What's this? Actual news?

 Well some news and a strong rumor.

First the news.  Cole Bassett, Jon Lewis, Auston Trusty, and Sam Vines were all named to the preliminary 48-man roster for the Olympic qualifying tournament next month.  The roster will be cut from 48 to 20 before the start of qualification.  General talk is that Vines and Lewis seem to have the best chance to make the final roster.  This is a full U-23 roster, almost completely from MLS and Liga MX.  If the U.S. qualifies for the Olympics the Olympic roster will include 3 overage players and will probably include a number of European based players like Christian Pulisic.  So it will be that much harder for any of the Rapids to go to Tokyo.

Now the rumor that broke tonight is that young center back Michael Edwards is coming back to the U.S. to join the Rapids from Wolfsburg's reserve side.  Edwards was signed out the DC academy two years ago and first played with the Wolfsburg U19s before getting bumped up to the reserve team.  He's turned 20 over Thanksgiving weekend so he's more of a long-term signing than likely to be an immediate impact player.  With Ford's availability being unknown, Moor nearing the end of his career, and Rwatubaye waived this gives the Rapids some added depth for a few years, should he make the grade.  Colorado will have to trade DC for his MLS rights, which is expected to be some amount of allocation money.