Clint Irwin, All-Star!

One final roster addition for tonight's All-Star Game, Clint Irwin has been added to the gameday roster as the 3rd GK.  He is the most deserving Rapid of being an All-Star but plays at the hardest position to make it (because of limited selection) so this is well deserved.

Also I made it to the Grand Hyatt at lunch today to snag some ASG gear:

Cronin An All-Star, Moor A LEGO Clone

Due to injury Pablo had to name five replacements to tomorrow night's gameday roster.  One of the players he picked was Sam Cronin.  I'm not sure Cornin is the player that comes to mind from the Rapids that deserves to be the next All-Star, but I suppose it had to be somebody available and rested.  My choices would have been Powers or Torres.

Also today I found out that OYO Sports.makers of LEGO-like figures for all the pro leagues, has finally gotten around to making MLS player figures.  Earlier in the year they started by making MLS fans figures but they've now moved on to players.  I found out due to somebody tweeting a picture of a Drew Moor All-Star figure.  That one isn't available on-line but I hope to find one tomorrow at the ASG HQ downtown.  They do have the following Rapids players though, Irwin, Moor, Doyle, Cronin, Powers, Sarvas, and O'Neill.  They also have the Rapids fan and Edson the Eagle.

All-Star Game(s) Preview

Just a few notes as we go into the All-Star Game festivities at DSG Park.

• As expected Dillon Serna and Shane O'Neill were selected to play in the Chipotle Homegrown Game tomorrow night.
• Coached by Landon Donovan I'd expect O'Neill to start but maybe not Serna.  I'm sure he'll get in the game though.
• I haven't decided if I'm going but tickets are $10.  Kickoff is 7pm tomorrow.
• The All-Star Game is at 7pm on Wednesday.
• Drew Moor almost cetainly won't start but I'm sure Pablo will get him into the game in the second half.
• Given prices I decided to save my money for the Olympic Qualifiers in October and skip this one.

Drew Moor, All-Star!

At halftime of the beatdown the U.S.is putting on Cuba Pablo's selections for the All-Star Game roster were announced.  As expected there was 1 and only 1 Rapid on it, (former) captain Drew Moor.

Lets be honest, with our play this year we probably didn't deserve to have anyone on the All-Star roster.  The only exception would be Clint Irwin but since there's only 2 GKs on the ASG roster its hard to justify picking him over FSL's Rimando or Vancouver's Ousted.   I'm sure though that both Mastroeni and the league wanted to put a Rapid on the roster to give us local fans somebody to root for.  Drew is a great choice if Irwin is not eligible and I have no problem with his selection.

This is the first Rapid All-Star since Omar Cummings in 2011.  Prior to that the only years we didn't have an All-Star were 1996 and 2003.

Spurs Announced As ASG Opponent

This morning MLS announced that Tottenham Hotspur will be the opponent for the MLS All-Stars at the Dick on July 29th.  A bit of a step down from last year's Bayern Munich but then most choices would be.  Ticket details were also released today.  Rapids season ticket holders will get a code tomorrow morning to buy tickets, they'll go on sale to the general public next week:

MLS All-Star Game (July 29th)
Midfield: $120
Sidelines: $70
Corners: $60
South Endline: $40

MLS Homegrown Game (July 28th)
General Admission: $10

You'll also have to pay for parking at the ASG but not the Homegrown Game.

I have no real interest in Spurs and at those prices I think I'll pass.  I am going to try to go to the Homegrown Game the night before.  There will still be festivities at DSG but $10 compared to $40+parking at minimum is more palatable.  Plus there will probably be more Rapids playing time in the Homegrown Game (O'Neill, Serna) than the ASG (Irwin?), though I will miss the Conquistador coaching the main event.

All-Star Game Announced

As expected the big announcement at Union Station today was the All-Star Game coming to Colorado.  Here's what we know so far:

• Date: Wed. July 29th
• Time: 7pm
• Location: DSG Park
• TV: Fox Sports 1, UniMas, TSN, and RDS2
• All-Star Coach: Pablo Mastroeni and his mustache
• Chipotle MLS Homegrown Players Game also returns this year

What we don't yet know:

• Opponent, other than an "elite international club" and almost confirmed that it won't be Arsenal (it was mentioned at the event that they're scheduled to be in China this summer)
• Schedule of the Homegrown game
• Ticket cost and availability, other than Rapids season-ticket holders will get first shot

A couple of interesting snippets from the press conference:

• There was a bid process to get the game, which Colorado won.  That doesn't mean that KSE fronted the money for the bid, or all of the money (the fact that its the Chipotle homegrown game again this year and Chipotle is a Denver company is probably not a coincidence), but they must have pushed for this.
• Don Garber called out the expected big support from Centennial 38 by name, which is kind of awesome.
• Josh Kroenke talked about all the big names coming to MLS.  Of course that's not the best selling point when he's not bringing any of those big names into his team.

All in all O know some Rapids fans are grumbling that KSE is spending time/money on this and not improving the team but I think its a good thing to see us get to host this game.  I'm waiting to hear about the opponent and the ticket cost to decide if I'm going to go, but at the very least I'd like to see the homegrown game.

Cronin Arrives, ASG Confirmed

Today the Rapids traded some of that allocation money (presumably) from the Klute trade to San Jose for Sam Cronin.  Cronin is a 28 year old holding/defensive midfielder that joined the league in 2009 with Toronto and moved to San Jose in min-2010, playing in almost every game in the last 4 seasons.  Last year he made 187K so he's a middle of the pack MLS regular.

This is a solid if unspectacular move by the Rapids.  This should make LaBrocca redundant as they do very similar things for similar prices (LaBrocca is $35K cheaper).  I think this is an upgrade for the team if Cronin takes LaBrocca's minutes.  Its a waste of a move if they try to find room for both of them on the team though.

Also today the Denver Post confirmed that the Dick will host the All-Star Game.  Both Commerce City and Denver will "host" the game with evens both at the Dick (including the game) and in downtown Denver.  More details including date and possibly opponent will be announced during the formal event on Wednesday.

Here's our current roster with today's move (* = international):

Goalkeepers:
John Berner
Clint Irwin
Zac MacMath

Defenders:
Marc Burch
Bobby Burling
Joseph Greenspan (on Naval duty through 2017 probably)
Michael Harrington
Zat Knight* (unsigned)
Drew Moor
John Neeskens
Shane O'Neill
Alex Sjoberg* (unsigned)

Midfielders:
Sam Cronin
Marlon Hairston
Nick LaBrocca (unsigned)
Dillon Powers
Marcelo Sarvas*
Dillon Serna
Jared Watts

Forwards:
Deshorn Brown*
Caleb Calvert
Charles Eloundou*
Vicente Sanchez*
Gabriel Torres*

All-Star Game May Be Coming But Klute Is Gone

A couple of big new announcements this afternoon.  The off-field one first, then we'll get to the big story.

Soccer By Ives writer Franco Panizo tweeted this a few hours ago:

MLS has announced that Don Garber will join Colorado Rapids' Josh Kroenke in downtown Denver next Wed. for an "important announcement".

Followed by:

Those attending: Garber, Kroenke, Mastroeni, Lt Governor Joseph Garcia, Mayor of Commerce City Sean Ford, CEO of Visit Denver Richard Scharf

That combination of Commissioner, owner, coach, politicians, and city PR almost certainly means that Colorado is getting the All-Star Game this summer.  The only other thing that I could think would be the combine + draft next year, but why would you hold the combine in Denver in January?

This is an odd time for the Rapids to get the All-Star Game.  Its only been 8 years since we hosted the game against Celtic and with Orlando and NYCFC entering the league and San Jose opening a new stadium those would all be more logical choices.  The only thing that makes sense to me is that the opponent for the All-Stars this year will be Arsenal, which is owned by Kroenke, and the deal KSE hammered out with MLS was that Arsenal would come over and play the game, but only if they played it in Kroenke's stadium in Denver.  More information on Wednesday but if I were asked to bet I'd put money on the announcement being the ASG at the Dick against Arsenal.

The second bit of news was much less enjoyable.  During yesterday's draft the Rapids traded with the Crew to move up from #19 to #14 and in return the Crew got the #19 pick and "future considerations".  It turns out those future considerations were announced today as Chris Klute.  It was also revealed (after a few minutes of confusion and 3 different sources reporting 3 different version of the deal) that the Raids also got "significant" (according to the Rapids) allocation money as part of the deal.

This is a lousy trade.  I know Axel Sjoberg (who I'm going to start calling Axel Foley I think) was well regarded but there's only two ways this trade makes any sense.  He's going to have to become a starter by midseason or we're going to find out Klute had a huge escalation clause in his contract (similar to Omar Cummings between 2011 and 2012).  Otherwise this is a bad trade no matter how you look at it.  Yes, a chunk (or all) of that allocation money probably went to LA in the deal that got us Sarvas that still doesn't make it a good move.  I find it hard to believe Klute wasn't worth more than a Superdraft pick and allocation money.  This is a guy who a year ago was on the firnges of the National team.  I think we're going to regret this move.

So here's our roster at the moment (* = international).

Goalkeepers:
John Berner
Clint Irwin
Zac MacMath

Defenders:
Marc Burch
Bobby Burling
Joseph Greenspan (on Naval duty through 2017 probably)
Michael Harrington
Zat Knight* (unsigned)
Drew Moor
John Neeskens
Shane O'Neill
Alex Sjoberg* (unsigned)

Midfielders:
Marlon Hairston
Nick LaBrocca (unsigned)
Dillon Powers
Marcelo Sarvas*
Dillon Serna
Jared Watts

Forwards:
Deshorn Brown*
Caleb Calvert
Charles Eloundou*
Vicente Sanchez*
Gabriel Torres*

That's 20 signed players and 3 more likely to sign.  If they do we'll have 7 of our 8 international spots filled.  I'm sure Greenspan won't count against our roster/salary cap while with the Navy.  Suddenly we're deep at CB and weak on the flanks, we're going to have to find at least one more outside back I think.  We still need either a full-strength Torres or a difference-maker up front and a lot of depth in the midfield.

All-Star Voting Started Today

The Rapids have 6 players on the All-Star ballots that were released today.  Clint Irwin, Drew Moor, Atiba Harris, Dillon Powers, Edson Buddle, and Deshorn Brown.  Normally I don't really care about the All-Star Game, its great for those players who deserve it but the game is usually not interesting to me,  This year though the ASG is on July 31st in Kansas City.  3 days later the Rapids host FSL in the final Rocky Mountain Cup match, a game FSL has to win to retain the Cup.

That is the single biggest game on our schedule right now, because of the rivalry.  Given that, as much as they may deserve it (especially Irwin), I'd be happiest of none of these 6 guys got names to the ASG game-day squad.  There's a "2nd team" of All-Stars who get recognized and get whatever All-Star bonuses they have but are not a part of the game day festivities.  I'd prefer that all 6 of the Rapids are named to the 2nd team, get the kudos, but stay in Denver and rest for the RMC game.

I'd be thrilled if none of the Rapids made the game day squad and all 6 of FSL's nominees did.  Flying from New York back to Salt Lake after their Saturday game, then flying from Salt Lake to KC, playing mid-week, then flying from KC to Denver is much better than the Rapids who are hosting LA the weekend before and then staying in Denver until the RMC game a week later.

If you want to vote (for players from whatever team ;) ) the ballot is here.