Rapids Announce Year End Roster Decisions

Colorado announced their player decisions today.

Options exercised: Nico Hansen, Jackson Travis, Darren Yapi

Options declined: Daouda Amadou, Sam Bassett, Michael Edwards, Nate Jones, Andreas Maxsø, Rafael Santos

Free agents: Calvin Harris, Oliver Larraz

The option to purchase Noah Cobb has to be exercised by December 15th.

The Rapids are negotiating new contracts with Amadou, Harris, Larraz, and Santos.  Bassett, Edwards, Jones, and Maxso will not be returning in 2026.

Looking back at my review of the upcoming decisions most of this was expected. The two ones I missed on were Santos and Bassett.

I was glad to see we are negotiating with Santos because letting him walk would be crazy.  Hw only started 5 games yet was our best left back of the season.  Either we want him back at a lower number, but he was only on $400K, or we're giving him a longer, better contract and by passing on his option we're smoothing out negotiations so he gets his raise right away instead in a mid-year negotiation.

While Sam Bassett didn't light the world on fire he was cheap and Cole clearly liked playing with his brother.  I figured those two factors would lead to him coming back next season.  You have to wonder if Sam and people in his orbit have decided he'll do better somewhere other than the Rapids.

Other than those two most of these were obvious or we didn't have enough information to evaluate.  I'm hoping Santos gets signed quickly and I would be fine with Larraz and Harris coming back for depth but its not a huge loss if they leave.  Amadou is a long-term project.  Hansen and Yapi were absolute no brainers to keep and Travis is good depth if we can't get Santos signed.

We did release three centerbacks today, leaving us Holding and Murphy as true centerbacks from this year, plus the incoming Herrington.  Cannon and Rosenberry can both play there if needed too.  I would expect we would exercise Cobb's purchase option given that, plus be looking for another starter/top sub in the offseason.  I don't think a back pair made up of Holding/Cobb/Murphy/Herrington is going to get it done over 34 games.

The next major date for the Rapids is Dec. 10th and 11th when free agency opens and then the first stage of the reentry draft.

Schedule Surprise!

Late this morning word started filtering out that MLS could announce some of the schedule details today.  Instead MLS announced the whole schedule, at a time much earlier than they ever have before. This is likely the first time we know next year's schedule before we know which of this year's players will have their options picked up.

Of course the big news in the Rapids schedule is that Inter Miami is finally coming to Colorado.  This is their seventh season so it gets harder and harder, from a competitive standpoint, for MLS to excuse why Miami has never been here but even with that I did not expect them to pass up the big bucks of sending the GOAT back to LA or Seattle or something.  April 18th Miami will be here.

Of course, where will here be?  There was nothing said about a change of venue in today's announcement but many fans think that the game will be moved from the Dick's Sporting Goods Park to Empower Field.  I, for one, hope it isn't.  The Rapids are celebrating not only their 30th anniversary this year but also 20 years in the Dick.  Since they made the move on April 7th, 2007 they have played every competitive home match there.  They didn't move games for Beckham.  They didn't move cold weather CCC games to a better venue.  They didn't play USOC home games at a smaller stadium.  The Dick is our home and we shouldn't give that up just to get 15K extra fans to show up, watch Messi, eave as soon as he's subbed off, and never think about the Rapids again.

The other question is, of course, will Messi travel/play.  The good news is that there are no competitive Argentina matches around that date.  The bad news is that if Miami makes the quarterfinals of the CCC their trip to Colorado comes right after the midweek second leg.  If that happens, I could see them not bringing Messi.  Its also the start of a three game week for Miami, they'll go from Colorado on Saturday to Utah on Wednesday before heading home to face the Revs, which would be followed by the first leg of the CCC semifinals.  If they're eliminated before the quarterfinals I would expect Messi to travel and play some (barring injury) but if they're in the quarters all bets are off with that schedule.

Now that we've dealt with the GOAT elephant in the room, on to the rest of the schedule.  We open in my hometown of Seattle on Sunday February 22nd i what will be the Sunday Night Soccer opening match.  We then come home and face another Cascadia team in our home opener the next Saturday in the Timbers.  Traditionally we do fairly well with the Timbers as our home debut.  Our first long road trip is March 14th through April 4th with 3 road games, including two of our three East Coast trips to NYCFC and TFC (Hi Djordje!).

That Miami match is the first game of our first 3-game week with trips to LAFC on Wednesday and Vancouver the following Saturday.  Our second three-game week starts May 9th when we host St. Louis and then we make a midweek trip to Minnesota before heading to the dark place for the first leg of the Rocky Mountain Cup on Memorial Day Saturday.  We then host Dallas a week later before a long World Cup break.

MLS restarts right after the World Cup final with the Rapids hosting San Diego on Wednesday, July 22nd.  There's a noticeable break in everyone's schedule the second week of August, which will presumably involve Leagues Cup.  That's also in the middle of our only run of 3 straight home games, with Austin on the 1st, SKC on the 15th, and LAFC midweek on the 19th (we pop over to San Diego to finish another 3-game week).  Then to finish August FSL comes through for the second half of the RMC.

Another week break and we're right back to a 3 game week as we go to Columbus, Austin and host Montreal.  October starts with another 3 game week after the International break with San Jose and Minnesota visiting before we go to Portland.  We get a midweek off and, stop me if you've heard this before, another three game week as host Vancouver, go to San Jose, and host Chicago in the home finale on Halloween.  Then we finish the season the next weekend in Dallas.

So we have 5 3-game weeks and a 2-game Wednesday/Saturday week coming out of the World Cup break.  Half our games are played with another league match within 3-4 days of it, instead of the "traditional" week on either side.  And that's before the USOC and Leagues Cup games are added.  Its tough to get a whole schedule in when you're taking June and most of July off.  Good thing its a once every 4 years thing...oh wait.

Other than that though the schedule actually stacks up fairly well.  No ridiculous trips where we play on the East Coast and then on the West Coast in 4 days or anything and no real long road trips or home stands.  One note is that the home opener in February and the Miami games are 2:30pm kickoffs and the home finale on Halloween is TBD.  The other 14 are the normal 7:30pm kicks.  

Unlike this year where the run in looked fairly brutal we finish @Portland, Vancouver @San Jose, Chicago, @Dallas.  You never know who's going to jump up in a given year but outside Vancouver those are teams roughly on our level right now.  Our toughest stretches are the 3-game Miami week (Miami, @LAFC, @Vancouver) and late August/early September (LAFC, @San Diego, FSL, @Columbus).

Massive Day Of MLS News

Well, just as I thought I was slowing down for a while MLS dropped a gigantic piece of news, a major piece of news, an important piece of news, and a minor piece of news today.  Taking them in that order, because the biggest one impacts all the others:

MLS is moving the season from a spring-to-fall schedule to a fall-to-spring schedule.  Lots to cover here:

• MLS will play the 2026 season as planned, with a gap for the World Cup
• MLS will then play a "sprint season" in the spring of 2027 where every team will play 14 games (just enough to play everyone in your conference once) followed by playoffs and MLS Cup
• They'll then break for the summer and start the new 2027-28 season in late-July/August
• The league will then run from late-July/August through early/mid-December, then take a break until either the first or third weekend of February (avoiding restarting the second weekend due to the Super Bowl)
• The regular season will continue through April, with playoffs and MLS Cup in May

And that will be the schedule going forward.  As part of the announcement MLS stated they still are following the principle of having teams play no more than 3 home or road games in a row but some of the statements from the individual teams after the news are suggesting cold weather teams (like the Rapids) could see their December and February games on the road every year.

Notably, but not surprisingly, Colorado's "statement" was just reposting the MLS announcement with no additional comments.

Those are the facts, as we know them.  My opinion of this is that this is being done incredibly poorly and will likely hurt a lot more than it helps in the short to medium term.

I've said for a while now that I can see how this might be better for the league as a whole (but I have my doubts).  But I'm absolutely sure this is going to crush half a dozen clubs and it will take at least 5 seasons for them to get back to where they are now.  And I don't think anyone who's being honest about the situation would really disagree with that.

Given that the fact that MLS is jamming this through, in less than 2 years, without even the union on-board, has me very nervous.,  Japan is making the same change and they've spent the last 3 years being very open about the change, talking to the teams, players, sponsors, and fans, to get everyone on board and rowing the same way.  They are carving out budget chunks to help the further northern teams to adapt.  They're offering deals to fans who will be impacted.  In other words they know that this will only be successful if everyone is bought in.

Here we get MLS just making a decision and expecting everyone to fall in line.  No effort at all to talk to the fans that will be impacted the most.  Apparently no care for the clubs that have to make major infrastructure investments.  The players haven't even agreed to the move according to reports today.

Given all that, why should I expect this to be a success for the heavily impacted teams?  Why should I think MLS values me as a fan?

I can go on more about this, and likely will in the future.  The scheduling problems alone, especially if they send teams out of market for 3 months at a time, are legion.  But we need to move on to other news for now.

MLS is changing the season format when the schedule changes

MLS will go to a single-table model but there will still be divisions.  The 30 teams will be split into five 6 team divisions based on geography.  Teams will play their 5 division rivals home and away (10 games) and everyone else in the league home or away (24 games) for a total of 34 games.  Division winners would automatically qualify for the playoffs, the other playoff teams would be determined by the single-table.

The division makeups have not been announced yet but the most common suggestions for the Rapids are the Cascadia Cup teams, San Jose, and the Rocky Mountain Cup teams or the RMC teams and the four Californian teams.

This is probably an improvement.  I like the idea of seeing every team every year.  As long as they keep FSL and Colorado together I don't have a strong opinion of who else we're grouped with.

MLS Ends Season Pass, Merges With Apple TV

Starting next season (2026) MLS Season Pass is going away.  Instead of a separate MLS-only subscription MLS games will now be under the Apple TV subscription (until recently Apple TV+ but Apple renamed it to Apple TV).  MLS season ticket holders will get a free Apple TV subscription instead of the MLS Season Pass subscription they have been receiving.

This is a good step, probably driven by the recent Formula 1 deal Apple signed that placed F1 coverage inside the Apple TV subscription instead of a separate F1 Season Pass.  At that point neither MLS or Apple could likely justify having a separate subscription.  This opens MLS up to Apple's reported 45 million subscribers world wide.  And MLS fans get to watch Slow Horses and Ted Lasso.  Win, win.

FIFA and CONCACAF agree that Canadian MLS teams can be considered domestic

This has essentially no impact on the Rapids but will help keep everything on a level playing field.  Up until now the Canadian teams were tied to the CSA's timing and rules around transfer windows and the like.  Now they'll be part of the USSF's rules around those areas.  That makes everything easier for the league.  A note, this does not change the domestic/international status of players.  That's driven by employment law in the the countries.

Well, that's plenty.  More to come as we find out more details of the season timing and structure changes.

Final Bow On 2025, Reviewing My Predictions

Ok, the last thing we need to do before moving on to the offseason decisions and 2026 is looking back at my predictions for this year.  This...will be painful.

• 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.

Off to a good start, full points!

• 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.

Wathuta, Sam Bassett, Alex Harris, Fredrick, and Travis started the Cruz Azul game.  Plus Nico Hansen.  I'm giving myself full credit here. 

• 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.

Missed the playoffs on the tiebreaker, missed 8th by 3 points.  I'm giving myself 0 for this one, much like the Rapids this year.

• 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).

I'm giving myself half a point for my dead-on accurate half temptation.

• 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.

Nope, Yapi came good this year and made this (somewhat) unnecessary.  That's going to burn me two ways.

• Mihailovic is once again named Player of the Year and makes a run at Valderrama's record of 16 assists in a season

Ah...no.  He still lead the team in assists with 7 despite being sold during Leagues Cup.  No points.

• Navarro is the Golden Boot but will not get to 16 to tie Rubio and Casey.

Got to 12, 3 more than Mihailovic and 4 more than Yapi.  Full point.

• Steffen, Mihailovic, and Bassett all get call-ups this year

We now know Mihailovic got a call-up in January but had to turn it down due to recovering from his injury.  And Steffen was called up in the summer.  I'm claiming half a point.

• 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.

The exact opposite, for the first time really Yapi showed he can be at least a solid bench option in MLS.  He will be back and will feature as a seconday striker.

• Atencio will be seen as the sneaky-good acquisition of this offseason, justifying the expense.

Nope.  I'm not sure there was a sneaky good acquisition this offseason.  Signing Santos midseason looks like the closest.

4 points out of 10.  That's an all-star batting average but not great for predictions.  Still a step up from 3.5 out of 11 last year, which itself was a slight step up from the year before.

Unless we get some player or coach rumors or news the blog will be fairly quiet for the next couple of weeks.  Once roster decisions are formally announced and we hot the Superdraft there will be something to talk about.

Player Decisions, 2025

Despite my travel and having bigger news like the press conference and Armas I'm still getting my player decisions out before the Front Office does.  We're going to start with the players they actually have to make a decision on, then I'll add a couple of suggestions on players who are already under contract for 2026.  Salary numbers are guaranteed 2025 salary.

Andreas Maxso ($1.4M) - As already announced Maxso won't be back next season.  That's the right call.  We probably should have sold him last offseason if there was a real offer from the Middle East.  He was a solid but unspectacular MLS center back that never lived up to his original DP status or his highest paid TAM player on the team status after he was bought down.

Noah Cobb ($109K) - Burgundy Wave has reported the price to make his loan permanent is $500K in GAM.  Do it.  There's enough there to be worth taking that shot on him.  I don't expect him to be the starter next season but the first option off the bench or possibly the 3rd starter in a 3-man back line.

Calvin Harris ($152K) - One of only two players on the roster that the club has no option on for 2026.  During the press conference Smith suggested multiple free agents would be exploring other options so I have to assume Harris is looking.  I'd be fine if we threw $300K or so at him to bring him back but I'm also ok if he walks.  None of our wingers impressed this year.

Oli Larraz ($131K) - The other free agent on the roster.  We know he's looking in Europe.  I like Oli as a good backup on the bench and I thought he was the better of the three headed Atencio/Ronan/Larraz trio in the middle, but none of them really earned a starting role.  I'd like to see us give him $300-$400K to be that bench option but I can't blame him if he finds a spot in Europe and takes his shot.

Rafael Santos ($401K) - Pick up his 2026 option.  He'll be in a contract year next season, make it clear the LB spot is his to win, and a new contract is available if he does.

Daouda Amadou ($81K) - No idea.  We barely saw anything of him.  But at that price picking up his 2026 option won't hurt us.

Sam Bassett ($81K) - Yeah, give the homegrown another year by picking up his option, if for no other reason than to keep Cole happy.

Nico Hansen ($81K) - Picking up his option is the easiest call on this list.  We have an option for 2027 too, so he can take 2026 to clearly win the backup job and see if he has potential to take over for Steffen in the future.

Jackson Travis ($107K) - I don't think there's a wrong decision here.  If you think there's real potential, pick up the option and bring him back.  If you think that Santos and Vines are going to hold down LB for the next 2-3 seasons then cut him loose.

Darren Yapi ($115K) - Yes, easy option decision.  I don't think he's a great starter in a 1-striker system, but as an option off the bench or playing off Navarro as a second striker he's got real value.

Nate Jones ($81K) - Spent all year on loan so nobody saw him.  Reports are the coaches were happy with what he did in Vegas.  As a fellow Husky I have to support picking up his option.  :D

Eleven decisions to make.  Cobb, Santos, Hansen, and Yapi should be easy decisions.  Maxso was an easy decision to let walk.  Amadou, Bassett, Travis, and Jones are low-risk decisions regardless of how they go.  The two tricky ones will be Harris and Larraz if they decide they want to stay.

There are seven players entering the last guaranteed year on their contracts, which makes them the easiest to buyout in the offseason if we want to.  Holding, Steffen, Murphy, Ronan, Fadal, Frederick, and Stewart-Baynes.  I think Steffen and Holding are the only two that are clearly in the 2026 plans.  Murphy and Ronan are making $400-$500K so buying them out is a bit more expensive, I'd expect them both to be back unless they get a better offer elsewhere and we can reduce that buyout.  Fadal, Frederick, and KSB would be easier to cut if we need the roster slot.

Everyone else has at least two years left and we should expect to be part of the 2026 roster unless an offer comes in for them.  That does mean we need to get more out of the likes of Atencio, Cannon, and Vines to justify the roster and salary cap they're taking up.

The last major decision won't be until summer, but the Alexis Manyoma loan is up on July 21st and Burgundy Wave has reported its a $2M purchase option on him.  While he looked good in his limited minutes at the end of the season there wasn't enough there to justify that yet.  We'll need to see a lot more in the early months of 2026.

Its Groundhog Day...Again

I picked a great week to be offline from the blog didn't I?  Of course the big news is that Armas won't be returning next season.  I covered my thoughts on that in my prior post so I'm not going to repeat that here  The key is now who we look at going forward.  So far only one name has leaked out, Australian John Aloisi, who's managed the Melbourne Heart, Brisbane Roar, and currently Western United, all in the Australian A-League.  He's expressed interest but its unclear if the Rapids have talked to him yet.

The other big incident last week was the press availability for Padraig Smith and Kevin Demoff, President of Team and Media Operations for KSE.  I wasn't able to watch it live due to my work travel, but I did go back and review it.  My first reaction was one of exhaustion.  Its the same old song and dance from Padraig Smith that we heard in 2023, and 2019, and 2017.  "Trust me, we have a plan" and all that.  Well, I don't trust him.  Nothing in the last 8+ years suggests I should.  Honestly, there was a point where I thought about not writing this blog post because I'm just so tired of this.

The one notable difference this time was the presence of Kevin Demoff.  This is the first time since KSE put Smith in charge when Hinchey went to USA Swimming that somebody from KSE has shown up for the Rapids.  In the notes I took there were only three comments from Padraig that I wrote down but there were a dozen or more from Demoff.  Really his comments and his presence were the most significant things about the press conference.

With the caveat that this is all talk and we need to see action, there were two main themes that came out of his comments.  One, that they want to draw the Rapids closer to the rest of the KSE operations than they've been in the past.  Of course that's not a hard bar to clear since its always seemed that the Rapids were off on their own in the bigger picture.  There was lots of talk about how Colorado needs to be able to take advantage of connections with Arsenal, the Rams, etc.  In fact Demoff probably talked too much about the Rams in particular.  MLS is not the NFL.

The second big focus was accountability.  Demoff said, very plainly, that "this club should be competing for titles.  Full stop." and "This club should be competing for MLS Cup year end and year out".  So, it makes it very easy then for the fans to apply that accountability.  Are we realistically competing for MLS Cup?  Something you could argue we've only done 4 times in 30 seasons (1997, 2010, 2016, and 2021).  At the same time though, Demoff hedged his bets by saying that "People have to hold us accountable from here", which means Smith is off the hook for the last 8 seasons of failure and KSE is off the hook for only one title in 20+ seasons.

One thing the duo sadly made clear was that there isn't going to be a seismic shift in strategy with the team.  Both made refence to the idea that there's "no correlation between spending and winning in MLS" and pointing out Philly's success with the cheapest roster and Atlanta's failure with one of the most expensive.  Of course anyone who's watched MLS for any length of time recognizes that both of those our outliers.  Braidon Nourse did the math, the teams in the top half of spending finish 13th on average, the bottom half, 18th.  Removing the two outliers changes those numbers to 12th and 20th.  If you're in the top half of spending you're about three times more likely to make the playoffs.  

The coaching search sounds like its going to be similar.  Demoff used the examples of the Rams, Avs, and Nuggets where they found a young up and coming coach and then built around him with younger players.  They did talk about how those other leagues allow for a "draft and develop" strategy in a way MLS does not, but a year ago Colorado went all in on the draft by trading for all of Philly's picks for 3 seasons.  Which kind of shows that we're not following Philly's road map for being successful with a low salary spend.  So expect the new coach to be a young guy who's getting his first shot at managing.

In the end this was the same talk we've heard time and time again.  The silver lining to it was that KSE does seem to be taking more interest for once.  Now they have to back that up with actual action.  I do think its notable that Demoff was present and said things like the same leadership team should not be choosing a fourth coach.  He fell back on him only being in the role for 18 months and not having a lot to go on, but it wasn't hard to read between the lines of all the accountability talk to see that with Smith being in a contract year its doe or die time for Padraig.  I don't think he has to win MLS Cup to save his job, but another poor year where we miss the playoffs and I wouldn't be surprised that KSE makes a change.

There were a couple of pieces of news in amongst the talk.  Maxso, as expected, is returning to Europe (or potentially the Middle East).  Also Padraig mentioned we have a couple of free agents who will be investigating their options elsewhere.  He called out Larraz specifically as somebody who's looking at Europe but he did say free agents, plural, so I'm guessing Calvin Harris is also looking at his options and may not be back.  He's the only other free agent this year unless we decline an option on another veteran player.

There's really more I could rant about, like Demoff saying the "stadium is perfectly good enough if we deliver" (its not) or that "I have spent as much time on the Rapids in this new role as I have any other club" (sure, how gullible do you think we are) but eventually you just want to take this Groundhog Day cycle off, or my personal favorite time loop story, Stargate SG-11's Window of Opportunity.  Its disheartening to see the same clichés rolled out time and time again and I'd be very happy for KSE to prove me wrong this time.  I just don't expect them to do it.