call it a Bob Rossenbery happy little accident. Colorado doubled the lead in the 39th minute with a Rafa header from point blank range off a Larraz cross (officially no assist for Oli since it took a slight deflection). Based on our defense so far everyone was feeling fairly good about our chances.
Friday, February 28, 2025
Home Opener 2025, aka F*C* Dallas
Prediction: 2-0 win, goals by Mihailovic and Bassett. Just going with a gut feel here, its hard to tell what's going to happen this early in the season with the number of games we've already played.
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Well, That Was Predictable
From my preview:
The Rapids can't sit back and try for the scoreless draw though, that will almost certainly fail. Scoring a goal will force LAFC to score 3 to win outright and that should be the focus. We might be able to prevent a 3-1 loss, but we can't prevent a 1-0 loss.
With 0 shots on goal for the second game in a row the Rapids were unable to prevent a 1-0 loss and elimination from CONCACAF play at the first step for a fifth time. The team started out strong and spent the first half largely frustrating the LAFC attack while getting a couple of looks in themselves. At halftime I wrote that it was a good 45 and there would be no shame in going out to a team like LAFC playing this way.
Then the second half happened. In the 48th minute Rosenberry got beat on the wing and a cross got it. Cannon's man got goal-side of him and was able to redirect it on net. Steffen got a leg on the ball but not enough to keep it out and suddenly the Rapids had to chance the game. But they didn't. With 40+ minutes left and needing a goal to advance the Rapids got 0 shots on target and rarely looked dangerous. Pitiful.
The other notable incident was in the 82nd minute when Awaziem was speaking to the ref about an off-ball incident. The game was delayed for 5+ minutes with no explanation. After that game it was revealed that Awaziem heard LAFC's Palencia use a unacceptable slur towards him and wanted the process for unacceptable language followed. Which, by all accounts, it was. If no ref heard it and it wasn't picked up by the mics (reviewing them was likely the cause of the delay) then there's noting the ref can do. The game played on with a remarkably short amount of stoppage time given the delay, but it wouldn't have mattered. We could have had 20 minutes and we weren't going to score.
Obviously there's no room for discriminatory language in the game (or anywhere) so full support to Awaziem for having to deal with whatever was said. Unfortunately all we have are the two players words on what happened. CONCACAF is initiating an investigation but unless other players around heard what was said this will likely result in no further action being taken. And that's absolutely fair. While I'm sure Awaziem believes what he is saying its possible that he misheard or misunderstood what Palencia said. Without any sort of proof or other player's corroboration its unfair to Palencia to just assume he said something derogatory.
Moving back to the result you have to say with 45 minutes left this result was a disappointment. I don't think 10 days ago the Rapids were favored to advance but at halftime last night it was pretty clear LAFC didn't have 3 goals in them so 1 goal by the Rapids would have ensured 30 minutes of extra time at worst. Instead we got a completely punch less offense that couldn't put a shot on goal the whole game. As expected that result led to a 1-0 loss.
There was some history made last night. It was the first time in Rapids history that they have gone two full games ion a row without a shot on target. Both goals against LAFC in the first leg were Mihailovic bangers from a set piece so through 3 games the team has no goals from the run of play and zero assists. Not a good start to the season.
They also continued their history of being the only MLS team with multiple CCL/CCC appearances to have never advanced past their opening round. 20 other MLS teams have appeared multiple times and advanced a least once. Not only that we've been eliminated pretty much every way possible. On points (Toronto 2018, Santos Laguna & Isidrio Metapan, 2011), total goals (Leono, 1998), PKs (Comunicaciones, 2022) and now away goals against LAFC. We've also been eliminated 5 times by teams from 5 different countries, Mexico (Leon, 1998), El Salvador (Isidrop Metapan, 2011), Canada (Toronto, ,2018), Guatemala (Comunicaciones, 2022), and America (LAFC, 2025). So at least we're keeping our failures interesting.
Man of the Match: Chidozie Awaziem. He was my choice before the language incident happened but playing through that is an added bonus. He was more than solid all night, making some pretty defensive plays when needed. He's looking like our best offseason acquisition so far.
Monday, February 24, 2025
Rapids Try For First Ever CCL/CCC Advancement
This is Colorado's 5th time in CONCACAF Champions League/Cup play and in the prior 4 tournaments they were eliminated in their opening round. They have a chance to break that streak tomorrow night in LA but it will be a tough hill to climb. Colorado has never gotten a a point at LAFC and they've struggled to even score.
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Defense Bails Out Offense In St. Louis
It was a rough game for the attack last night but the back line stepped up with a strong game from Zach Steffen backing them up. A couple o f surprises in the starting XI with Cannon being able to start and Bassett being moved out to wing to allow Larraz and Atencio to man the double-pivot.
Friday, February 21, 2025
Rapids Start MLS Play Under The Arch
CCC was fun but we all know that's a temporary thing. Time to start the real season with the first league game tomorrow night in St. Louis. Both teams made their major moves last summer, though St. Louis has had a bit more churn than the Rapids this offseason. Regardless it should be two teams who are on the more settled end of the spectrum for a first game. Of course Colorado is coming off the midweek game against LAFC while St. Louis is getting their first competitive minutes. What's worth more, rest or already have shaken some rust off? Kickoff tomorrow is at 6:30pm on MLS Season Pass.
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Keegan Rosenberry Extended 3 Years
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Rapids Start With A Win, But Is It Enough?
Ok, I think I've finally warmed up enough to write this. Colorado didn't set its record last night, with official temperature recorded at kickoff as 6 degrees (the record is 3 against both Portland in 2018 and Comunicaciones). A record that was apparently broken tonight with the report being the temperature was 2 degrees for kickoff between SKC and Miami. Regardless it was cold. For the first time at one of the Rapids Snow Clasicos/Frozen Taps games I had to tap out and go into Eighteen36 for 20 minutes.
Monday, February 17, 2025
2025 Starts With A Deep-Freeze, Again
Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. The 30th season of Rapids soccer starts tomorrow night with the CONCACAF Champions Cup match against LAFC in Commerce City. A Commerce City that will, once again, be flirting with single-digit temperatures and negative wind-chill temps come kickoff tomorrow night. The scheduling did us no favors either with kickoff at 8 instead of the normal 7:30 or even 7 due to having enough TV time for the earlier games.
Coincidentally enough KC is going to be dealing with the same artic storm, though in their case with snow, and they got their game postponed 24 hours to Wednesday. Something that hasn't been offered to the Rapids for tomorrow night, or in 2022, or in 2018 when we dealt with this. What's the difference? Oh right, KC's opponent tomorrow is Inter Messi. Anyway in the end it wouldn't make much difference, Wednesday would only be about 5 degrees warmer.
So, on to the game. Unfortunately we got no favors in the draw, matching up with LAFC who has been a bit of a bogey team for us. While we seem to play well enough against them on in Colorado, going to LA is a house of horrors. So it means we really need to put up a good score tomorrow night.
I expect us to play compressed and make them drive the game at us, then hit them quickly on a counter. Look for direct passes to Navarro trying to get behind the defense in the transition. If LAFC gets a league though we'll have to open up and they've been deadly when we do that.
Ted Ku-DiPietro and Darren Yapi are both dealing with injuries and won't be available. Sam Vines was expected to be ready for this one, but given the cold they may hold him out and not risk things. Josh Atencio just got to Colorado today, he might be on the bench but he certainly won't start. Otherwise the full team should be available. I expect Awaziem to be the only new face we see in the starting XI though, otherwise I think you'll see a similar XI to what we played last season with Larraz getting the start next to Bassett in midfield and probably Calvin Harris as the winger opposite Cabral.
Prediction: 2-1 win, goals by Navarro and Bassett. LAFC scores between our two goals but the one goal margin and giving up away goal puts us behind the 8-ball going back to LA.
Sunday, February 16, 2025
2025 Preview and Predictions
- Its one series and done in the CCC. Our track record at LAFC is very bad and I don't see that changing this early in the season.
- Likewise the new Leagues Cup format puts us at a disadvantage and we don't progress. In fact our chances are so unlikely that going into our final game against Cruz Azul in LA Armas pulls the rip cord and uses a heavily rotated roster to save legs for the run-in to the playoffs.
- The Rapids do make the playoffs, but they host the wild-card game (8th overall). They actually win the wild-card game before bowing out in the next round.
- Sadly they end up in the wild-card because the curse of Sandy bites us again and we lose the Rocky Mountain Cup in the next-to-last regular-season match (I'm half tempted to say we retain it after points & goals are tied, but I've seen this story too many times before).
- At some point, either just before the window closes in May or when the window opens this summer, the Rapids make a move for a short-term backup striker.
- Mihailovic is once again named Player of the Year and makes a run at Valderrama's record of 16 assists in a season
- Navarro is the Golden Boot but will not get to 16 to tie Rubio and Casey.
- Steffen, Mihailovic, and Bassett all get call-ups this year
- This is the last year Yapi really features for this team. He may still be on the roster in 2026 but as a deep bench option only.
- Atencio will be seen as the sneaky-good acquisition of this offseason, justifying the expense.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Rapids Make A Big Trade And Drop The New Kit
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Assorted Bits And Pieces
Saturday, February 8, 2025
Rapids Sign Fadal, New Kit Leaks
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
One In, One Out, One Changed
Going in reverse order of the title and going fairly quickly since I'm on the road in our Mexicali office tonight a set of roster updates.
One changed: Kevin Cabral has gotten his green card and will count as a domestic player going forward.
One out: The Rapids and Daniel Chacon have agreed to a mutual separation of his contract. He has already been linked (I don't think its official yet but it will be) with Alajuelense in his native Costa Rica. The Chacon signing always felt like a move to sign a guy to make money off of him, not to improve the team. Which was good because he made 8 appearances with Rapids 2 and none with the first team, while going on loan twice to make 11 appearances each time. So 30 appearances over 3 years and walks away with no transfer fee paid. To be fair his injuries derailed the plan for him, but it is another in a long line of international signings with "potential" that didn't pan out.
One in: This isn't official yet, but reported by Tom Bogert this morning and confirmed by everyone from Burgundy Wave, Matt Doyle, and the Denver Post the Rapids are buying homegrown midfielder Ted Ku-DiPietro from DC United. This is part of the new cash transfer fee system MLS announced last month. Colorado will buy him for $1.125 million with up to $275,000 in add-ons.
Ku-DiPietro was recently re-signed to a U22 contract so he'll have a low cap hit. He's also a domestic player who's already familiar with MLS. He had a strong 2023 season but suffered in 2024 (as did most DC players) and dealt with injury as well. The thinking is he was misused in DC's system last year but will be a good match for Colorado's system.
If we play the 4-2-3-1 we did last year he will probably slot in at one wing with Cabral on the other side. If we go with the rumored 3-5-2 he's more likely to be a supersub off the bench to spell Djordje, Bassett, or possibly Cabral up top.
Its nice to see what is, essentially, the Bombito money starting to be spent. Along with the GAM we sent Cinci. to get Awaziem and Murphy that's essentially 3 players brought in with that sale, and we've only spent about a third of the initial fee. Its also our first significant attacking signing since bringing in Djordje (unless you're going to count bringing in Navarro on a permanent deal last summer).
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Leagues Cup, No Open Cup For Rapids In 2025
Monday, January 27, 2025
Finally, Some News.
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Off To Mexico With Some Old And New Faces
Thursday, January 9, 2025
The Badge, The Players, The Fans Deserve Better. Still.
In September of 2023 Centennial 38 staged the protest above and released a statement about it. I reviewed the statement and KSE's response in March of 2024 and my conclusion at that point was:
To answer the question I asked in the title of the piece, no, we haven't gotten better yet. While we have some shiny new pieces on the field (that haven't yet changed any results), the rest of the organization is still far behind even a midlevel Major League Soccer team. This isn't an org that can expect to compete year in and year out, which is the bar Padraig Smith has stated on multiple occasions.
Now 10 months later has anything changed?
C38 wanted, above anything else, more investment from KSE. Both in terms of $$ but also in terms of interest. I noted in March that we had invested heavily in the roster during the 2023-24 offseason. Of course since then we haven't. We did bring Navarro in on a transfer but beyond that its been free agent signings (Cannon), draftees, and trades. None of which cost KSE anything.
But I hear you saying, we did invest in Navarro, Mihailovic, Vines, and Steffen. Yes, we did. And that counted for something last year. But since we did that we sold Moise Bombito for $7.7m, which escalators up to $10.7m. Meanwhile we reportedly spent $3.5m on Rafa, $3m on Djordje, nothing on Steffen, and an unknown amount on Vines. And there's been no other significant transfer fee paid since the protest. So somewhere between $6.5 and $7.5m total (there's no way we spent over $1m on Vines, and we probably spent less).
In other words KSE didn't invest, they just pre-spent the transfer fee they were going to get from Bombito (a player they got for free in the draft) and at this point they're at least $1M in the black on player movements in the last 15 months.
Moving beyond the roster another area of focus was the facilities. This weekend the Denver Post launched a series of articles about the stadium situation of Denver's teams. Their article about the Dick was not kind. Nor should it have been. We have seen no notable investment in the stadium. The scoreboard is still a joke, the lack of game day features are still lacking, and even the rollout of the new food options last season seemed to end before the play did (by the last game of the season none of the new food options were available anymore).
There were some rumors flying at the end of the season that some sort of construction project was going to start at the Dick this offseason. There was a report that Phish will not be back for Labor Day (now confirmed) due to the stadium not being available for a construction project (not confirmed). Paired with the season-ticket holders lot going away which is on the north end and it seemed to suggest that something was going to be going on at that end of the field. Yet nothing happened. Now I've heard multiple reports that something was planned, but KSE has since cancelled it and there will be no renovations. I know the Front Office is working with the supporters to do what they can around the stadium, but that's a far cry from the full court press the stadium needs.
KSE itself (above Padraig Smith) seems to have continued to ignore the Rapids. We had a couple of big, yet uninformed, statements from the new President of Team and Media Operations when he took the role in March but since then I haven't heard anything of note about the Rapids from anyone at KSE who doesn't work in Commerce City.
Going back to KSE's response to the C38 statement:
On the field, we are focused on returning the team to the level of competitiveness we expect and have seen in recent years
Well, to be fair, we're back to being a one-and-done playoff team so I guess that's an improvement? Yes, great Leagues Cup run they should get credit for. The next step is to become a team that can be dangerous in the playoffs though.
Over the next few months, we will be finalizing the master plan for our exciting Victory Crossing Project. When this is ready in early 2024, we will be hosting several open forums with supporters and members of the community to gather feedback on our plans for the club, stadium and entire project.
That was written in September of 2023. Its January of 2025 and no plans have been shared with supporters. So needless to say they badly missed their "early 2024" date. Dave Wegner, speaking for C38 in the Post article above (and also a personal friend, just to be transparent) confirms we've seen nothing from KSE.
So KSE has shown no new investment in the 15 months since the article. They haven't met their own stated deadlines for planning. If rumors are to be believed they in fact cancelled plans to invest in the facilities. And their well received investment in the team last offseason turned out to just be an advance on their upcoming transfer fee windfall. So to answer the question I asked in the opening, in the last 10 months has anything changed? Yes. Its gotten worse.
The Badge, The Players, The Fans Deserve Better
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
What's Better Than One Bassett? Two Bassetts!
Yesterday the Rapids made official what seemed to be obviously coming, they signed Sam Bassett to a homegrown deal. For anyone who isn't in the loop Sam is Cole's younger brother and has playing at DU the last few years. He was a Hermann Trophy (NCAA best men's soccer player) finalist and Top Drawer Soccer's player of the year this season.