It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times

Last night the Rapids looked like world beaters in the defensive third and midfield.  Then they looked like the world was beating on them in the attacking third.  For most of the game they held San Diego without a shot, much less any danger or xG.  San Diego didn't get their first shot until the 64th minute, but suddenly by the 69th minute they had more shots on target and more xG than the Rapids.  

That's how it was going for the home side in the attacking third.  Their best shot for most of the night came in the 9th minute and it was right against the near post, so depending on which stats you read it may not have even counted as a shot on target.  Their second one was in the 96th minute, and lucky for the us, it went in.  Colorado escaped with a 1-0 win that they both did not deserve and absolutely deserved.

The first half press looked as good as anything we saw this season.  San Diego didn't really get a controlled touch in the Rapids box until the second half.  Even in the second half it was really an 7 minute period from the 64th to the 71st where San Diego looked at all dangerous, outside of that they had two shots that were blocked with a combined total of 0.06 xG.  There was even a point where the Rapids press had won the ball right at midfield and Holding was just standing on the ball and San Diego had no energy to press him so a few seconds went by of everyone just not moving.

The problem came every time Colorado got near San Diego's box.  Great passing up to that point but they could not find a way through.  Navarro was a non-entity in this game, Minoungou kept dribbling into blind alleys, and Aaronson was more interested in passing than shooting.  There were 2-3 chances where Paxten needed to just shoot at goal and instead tried a cross pass three players or tried to dribble for a better opening, or otherwise let the opportunity go by him.  Frustrating from the $8M man.  The two times we broke through and put the ball in the net they were both, correctly, called back for offside.

Late in the match Cannon, after an iffy night for him (he was responsible for the offside that disallowed one of the goals, among other tings), was lucky not to be called for a PK.  Chris Penso was sent to the VAR monitor but returned with a no foul call.  I think that was the correct call because the PK foul was not 'clear and obvious' IMO and probably should not have been sent down.  However it was close enough that had Penson called it in real time I would have said the same thing about VAR calling down to overturn it, as it would not be clear and obviously wrong.

Finally, deep into stoppage time Aaronson got behind .the San Diego line and sent in a bit of a desperation cross to the center of the box.  Waiting there just happened to be the new guy, Loic Williams, who half volleyed a bouncer to the far post that took a slight deflection as well.  It wasn't pretty but the only goal of the match in the final minute doesn't need to be.  A great opener for him (he got the start and played all 90) and settled in well.  Its too early to really judge but the initial returns looked like we have a legitimate third starter at center back.

Speaking of which, Herrington mostly got the night off on his return from the World Cup, just having a cameo appearance in stoppage time.  I thought that was a bit odd given that he only made two appearances in the World Cup, but we do have a game on Sunday and then he's off to Charlotte as the only Rapid in the All-Star Game, so probably good load management for him.

This was a good three points for the Rapids, but it showed that we are still struggling to turn possession into dangerous chances.  I was hoping Wells could work on that over the break but it looked much like our pre-break games, just with a better press. Five of our next six games are winnable if we figure this out, but if we don't the season is all but done.

Man of the Match: Nico Hansen.  I mentioned the two shots on target at the beginning but the first one was a very dangerous attack that Hansen managed to just get a touch on and send over the bar, and the second was also a good save.  Without his efforts Williams' goal doesn't matter.

2026 Part 2

Now what are we doing again?  Oh, right, MLS season.  We've already spent enough time looking back so lets just look forward now.  The Rapids need to rack up points in July and August before the schedule gets hard again in September, and that starts tomorrow night with San Diego in town.  Colorado has not made many changes during the World Cup break, Manyoma, Murphy, and Ronan has left (Murphy will be back tomorrow night with SD) and Loic Williams has joined but that's it.  San Diego has been a bit more active.  This is 12th vs. 13th in the table so both sides are looking at this like 3 points they need to jump start their season.  Kickoff tomorrow night at the Dick is at the traditional 7:30pm.

Player Availability:

OUT: GK Zach Steffen (shoulder), D Miguel Navarro (yellow card accumulation), D Jackson Travis (ankle), M Wayne Fredrick (red card suspension), M Ted Ku-DiPietro (shoulder), F Mamadou Billo Diop (knee)

Yuck, though not surprising.  We knew Steffen and KDP had surgeries and would be out long term.  Both M. Navarro and Frederick played dumb last game (imagine yelling at the official who was in the center for England-Argentina and thinking you were going to get away with it) to get their suspension.  Billo Diop was unlikely to ever play a big role in this game, even if we weren't expecting his injury.  Travis is the one that really hurts since M. Navarro is also out.

We don't really know how the break went but I expect this to be close.  I don't think Williams gets the start but he should be on the bench.  If Wells is uncomfortable with Cannon at LB we could see a 3-man back line with Williams starting and a couple of wingbacks (Minoungou and Thompson for example).

Prediction: 1-1 draw, goal by Rafa.  Going to be a lot of rust out there and neither of these teams were good before the break.  A draw isn't great but it would be (barely) acceptable given the time off and the player availability.  A loss would be fairly disastrous but a win is certainly not out of the question.

Top Kits Of The World Cup

One last kit post before we get back to our regularly scheduled Rapids coverage.  Going to break this down into top kits by confederation plus a couple of additional categories before doing a top X overall.

Top Kit - Oceania - New Zealand Away

With only one team, the choices were limited.  I almost went with the goalkeeper kit but that felt like cheating a bit.  The white looked better than the dark,

Top Kit - AFC - Australia Away

Yeah, I forgot Australia is Asian in FIFA terms sometimes too.  I really like the two tones of this one. A woman I work with is Australian and wore one of these to the office on game day and it looks even better in person.

Top Kit - AFC - Sportswashing Division - Saudi Arabia Home

If it weren't for what it represents this would be one of the top kits of the tournament for me.  I love the green and purple color combo with the tiled motif.  But I will not be supporting Saudi Arabia in any format.

Top Kit - UEFA - Norway Home

This is the kit I've been trying to track down with no luck, waiting too long to try to get it.  A simple design of the flag that comes off very bold.  Even with my Swedish heritage I'd be happy to have this one in the collection.

Top Kit(s) - CAF - Ivory Coast Away

I couldn't choose between my top two CAF kits so you get them both.  First the Ivory Coast away kit with this great pattern of local flora and fauna.  For a long time west Africa has had some of the great tournament kits, I have two different Cameroon ones from the 2010's.  This continues that run.

AND

DR Congo Home

The colors of this kit really work together (even the yellow badge) and the zebra pattern gives a unique spin on the kit.  One of the kits we wouldn't have seen without the expansion to 48.  Also what the team ahs been doing to try to bring visibility to the issues in their country is important.

Top Kit -  CONMEBOL - Paraguay Away

This one surprised me as I didn't pick it out as a highlight during the kit releases.  Seeing it on the field, first against the U.S. but also later in the tournament and I was taken with how good it looked.  I like the way the white badge pops against the blues and blacks, one of the times changing the logo works.

Top Kit - CONCACAF - Haiti Home

This is the original kit before FIFA forced them to remove their freedom fighters from the kit.  Its an important nod to Haiti's history and given everything else FIFA has allowed not allowing this is another example of their double standards.  IT was a tough call between this and the third kit, which is the same design on red, but the collar works better here.

Top Kit - CONCACAF - Rivalry Division - Mexico Home

I mean, come on, that's a top-tier kit.  But its Mexico so this is the only time I'll ever admit that.

So after that, my top five overall:

Norway Home

DR Congo Home

Paraguay Away

Haiti Home

Ivory Coast Away

At different times during the tournament I've looked at buying all of those, but haven't yet pulled the trigger on any of them yet.

Rapids Kit Rankings Home Top 10

Time to finish this series up with the top 10 home kits!  I pre-ranked all the kits before starting this series but as I was writing them up I found myself making slight changes.  No part of the list changed more than this 10 though, I made changes all the way up to #3 while writing this.  The top 2 were always locked in though.

#10 - 2016-2017

The first kit with a legitimate jersey sponsor (ciao Ciao!) and a good team to go with it.  Nice and clean but doing nothing with the burgundy means that it can't go much higher than this.  I do like that Transamerica didn't demand a bright red logo on the front to match their company colors.

#9 - 2018 - 2019

Minimal changes form the prior jut but making the sleeves burgundy and all the trim light blue instead of the light blue/white mix makes this one the better of the two

#8 - 2024-2025

The checkered flag design, I like finally giving the burgundy some kind of design but this trends closely to one of those optical illusion images.  The light blue really pops on this one though.  Hard to believe we went to the 'Colorful Colorado' kits from this unfortunately.

#7 - 2001-2002

The true 'Aquaman' kits.  Super tight and green.  Our last green home kit ever, we wouldn't really get Rapids green back until last year's 3rd kit.  Also the final Kappa kit.  Given their skin-tight nature I had to take a pass on these for my personal collection.  This was the point where the Rapids switched from white at home and green on the road to the reverse, something they've kept through all their color combinations since (until, arguably, this season where they're black at home and green on the road).

#6 - 1996

The original.  Its hard to not put this in the top 5 but overall I thought the road kit was better.  The stripes on the shoulders just don't work for me as well as they should.  Still its a classic 90's style kit and that can't be ignored.

#5 2009-2010

I gave this a one spot boost because we won MLS Cup in this kit.  We'll always have the great memories of Casey scoring while seated and Kandji sacrificing his ACL for the MLS Cup winning goal in this shirt.  To say nothing of Drew Moor's last second clearance.  I don't love the collar on it but that's not enough to downgrade it from its importance in team history.  

#4 - 1997-1998

The kits just kept getting better in the early years.  This gave us the first use of the round badge but avoided duplication by moving the wave badge to the center of the chest.  The later 2006 road kit would be inspired by this one but this was the better version of it.  It removed the old gold color from the sleeves that stood out in a bad way to me on the first kit.

#3 - 2022-2023

Almost my top burgundy kit, I really like this one.  The sublimated mountains on this kit are great and the Colorado 'C' as the jock tag is a nice touch.  This is my current burgundy kit for game days and its going to take a lot for the 2028-2029 kit to replace it.

#2 - 2013

This, of course, had to be the top burgundy kit.  Its also the reason we have had 18 home kits but only 17 road kits.  for one season the Rapids wore this kit with the dark bands, when looking closer at the bands you'll see they're made up of a list of names.  Those were the season-ticket holders of the Rapids (the band across the chest just says 'Colorado Rapids' repeated, in case they had managed to sing a jersey sponsor, that way nobody's name would have been covered.  They didn't sign one).  My name is in the lower band across the belly.  The Rapids were at least one of the first, if not the first, clubs in the world to place their ticket holder names on the kit and it was well received.  Hard to downgrade a kit that has your name on it!

#1 - 1999-2000

There was never a doubt this one (and its away partner) were going to end up on the top of my lists.  This was the kit the team used for the first full season I followed them, it was the first kit I bought ( a signed one from a trip to Dallas that still hangs in my office) and its the one I think of when I think of "classic Rapids" like 'Celo, JDV, Agogo, Limpar, and Hahnemann, among others.  More of a throwback to this is what last year's 3rd kit should have been.

So, there it is, all 40 kits ranked.  If I had to choose a combined top 5:

1999-2000 Away

1999-2000 Home

2013 Home

2025 Third

2022-2023 Home

Back this weekend with some review of World Cup kits before we transition back into the season next week.

We Interrupt This Kit Blog With An Update On Rapids News

As we get close to MLS games starting again its time to get caught up on a couple of pieces of Rapids news before we finish out the kit part of the summer.

The most significant news, which still isn't high, is that Ian Murphy was traded to San Diego FC for Charlotte's second round pick next year that San Diego had acquired in a previous trade.  There's also $100K of GAM if performance metrics are meant and we keep part of his budget charge.

This is really shifting the deck chairs.  Murphy clearly wasn't in Wells' plans and a second round pick and a little GAM won't amount to much in the end.  But it frees up a roster spot.  Its also probably an indicator that Herrington isn't going anywhere this window as that would leave us awfully thin at CB.  This ends the 2024-2025 move of sending $1M plus $200K of performance incentive GAM to  Cinci for Awaziem and Murphy.  In the end that got us a few starts from Awaziem, a $1.7M transfer fee (a small portion of which went back to Cinci) and a 2nd round pick.  We didn't lose anything but I'm not sure how much we got out of that trade either.

Speaking of Herrington, the rumored list of teams interested in him has expanded to almost every major name in Europe.  Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Milan, etc.  Oddly not Arsenal though, given the shared owner.  Reports are that the Rapids have put a $25 million price tag on him and are asking for a 12-month loan back (through the sprint season) as part of the deal.  At this point he might be sold in this window, but I'd be a little surprised to see him leave in this window.  Safe bet that by this time next year he will no longer be in Commerce City though.

Two other roster moves, Manyoma has officially returned from loan with his purchase option declined, as previously reported.  Loic Williams joined the team in training a couple of weeks ago and played in the friendly Thursday night against FC Juarez.  He could be officially registered as a Rapids player yesterday and presumably was, so he should be eligible for next Wednesday's game.

Finally the FC Juarex game was a 1-1 draw after the first 90 minutes, then the teams agreed to play another 30 mintues that ended scoreless.  Both teams got very chippy during that extra time though, so much so that Rafa Navarro was sent off and the ref called the game before being convinced to restart it about 10 minutes later.  In case anyone is worried, red cards in friendlies are not carried over anywhere, though safe to say this matchup may not be repeated next summer.

Back to finish off the Rapids kits later this week before posting some of my favorite World Cup kits.