Berner, Calvert, Eloundou Officially Loaned To Charlotte

The Rapids just announced that John Berner, Caleb Calvert, and Charles Eloundou have been officially loaned to Charlotte for the season.  Colorado does retain the right to recall them early if needed though.  This is just the official confirmation of something we've known for a few weeks but its good to know the details.  Now we need to know if that means their roster spots are freed up or not.

Schedule Changes and Roster Movement

Over the last two days the Rapids have announced 3 schedule changes:

• The Sun. July 12th home game against FSL has been moved to Sat. July 11th at 7pm
• The Sat. October 3rd home game against FSL has been moved to Sun. October 4th at 5pm

What happened is that with the Gold Cup schedule being announced on Thursday the planned FOX Sports 2 coverage of our Rocky Mountain Cup match on July 12th conflicted with FOX's Gold Cup coverage.  So FOX gave the July game back to Altitude and the Rapids moved it to the better attended Saturday night.  In exchange FOX took the October Rocky Mountain Cup game and moved it to their Sunday night national TV slot.

The other change is the Red Bull New York road game on Sat. July 25th.  It has been moved to Wed. April 29th so the Red Bulls can use that Saturday in July for a friendly.  This is a lousy move for the Rapids as it will now have them play Dallas at home on the 25th, fly to NY for the game on the 29th, then turn around and fly to LA for a game 3 days later on May 2nd.  Meanwhile both the Red Bulls and Rapids have a bye this weekend.  Had somebody at MLS or Red Bull been paying attention when the schedule came out months ago they could have rescheduled the game to this weekend and allowed both teams to play on regular rest.  Yes it would have risked an early season weather delay but is that really worse than 3 games in 8 days on both coasts?

Also some roster news.  Reports are that Eloundou is in Charlotte going through preseason training with the Independence.  However it sounds like this is just a temporary thing while he works on his fitness and he's expected to rejoin the Rapids in a couple of weeks.  He missed almost all of preseason due to his visa issue so this is probably a way to get him back into playing shape with other players going through the same thing.

It does sound like that both John Berner and Caleb Calvert will be joining the Independence on a longer-term basis though as part of our partnership with them.  This will be a good chance for both younger players to get some competitive playing time.  If they stayed in Colorado neither of them would be likely to see the field.

The last piece of news today is that Joseph Greenspan is back with the Rapids during the Naval Academy's spring break.  The team is still working with the Navy to maximize Greenspan's time with the team this season but obviously his responsibilities to the Navy will come first.  When announcing this the Rapids also mentioned journeyman Jeff Parke is trialing with the team.  He's a defender that is probably being looked at to help fill out our thin backline, especially with the suspensions we picked up.

Colorado Signs One, Lose One To Retirement

An expected and unexpected announcement today.  First. as expected, the Rapids announced the signing of GK John Berner.  With the signing the Rapids have 4 GK's on the roster (Irwin, Nasco, Berner, and Pickens) but as we've seen Pickens will almost certainly not be with the team this year.

Secondly, surprisingly, Kory Kindle announced his retirement from soccer.  Kindle was a second round pick in the 2013 SuperDraft and signed a new contract last month.  He didn't play at all in 2013 and his season was cut short due to injury but he was back at full strength in preseason.  In his announcement he says he wants to return to school to get his doctorate in physical therapy so maybe his heart just wasn't in the game.  I wish him luck and maybe we'll see him on the sidelines in a different role in the future.

So here's the camp roster as the team headed to the Desert Diamond Cup today.

EDIT: The Rapids just announced they released drafteee Tolani Ibikunle today.  The list below is updated.  Hat-tip to Rod (even if he is a Duck) for the news.

Goalkeepers:

John Berner

Clint Irwin

Joe Nasco

Matt Pickens - On "Excused Absence"

Defenders:

Davy Armstrong - Homegrown Player - Will start season on IR(knee)

Mark Burch

Albert Edward - Unsigned draftee

Brenton Griffiths - International

Chris Klute

Drew Moor

Brian Mullan

Shane O'Neill - Homegrown Player

Grant Van De Casteele

Marvell Wynne

Midfielders:

Samuel Galindo - Unsigned trialist, International

Juan Guzman - Unsigned trialist

Marion Hariston - Generation Adidas

Nick LaBrocca

Jose Mari - Unsigned trialist, International

Dillon Powers

Dillon Serna - Homegrown Player

Nathan Sturgis

Jared Watts

Forwards:

Deshorn Brown - Generation Adidas, International

Edson Buddle

Martin Chavez

Charles Eloundou - International

Kamani Hill

Danny Mwanga

Vicente Sanchez - International

Gabriel Torres - Designated Player, International

Live SuperDraft results

Rapids trade down from the 11 pick to the 12 pick with the Revs and get the #19 pick, last in the 1st round, as well (and rumored some allocation money).

With the 12th pick they take midfielder Marlon Hairston out of Lousiville.  He's a Generation Adidas player so he does not count against the cap and will automatically be protected in next off-season's expansion draft.

With the 19th (and final 1st round) pick the Rapids take defender Grant Van De Casteele out of Notre Dame.

With the 14th pick in the 2nd round (33rd overall) the Rapids take defensive midfielder Jared Watts out of Wake Forest.  Watts is a former U.S. U-17 and U-20 player, and captained the U-17 team at the U-17 World Cup in Nigeria

With the 16th pick in the 2nd round (35th overall) and their last pick of the day, the Rapids take goalkeeper John Berner out of Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville.

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