Opening Night!

The last major event at Lumen.  Go Hawks!!!

Its taken us a while to get here, and we're in Seattle without a couple of faces we would have expected to be there, but its time to get the last summer season underway.  OF course we have to stat in one of our cursed places, Seattle's Lumen Field.  But perhaps the stunning 3 goal comeback last season has broken that curse.  Regardless kickoff tomorrow is at 7:15pm on both Apple TV and FS1.  The official Rapids watch party is at DNVR, C38 is having their kickoff event at the Celtic as is tradition.

Also a reminder that MLS Season Pass on Apple is no longer a thing.  MLS is now folded into Apple TV so a subscription gets you the Rapids, F1, Ted Lasso, and my personal favorite, Slow Horses.

Availability Report:

OUT: Ali Fadal (abdomen)

I'm sure its just coincidence that our only injury is an international player when we have seven internationals and six international spots...

Going out on a bit of a limb here as with a new season and a new coach its always tough to predict what a lineup will look like.  The three biggest guesses are who the third midfielder will be alongside Ojediran and Aaronson and who else will be on the back line with Cannon and Holding.

For center back I went with Cobb due to his experience but if its murphy or Herrington I won't be too shocked.  I would have had Vines as the starter at  left back giving Navarro a bit more time to integrate but tonight's news blew that out of the water so I'm going to go with the newest signing assuming we have his paperwork.  Otherwise it will be Travis.  Last but not least the Atencio/Ronan question in midfield.  Wells mentioned about pulling out some surprises and I think this is the place it happens, with Ronan playing the forward midfield/10 spot with Aaronson behind him.

Prediction: 3-2 loss, goals by Navarro and Yapi.  A high scoring game like this seems like a stretch but Wells' style appears to be up-tempo, high pressing, and attacking the goal.  Meanwhile the Sounders have a number of center back injuries and I don't yet trust our back line.  Those are all ingredients for a high-scoring game.  In the end though Seattle has more talent than us and are at home, so they get the win.

Sam Vines Waved And Bought Out

The Rapids announced tonight at the roster compliance deadline that they have waived Sam Vines and bought out his contract.  This means he has no impact on the salary cap for the Rapids this season or next (his contract was trough the 2027 season and/or the end of 2027, however this sprint season is going to work).  His roster spot is also freed up, though that wasn't going to be a problem either way.

This decision isn't surprising, but the timing is.  With Miguel Navarro being brought in the writing was on the all but I thought they would take this season to see how things went.  In the end I wasn't expecting Vines to be on the roster for the sprint season unless he had a huge turnaround this year.

Matt Wells said there would be some tough changes, and certainly moving the two most successful homegrowns in club history in Bassett and Vines would qualify.  I think cutting Vines free is the right move though.  He needs to get a fresh start somewhere and hopefully find his game again.

Vines is now free to sign anywhere he wants, including within MLS.  The Rapids now have freed up a bit over $900K in salary, so essentially a max salary player and some GAM, assuming they didn't have to cut him to get under the cap.

This news interrupted my game preview, which will be up tonight!

2026 Preview And Predictions

This season preview it a hard one to write because so much of it is a mystery.  Really all the changes from the end of last year are mysteries in MLS, with, until this week, Dante Sealy being the only new ingredient with any MLS time.  Adding Miguel Navarro gives some idea of what to expect but he's two years removed from playing on a bad Fire team.  In fact arguably the biggest roster move of the offseason was selling Cole Bassett to Portland.  Addition by subtraction I guess?

Of course the biggest mystery is on the sideline.  Is Matt Wells ready to be a head coach and is he ready to do it in MLS, which has its own set of challenges?  Based on the lack of game-changing signings it feels like the Front Office thinks that Steffen, Aaronson, and Navarro are a good enough core to take this team further in 2026 under Wells than they did in 2025 under Armas.  Wells is saying all the right things, but what matters is what happens starting on Sunday night.

It looks like the Rapids are going to play something similar to how Armas set them up.  4-man back line, a central triangle of midfielders, a lone striker, and an outside option on each side.  Wells seems to be looking for more true wingers than Armas was by the end.  The new manager also gets the advantage of the first true destroyer-style defensive mid the Rapids have had in a few years in Ojediran.  That's a role this team has needed for a while.

Its going to be needed this year two with the number of open questions on defense.  I'm not particularly satisfied with any of the options on the back line.  Cannon is a jack of all trades, doing none of them well.  Holding is still somewhat of a question mark but doesn't seem to be a guaranteed lock-down CB.  The second CB position is a toss-up between three young (ish in Murphy's case) players.  At LB things were going so poorly we needed to get Navarro.  Not a lot of confidence there.

Beyond that there's still a time bomb waiting to go off on this team.  Navarro has made it clear he wants to go back to Brazil eventually, and there have been multiple rumors about teams in Brazil and in Mexico interested in him.  He's under contract through at least the 2027-28 season and possibly to the midpoint of the 28-29 season, depending on how this season transition is handled.  You have to think at some point the Rapids will look to make some money off of him.  If he's here for Galaxy game on March 7th, right after the Brazilian window closes, it means he'll be here at least until the World Cup break and the windows opening again in July.

Overall I expect a season of transition, which doesn't seem to match with the stated goa by Smith and Demoff of being in the conversation around MLs Cup.  In a normal situation it would be expected that the first season under a new coach might be a bit rough, but this club has asked for patience from fans FAR too many times for that to be acceptable now.  Add to that the addition of the Summit and the schedule change and this is a critical year for the Rapids.  One I don't think they're up for.

And on that bombshell, on to my predictions:

• Starting out on a positive note, this is the year where we finally beat a MLS team in the Open Cup for the first time in 20 years.  I think by the time a MLS matchup happens Wells will realize that's the best path to success this season and take the game more seriously than we have in a long time
• Likewise we retain the Rocky Mountain Cup for the third year running.  FSL hasn't improved that much and we take advantage of having the home leg second to win it
• All that success does not translate in league play though.  Despite the win in the home finale to claim the RMC the Rapids are already eliminated from playoff contention by that point and finish 11th in the West
• In their end of season press conference Smith and Demoff will preach patience and say this season was necessary to get on the right track.  I'm not making this part a prediction but I would not be surprised if sometime in the offseason Padraig Smith is not renewed to allow Demoff to "start fresh" in the Front Office, ,but with no significant additional investment
• The Rapids will lose to Messi, who will play at least as a sub, and Inter Miami in their big 30th anniversary match and overall it will be a bit of a cluster and missed opportunity for the team despite a huge crowd
• Coming out of the World Cup break the season will look like the best case scenario is barely making the playoffs and bowing out quickly, so Navarro will be sold and Yapi will be the starting striker for the rest of the season
• The Rapids bring in a center back and a winger in the summer window, and will be linked to a couple of bigger moves for an attacker, but nothing actually happens.
• Ojediran becomes Hamzat the Destroyer and is a fan favorite, even if maybe it was a slight overpay to get him
• Miguel Navarro claims the left back spot fairly quickly and is a serviceable but not amazing MLS left back
• Aaronson is Player of the Year
• Wells struggles to figure out MLS early but after the World Cup break comes back and really shows some exciting ideas for the 2027 sprint season, despite it being too late for 2026

International Signing Rankings, 2026 Version

This is the third time I've gone through this exercise, which originally started as a way to address how well the Rapids have done in their international scouting.  the rules were simple, any player who came to the Rapids from somewhere other than a team in the U.S. or Canada, including college/high school.  Essentially players that the Rapids had to find, not players that would have been on multiple radars or part of systems designed to expose them to MLS teams.  This includes returning Americans.

I separated them into 5 categories, and here's the list as of this time 2 years ago.  The * by the name means we'll be revaluating them in this column.

Group 1: The question marks, because we haven't seen them yet:

*Djordje Mihailović

*Zach Steffen

*Sidnei Tavares

*Sam Vines

Group 2:  The failures, no sugar-coating it, these were bad to horrible signings:

Stefan Aigner

Yannick Boli

Joe Mason

Nicolas Benezet

Younes Namli

Max

Alex Gersbach

Felipe Gutiérrez

Marko Ilic

*Rafael Navarro

Sam Nicholson

Group 3: Replacement level MLS players or overpaid for their decent production:

Giles Barnes

Johan Blomberg

Tommy Smith

Edgar Castillo

Lucas Esteves

Braian Galvan

Collen Warner

Andreas Maxso

Group 4: Solid contributing players worthy of the international spot (eventually):

Danny Wilson

Connor Ronan

Group 5: Top signings:

Jack Price

William Yarbrough

Now onto the ten new players and the re-evaluation of the five above.

Group 1: The question marks, because we haven't seen them yet:

Lucas Herrington, Miguel Navarro, Hamzet Ojediran,  - 2026 Winter - Too soon to have seen them.

Alexis Manyoma - 2025 Summer - Only played 38 minutes, not enough to go on

Dauoda Amadou, Ali Fadal - 2025 Winter - Technically Amadou was signed from Rapids 2 but his R2 contract included an automatic signing by the first-team.  Neither of them have had time with teh first-team (10 minutes for Amadou) but time is running out to show something.

Group 2:  The failures, no sugar-coating it, these were bad to horrible signings:

Lamine Diack - 2024 Winter - Bring in a guy on a TAM contract, on loan, and then never play him.  He had 16 minutes over 4 appearances before the loan ended.  I know the excuse was that his visa took so long he never integrated with the team, but that's why you make these moves early enough to queue up all of that work, not 3 weeks before the start of the season.

Sidnei Tavares - 2023 Summer - Last time I wrote:

5 appearances and 300 minutes on a last placed team isn't really enough to judge, but its not looking good

About 6 weeks later he was released before the start of the 2024 season.  Unlike Navarro, who came in on loan at the same time, Tavares was another d-mid who could not crack the starting lineup.  Of all places he's ended up in Blackburn where he got 11 appearances early but has been out since Christmas due to a knee injury.

Sam Vines - 2024 Winter - Yeah, its killing me to list him in this category, but I don't see how I can justify putting him anywhere else.  After a decent 2024 Sammy fell off a cliff in 2025, making only 13 starts.  We've now brought in Miguel Navarro on loan to provide competition for his role this season, which suggests that his preseason under Wells hasn't been great either.  We need a lot more out of a guy we're spending $900K on.

Group 3: Replacement level MLS players or overpaid for their decent production:

Paxten Aaronson - 2025 Summer - Aaronson won't stay in this category.  Either he'll find his footing and move up to 4, or he won't and he'll become a 2.  Right now though he was fine in the final group of 2025 games but so far hasn't shown his $8 million in value.

Reggie Cannon - 2024 Summer - Cannon does everything decent as a MLS defender, but doesn't excel at anything.  That's fine for a middle of the roster $500K guy, but its disappointing for a guy making $750K and with National Team experience.  When we have a couple of young guys on the back line you hope for more from somebody as experienced as Cannon.

Rob Holding - 2025 Summer - Another guy who could move out of this category after 6 starts last season.  We saw just enough of him that I couldn't put him in Group 1 but so far he hasn't been amazing and had one notable mistake late in the season.  He's at $1.2M so expectations are high.

Group 4: Solid contributing players worthy of the international spot (eventually):

Rafael Navarro - 2023 Summer - Navarro only went out and challenged Rubio's goal-scoring record in 2024.  The reason he's not in Group 5 is that we need to see what he can do without Mihailovic setting him up.  He may also be sold before the end of the 2025 season.  If he puts in another 12+ goal scoring season this year and is then sold for a profit it would be hard not to put him in Group 5.

Zack Steffen - 2024 Winter - His 2024 was a bit rough but a great 2025 puts him in this category.  If he can keep that up he'll be a key part of whatever success we have in 2026.  Obviously he doesn't take an international slot but as one of four players still on the roster making 7 figures he needs to keep his high level.

Group 5: Top signings:

Djordje Mihailovic - 2024 Winter - Set the team single-season goal involvement record, represented the U.S. and the Rapids in the Paris Olympics, and was sold to Toronto for a record amount.  I know he "asked out" but I'm not convinced we've herd the full story there.  That's really the only black mark against him in his time here.  He is, arguably, our best ever DP signing.

We are now up to 37 international singings in 18 windows since Padraig Smith took over.  They break down like:

Group 1: 6

Group 2: 13

Group 3: 11

Group 4: 4

Group 5: 3

Our failure rate has dropped from 40% two years ago to 35% now, which suggests that our recent signings have been better.  Certainly we've added Navarro, Steffen, and Mihailovic to the success categories where the prior additions to those categories were only Ronan and Maxso and both of them barely cleared the bar.  Still we need guys like Herrington and Ojediran to be successes if we're going to fully turn this around.

Its Like Deja Vu All Over Again

You'd be forgiven if you thought you had already heard today's news out of the Rapids because its all very familiar.

First of all the team announced the loan of left-back Miguel Navarro from Tallares in Argentina.  If that sounds familiar its because last offseason we sold Navarro to Tallares after having loaned him there for the 2024 season.  To recap:

In December of 2023 we traded left back Andrew Gutman to Chicago for a bunch of GAM and Navarro.  A month later we found out Sam Vines was available and brought him back, making Navarro expendable.  We loaned Navarro to Tallares at that point with an option to buy, which they exercised.

Of course after that we went into last season and realized that Vines wasn't the old Vines.  We tried using Jackson Travis there, but that didn't work out either.  So we traded for Rafael Santos from Orlando and he was more solid than either of the other two.  Of course we declined his option at the end of last season and let him walk and he signed with St. Louis.

So a week before the season starts our options were back to Jackson Travis and Sam Vines, options that didn't work last season.  Or at least, that's what we thought.  It turns out that Navarro was already in camp and training with the team, he was probably the 'Trialist' that subbed in to the Orlando game for the Rapids.  He has a green card already so he'll be eligible as soon as FIFA processes the transfer.

I have to ask though, what are we doing?  Since we sold Vines in mid 2021 we've signed Lucas Esteves, Alex Gersbach, traded for Andrew Gutman, signed Jackson Travis as a home grown, traded for Miguel Navarro, re-signed Sam Vines, traded for Rafael Santos, and now reacquired Miguel Navarro to fill the left back hole.  8 players (one twice) for one role in 4.5 years.  Now our plan is to spend money to get a player we already had under contract 15 months ago.  While I can't really blame the FO for going for Vines when he was available and making him the starter (imagine how mad we would have been if he signed somewhere else in MLS?) not working to get Navarro back when Vines started faltering in 2024 or keeping Santos after last season seems like a more efficient plan than this.

Later in the afternoon the Rapids held their season kickoff press conference with head Coach Matt Wells, Team President Padraig Smith, and KSE President of Team Operations Kevin Demoff.  Again, fi this event seemed familiar and repetitive its because it was.  We saw Demoff and Smith say largely the same things in their end-of-season presser in November, and we've seen Smith say these same things over and over during the last 8.5 years he's been in charge of the team.  Essentially "trust us, we've got it right this time because of A, B, and C".  Yeah, I've heard that one before.

The one notable quote was from Kevin Demoff when asked what a successful season looks like.

Our expectation is to compete for MLS Cup and a successful season is taking meaningful steps in that direction and being in that conversation

So that's the expectation.  Meaningful steps towards winning MLS Cup.  I have my doubts but we'll see.

Honestly the best part of the quote was that he prefaced it with coming at it from a different angle having just finished a season in the NFL where they lost in the NFC championship and is that successful season.  That's right, Dark Side defense baby!  Go Hawks!

So yeah, a day of repetition for the Rapids.  We'll see what comes next, hopefully not a repeat of the 2025 season.