Play The Rocky Mountain Cup In Laramie

 

Today Major League Soccer announced the details of the 'sprint season' being played in the spring of 2027 as the league transitions to the fall-to-spring schedule starting in the fall of 2027.  The basics are:

• 14 games against the 14 other teams in your conference, 7 home, 7 away
• Regular season played February-April
• 8 teams from each conference make the playoffs
• Playoffs are single-game knockouts played inside your conference in May
• MLS Cup between the Western and Eastern Conference playoff winners
• MLS Cup winner and 4 other teams qualify for 2028 CONCACAF Champions Cup
• All 16 playoff teams qualify for 2028 Leagues Cup

When I saw the sprint season was going to be 14 games I was pretty sure it was all going to be intra-conference.  What this means though is that the sprint season Rocky Mountain Cup is going to be decide on one game, and either the Rapids or FSL will have home field advantage for that game.

Unless they don't.

I immediately joked when the announcement came out that they should play that game at Ralph Stocker Stadium in Grand Junction.  Its almost exactly midway between KKK Slogan field in Sandy and the Dick in Commerce City.  It currently hosts NCAA DII football for the Colorado Mesa University Mavericks.  The reality is though it probably doesn't meet stadium requirements for the league or the union, it only seats 8000, and its probably not equipped for a full broadcast on Apple.  Its a funny idea but for any number of reasons its not realistic.

But then I thought a little more about it and realized there is a stadium that could host a MLS match as a "neutral site".  War Memorial Stadium in Laramie, Wyoming, home of the Wyoming Cowboys.  As a G5 school I'm sure the facilities are good enough to pass muster with the league and union for a one off game, and their football games are regularly broadcast from there as part of the Mountain West Conference so I'm sure it could handle an Apple broadcast.

Yeah, this sounds a little silly at first, but this whole 'sprint season' is a little silly.  Why not try something different during it?  Make it an event.  Has the state of Wyoming ever hosted a top-level professional competitive match in a team sport?  Certainly they've never hosted a competitive soccer match.  Work with the league to promote this as reaching out to new fans, not to mention the whole college population of the University of Wyoming.  Baseball has had success with their single game Field of Dreams and Little League games each season, this could be a (non-repeating) version of that.

Plus, imagine playing the Rocky Mountain Cup at the highest stadium in the country.  Its a perfect match.  Yes, its closer for Rapids fans (a little over 2 hours from Commerce City versus a little under 6 from Sandy) but not so far that I would expect Salt Lake fans not to make the trip.  One team would be giving up a home game, but if they do it right you can split the revenue equally and minimize that hit, or maybe even favor whomever is losing the home game.  Give supporters groups from both sides their regular seats behind each goal and make a true production out of it.

Will this happen?  Probably not.  Neither owner seems like somebody who would push this and I'm not sure the league would be all that excited, but if the fans get behind it and make it something they need to consider we might see something happen.

Rapids Struggle In Small Spaces

A rough night in New York on Saturday for the burgundy boys.  As I feared playing on the small Yankee Stadium pitch did not suit their game and the Pigeons made them pay.  It wasn't all bad as there was a nice run of play starting shortly before half and continuing for most of the second, but when it mattered the most NYCFC finished and Colorado didn't.  The final score of 3-1 was a accurate representation.

Random Thoughts:

• Saturday morning the Rapids announced signing Rapids 2 player and 1st round raft pick Mamadou Billo Diop to a first-team contract.  If you remember on draft week the league was approached by another team with a loophole in the rules to make Billo Diop draft-eligible despite already being signed to R2, which meant the Rapids had to draft their own player.  He got 8 minutes plus stoppage on Saturday
• The Rapids also called up De Coteau from R2.  The fact that we needed a same-day signing and a callup with only three players unavailable shows how thin this roster is
• A rough play from Holding led to the first goal.  In an attempt to play it out of the back he sent a pass up that was easily intercepted, putting the defense on its heels.  Holding tried to make up for it but he left Hansen stranded.  Credit to Nico for making the first save but there was nobody there to clear the rebound.  Wayne Fredrick was doing a lot of ball watching during this.
• The second goal was two bad individual plays.  Jackson Travis committed an unnecessary foul at the side of the box.  That would have been something we could deal with but on the ensuing free kick Manyoma broke from the wall just as it was taken and the ball went right through the space he vacated to beat Hansen near post.  Its not great for a keeper to get beat near post, but I understand Hansen thinking his wall would actually, you know, wall.
• It was looking pretty frim as we rolled into halftime but a nice setup from Navarro got Yapi free on goal and he finished far post for only a one goal deficit at the break.  While the Rapids had been looking better in the final 15 it was still against the run of play.
• The early part of the second half was strongly in the Rapids favor, but they couldn't do anything with their play.  In the 30 minutes after the break they only recorded 3 shots, none on net.
• The final goal was a break that Holding misread, giving ground and not changing off with Herrington to cover Magno making a run, leaving him with an uncontested shot at goal
• Can somebody put out a BOLO on Paxten Aaronson?  For the club record signing at more than twice the amount of the last record he has...2 assists and 1 goal in 10 starts.  And he's invisible for long stretches of matches.  I recognize he's making good runs and progressing the ball, at times, but we need more from somebody we're that heavily invested in.
• Fredrick got the start over Atencio and it wasn't good.  We're still struggling to find the third in the midfield with Ojediran and Paxten.
• Likewise its time to give Navarro a chance over Travis
• Post match Wells talked a lot about being in good places and making the wrong decisions, but combined with other quotes its starting to feel like he doesn't have a good read on this league yet, both the talent of his own squad as well as the ones he's playing.  Nothing to panic about yet but I think there's still some learning for him to do
• To end on a positive note, despite the scoreline this was a better performance than our trip to Seattle.  And both Seattle and NYCFC are likely to be top teams this year.  Our next two games on the road need to be large improvements given the opposition will be likely some of the worst teams this season (SKC and Toronto).

Man of the Match: Darren Yapi.  Yeah, going with the goal-scorer is the easy way out, but it was either him or Navarro (who had the only other shot on target in the match).  So the goal was a tiebreaker.

One Last Trip To the Old Ballpark

The next time the Rapids travel to NYC (as opposed to New Jersey) the new NYCFC stadium in Queens will be open, barring a Cup run for the Rapids in the next 18 months.  That means tomorrow is the last trip to the Bronx and Yankee Stadium for the Burgundy Boys.  NYCFC is off to a hot start, but every one of their games has finished with them playing up a man (to be fair, two of our three have as well).  Kickoff tomorrow is at 5:30pm an hour after the Summit's inaugural game kicks off.  C38 is having a watch party for both games at The Owl Saloon.

Player Availability:

OUT: GK Zach Steffen (shoulder), D Reggie Cannon (ankle), M Connor Ronan (leg)

Matt Wells said today that Cannon has had an injection on his Achilles but doesn't need surgery, however he's going to be out at least this game and the next one.  That gets us to the international break and they expect to have him back after that.  Ronan is week to week and Steffen is day to day.

Keegan is the  obvious replacement for the injured Cannon, otherwise I'm not expecting any changes.  Yapi earned the start with his play last week and everyone else seems to have locked into a starting job.  The only question mark might be if Navarro moves in for Travis at left back.

Prediction: 2-1 loss, goal by Yapi.  I'm tempted to predict a draw here based on our play the last couple of weeks, but on the road is a different beat than the friendly confines of the Dick, as we saw in Seattle.  Add to that the tight dimensions in Yankee Stadium and I think that's too much to overcome.  I do think we finish with all 11 men on the field though.

Glory - Colorado Rapids

 

A little over a year ago Dave Wegner, Grand Poobah of C38, reached out to me for some help on a project the Front Office was working on.  The Rapids had reached out to Glory Studio after seeing their work on their San Diego Loyal edition a couple of years earlier.  Glory went to work on putting together a edition on the Colorado Rapids to celebrate the club's 30th season and they wanted to not only talk to the club but also the supporters. Dave thought I could help with some of the history of both the club and the fans.

After a couple of early-morning conferences (Glory is UK based) they arranged a week to come out and see everything.  That was the week of the Charlotte game last March.  They joined up with the C38 crew at the Celtic, took the buses out to the Dick, enjoyed the tailgate, and got some pics in and around the stadium before, during, and after the game.  They spent the rest of the week interviewing people associated with the club, both past and present, and getting more pics around the area.

Then, silence.  Originally we had been told the target was to release last summer.  When I didn't hear anything I assumed the project had been cancelled.  Instead it turns out they held it until the kickoff of our 30th anniversary season and they were available at the opening game.

This is a great look at the history of the club.  Its 268 pages of pictures, stories, and memories, covering everything from the inaugural game up through the ups and downs of the Chris Armas years.  It hits all the obvious highlights like MLS Cup 2010 and winning the West in 2021, but it also covers things that are important to us as Rapids fans, like the Rocky Mountain Cup and the Unified Team.  It takes time to mention two big local losses, Colin Clark and Joan Dobrzynski.

There are a ton of pictures as well, from fans to in-game photos, to looks at our jersey history.  They highlight the names from our history every MLS fan knows, 'Chelo, Pablo, Howard, but also guys that became important to Rapids fans like Cookie and the Ginger Ninja.  There's even a section on El Pibe in both English and Spanish.  It even finishes with a set of club stats including our longest undefeated streak in 2016.

You can pick it up from the club shop for $30, $24 with season-ticket holder discount.  You can also order it directly from the Glory website but with the exchange rate, shipping, and potential tariffs you'll do better finding somebody to get you one from the club.

I started this off talking about my involvement, but my involvement was minor compared to the grand scheme.  Beyond the people at the club (past and present) C38 and Mile High Lokos members Dave Wegner, Mason Andrade, Miguel Sifuentes were called out along with me for thanks and I think they all deserved it more than I did.  Apparently it was quite a party bus ride!

New Attitude Rapids

Sorry for the delay here, I was celebrating my birthday.  We're three days past the game so I'm not going to get into heavy detail on what happened, at this point I assume you know.  What I do want to talk about though is the change in attitude in the Rapids that we saw in this game.

Colorado was the stronger team in the first half, and deservedly led 1-0 at the break.  Coming out of the break though the Galaxy took control and levelled the score.  At that point the hope was really that the home team could hold on and get a point against a more talented team.  Then Pec picked up a pointless yellow card and everything changed.

First of all, Pec picked up that yellow card because Navarro picked up the ball and went right down the field with it.  No knocking it around the back to waste time, no uncertainty about what support he might have, he saw an opportunity to advance the ball and took it.  There was plenty of defensive cover so there was no reason for Pec to commit a tactical foul while already sitting on a yellow, but Navarro forced that decision on him.

How many times over the years, especially in the last 10-15, have we seen Colorado go up an man and not take advantage?  Most of the time they would struggle to find a winner, instead just passing it around the top of their opponent's half looking for a window and never really finding it.  Instead Rafa immediately put a shot on goal.  Manyoma scored, Navarro scored twice.  When LA handed the Rapids knife they not only stuck it in, they twisted it as well.

In the 15 minutes between the halftime break and the red card LA had 7 shots.  After the red card they had as many shots (3, none on target) as the Rapids had goals.  Yes, the willingness to go forward by the burgundy boys did leave them a bit open in the back and the Galaxy looked dangerous at times, but those chances amounted to nothing.  Hansen didn't have to make a save after the visitors went down a man.

In a prior year this is easily a 1-1 and an opportunity for a win missed (or worse, we give up a goal up a man).  This year there was no doubt that we were going to go for the win, and get it.  I'm not convinced this team has the talent to compete this year, but Matt Wells is certainly giving them the attitude to compete, which is a positive change.

Man of the Match: Darren Yapi.  Yes Navarro had the two goals and drew the red, but Yapi had the opening goal and an assist, and Navarro's goals were icing on the cake.  He also took a wicked hit to the face and came back in at a time where we were out of subs.