Trusty Off To London (Eventually) But Is Anyone Coming To Commerce City?

Big news today as the quiet murmurs about a possible move to Europe for Auston Trusty come true in a big way with the announcement that on the transfer deadline day for most European leagues he had been bought by Arsenal!  As part of the deal he will be loaned back to Colorado until the summer transfer window, specifically July 17th.  Trusty does not qualify for an English work permit so in their announcement Arsenal stated that the plan for the 2022-23 season is to loan him to a team in Europe.

Arsenal is clearly looking at Trusty as a player who's on the edge of the U.S. Nats at 23 years old and see the potential for him to move into the team after the World Cup and qualify for a work permit in a couple of years, with the risk being low if he doesn't make it.  Notably the transfer fee was not part of the announcements, unlike most other moves out of MLS this window, which leads me to believe the up-front number is fairly low and it may have a number of long-term clauses in it.  Or it could be that since this was an internal-KSE move (Kroenke owning both teams) they didn't want to get into the accounting machinations they're putting the deal through to move money from Column A to Column B.

There are already numerous fans of Arsenal and just generally anti-MLS who are claiming this is Kroenke just :"laundering money" or getting around various cap rules, or otherwise dismissing Trusty as anything but an easy way to move resources around and he'll never play for Arsenal.  That's largely example of "fans" not actually looking at Trusty for what he is.  There's no guarantee he'll ever get a work permit and play for Arsenal, but the potential is there.  He could make that move by 26 (3 years).

This move also dovetails nicely into what I was planning to write about tonight, namely that by running in place the Rapids have actually moved backwards this offseason, and its disappointing.  So far the Rapids have moved 3 significant pieces of the 2021 team and brought in 3 new players:

• Cole Bassett Out, Max In
• Kellyn Acosta Out, Bryan Acosta In
• Auston Trusty Out (eventually), Aboubacar Keita In

Roughly three like-for-like transactions.  You could argue that overall Bassett/Acosta/Trusty is a better group of players than Max/Acosta/Keita.  I think at best you argue we've stood pat so far.  To be clear, I'm not expecting anything from our draft picks in 2022.

This at the same time teams like Dallas, Houston, and FSL are spending millions of dollars on transfer fees that should improve the squad.  The rest of the West is in an arms race of spending this offseason and the Rapids are on the sideline apparently not engaging.  In his press conference a couple of weeks ago Padraig Smith said they were pursing options at striker, something reinforced by reporting from other channels, but so far not a single name has been linked to the club and quite frankly, we are running out of time.  Now, with Trusty leaving in the summer, we need to also sign a CB to replace him.  The tweet from the Rapids Communication Director in response to Joseph Samelson calling this out today that there's a secondary window isn't exactly reassuring given the CCL starts in 16 days.

The facts are that Bryan Acosta is out with a positive COVID test, Max is still in Brazil, and Keita is...somewhere.  Which means no new players who are expected to contribute in 2022 will be getting minutes tomorrow, and likely not getting minutes on Saturday.  So at best we'll have the closed-door scrimmage in Orlando for those three, plus any striker signing, to figure out how to play with this team before we face a competitive match.  For a club that has talked the talk, again, about taking the CCL seriously this appears to be a failure to walk the walk, again.

4 years ago the Rapids met one of their big striker signings, Joe Mason, on the tarmac in Boston en route to their season opener against New England.  A move that has been acknowledged as a mistake by the FO in how they handled the offseason that year.  That was the same year they made a panic move in signing Yannick Boli after not being able to get deals done earlier in the offseason.  The FO learned from that mistake and the last couple of offseasons clearly had their ducks in a row and got everyone signed and in camp early.  Right now 2022 is feeling like 2018 again, where we're waiting to the last minute to make a major signing.  Hopefully we're not meeting our new striker for the first time on the ground in Guatemala City...

More Extended Contracts

Last week the  Rapids announced contract extensions for Auston Trusty and Jonathan Lewis.  Trusty is now signed through 2023 and Lewis through 2024.  Combined with the extension given Abubakar last week the Colorado is getting as much of their young core under long-term contracts as they can.

No other roster news so far, the team passed on the Re-Entry draft (both phases).  They did put out some promotion of Academy striker Darren Yapi, my gut tells me he'll be signed to a homegrown contract before the season starts.

Rapids Make Moves On The Back Line

Yesterday's expansion draft resulted in no Colorado players being picked, as expected.  Today the Rapids made moves to add two large pieces of the 2020 puzzle.  First they traded to bring Lalas Abubakar back permanently after his loan ended.  They then made a move to bring in the Union's centerback Auston Trusty. 

The trade for Abubakar was $400K in GAM and an international slot for 2020.  Obviously we know how Lalas fits into the team so there's no surprise there.  The good news is the cost, while some sources (mainly in Columbus) were tossing around numbers like $1M in xAM we got him for a much more reasonable $400K.  Some media were rating Abubakar the third best defender in the league in 2019 but we got him for an above-average MLS defender price.  Great move by the Front Office.

For those wondering about the international slot we currently have five internationals (Mezquida, Price, Rwatubyaye, Shinyashiki, and Wilson) and we know we're negotiating with Smith to be the sixth.  With this trade and the Lewis trade earlier this year we've traded away two of our slots for 2020, leaving us with 6.  So we're fine on that front right now, and we can always trade for more or decide to send Rwatubyaye back to the Springs next year to free up a slot.

The second move of the day was the more surprising one.  Auston Trusty wasn't on anyone's radar as a possible pickup.  He was signed as a homegrown player by the Union in 2016, spending the rest of that year and the following on loan to their USL affiliate where he made 31 appearances.  He then started and played every minute of the 2018 season for the Union.  He started the first 22 games of the 2019 season for the Union before being relegated to the bench and not seeing any more playing time, for unknown reasons.  He hinted that he would talk more about what happened next year but clearly whatever it was meant he was unlikely to factor into next year's plans for Philly.

Trusty is a 21 year old center back  who has been capped for the U19 and the U20 U.S. national teams and has received a full National Team camp invite but has not yet been selected for a game roster.  Obviously with 80+ professional appearances he's more experienced than the average 21 year old and right now it seems like he's likely to be expected to start along-side Abubakar in our back line in 2020.

To get Trusty we traded $200K of TAM in 2020 and $300K in GAM in 2021.  Depending on his performance in 2020 the Union could get an additional $150K of GAM in 2021.  If we sell Trusty before the end of 2021 the Union would get 30% of the remaining transfer fee after the Rapids recoup the $600K (or $750K with performance bonus) they paid to get him.  If he's sold after that Philly would get 25%.  As part of the deal Trusty signed a new contract with the Rapids (he was on an option year in 2020 with Philly).

So combined today we spent $1M in xAM and gave up an international spot for next season in exchange for two young starting quality MLS centerbacks.  That's a nice bit of business for the Front Office.  This leaves the team with a starting back four (Rosenberry - Abubakar - Trusty - Vines) with an average age between 22 and 23, all under multiyear deals  That's a young, long-term back line we can build off of.  With Ford and Rwatubyaye as depth and reports that we're still negotiating with Smith we're pretty set at CB for 2020.