Rapids Win, U-23s Win, And We Add GAM

Busy weekend for the Rapids.  They played KC on Saturday and won 1-0 on a late Drew Moor header.  That sounds familiar... anyway, here were the starters:

Yarbrough

Rosenberry - Abubakar - Wilson - Beitashout

Price - Acosta

Bassett - Namli - Barrios

Shinyashiki

Anderson, Benezet, Rubio, and Serna were listed as out, Lewis and Vines are still with the U-23s (see below).  Apparently Trusty still hasn't been cleared to return from international duty and was not available but as you can see Bassett made it back.  Makes me wonder if maybe Cole was released a couple of days earlier than Auston from U-23 camp to allow him to get back faster.  So that's pretty much the first team lineup given who was available.

At half Irwin came in for Yarbrough and Galvan came in for Barrios.  SKC made a complete lineup change at half.  At the 60 minute mark the rest of the starters were subbed out resulting in:

Irwin

Edwards - Ford - Moor - Kelly

Warner - Larraz

Galvan - Mezquida - Yapi

Toure

At 77 Hundley came in for Galvan.  Two minutes later Moor headed home the only goal of the match to make the Rapids 3 for 3 in preseason.

Also over the weekend the U-23s beat the Dominican Republic 4-0 to move to 2-0-0 in Olympic qualifying and clinch a spot in the semifinals.  The team will play Mexico on Wednesday, who is also 2-0-0, to determine who wins the group.  The winner gets the second place team in the other group in the semifinals while the loser gets the other group winner.  The semifinal winners qualify for the Olympics.  (If the teams draw Mexico will win the group on goal differential.)  Vines and Lewis have started both matches.  Lewis has shown flashes and in generally has been among the better players but has had lapses.  Vines might be the best player for the U.S. so far.  He's quickly locking down that LB spot and while he'll face competition to start once the European players are added to the roster, at this point he's almost a lock to make the Olympic squad as a backup at least if the team qualifies.

Lastly the Rapids made a trade today, sending an international spot to Atlanta for 2021 in exchange for $225K in 2022 GAM.  As I understand it that means we won't actually get the cash until next offseason, which is part of the reason that's about the highest amount I've ever seen an international slot go for on its own.  Good bit of business by the Front Office.  That leave the Rapids with 6 slots and 8 players, so I think its safe to say that some green cards are in the near future.