Knee Jerk Response To Today's Press Availability

You may or may not have heard that on Friday the Rapids announced a press availability with Padraig Smith this afternoon.  They have since put that event online and I watched it, taking notes along the way.  ell, mostly online.  They started the recording after the first question was asked as Smith started to answer and seemed to cut it off as soon as he answered the last question without any thanks or goodbyes.

I'm going to be honest, these are my raw reactions to what Smith said and how it fits in with what I've heard at other times and what's been reported elsewhere.  Because of that they will likely be somewhat of a rant at times, they won't necessarily be well organized, and I may get some facts wrong (though I'm trying really hard not to).  It will also be pretty much a long wall of text.  Sorry!

I'm going to go through these comments in order, but I wanted to talk about the event as a whole first.  First of all footy5280.com posted a recap video from outside the Dick right after it happened.  What he said was very disappointing.  After promoting this press availability at 2:30 the media showed up and found out that Smith had a hard stop at 2:55 for another event.  You plan a press availability and its only 25 minutes?  The press spent more time getting there and back than they spent at the event.  Also in that video he reported, and it has been confirmed by others, that one of the questions asked in that 25 minutes was asked by team personnel in the form of the digital media team.  Um guys, you can grab Smith at the coffee maker when you need a question answered, the team shouldn't have wasted what little time there was by having internal media ask questions.  After the event Footy5280 asked a staffer about getting more time in the future given how short this was, and the response was "Well, we didn't even have to do this".

Really?  You've got a team that's spiraling to their worst season ever, a organization that has failed to keep up wit MLS minimums, real questions from the fans if this team is serious, and you act like just making the club President available for 25 minutes is going out of your way?  That alone makes this club a continuing joke before we even get to what was covered in the event.  Explain to me how I'm supposed to take a team with this attitude as serious about competing?

OK, on to the actual questions and answers.  Padraig started out saying he's "bitterly disappointed" and "incredibly frustrated" with the season so far, which we all are.  But he thinks at a "macro-level" the team is still moving the right direction.  He thinks the results are "not an accurate representation of the talent that's in the locker room".

This is the same type of language he uses when talking about what happened under Hudson and the decision to move on from him in 2019.  Which makes me think he's softening things up to let Fraser go after the season.

He also said that "2021 should be the standard" but that we're "still in with a shot" at the playoffs this year.  To which, seriously?  They're still trying to sell that we can make the playoffs?  Here's how far down we are.  If the rest of the league didn't play another game and stayed at their current point total, and if we played our remaining `11 games at the same level we've played all season, we STILL wouldn't make the playoffs.  The 9th place team in the West (Houston) already has more points than we're currently on pace to get, with a third of the season left.  So the only way we're making the playoffs is if we start playing much better AND the 5 teams in front of us start playing a lot worse.  Quick feeding us this line of bull.

The next question mentioned the infamous "Rapids Way", which some people have suggested we should put away now as just a marketing move.  But Smith came back and said he "loves anything that comes from the Rapids Way" and multiple times during this event used the exact same language about the goals and styles of this team as he used in that 2017 editorial.  So I guess its still the standard we should hold them to.

Padraig said he sat down and had a long talk with the senior leadership on Friday about how this season hasn't been good enough.  He referenced the game in St. Louis at the start of July as the point where it was really clear that the intensity, accountability, and drive wasn't what it should be.  That appears to have been Smith's breaking point.  My response to that was what took so long?  It was obvious before Memorial Day that this team wasn't good enough.  Smith talks a lot about being a numbers guy and the numbers made it blatantly clear by late May that we had a lost season on our hands.  Was he trying to avoid facing reality until it slapped him in the face in St. Louis?  If that really was the breaking point, why wait for over a month to sit down with the senior players about it?

Smith said that changes will be made, some of which started with what happened in this last transfer window.  It was fairly obvious he was saying some of the players that were moved out were part of those changes, and that more are coming.  He later mentioned that they had a deal for an English Championship attacker who failed his physical, which sounds like the rumor of Iranian striker Allahyar Sayyadmanesh.  He also confirmed the report that the Rapids had made a deal for U.S. youth attacking mid Caden Clark that fell apart due to not getting the paperwork back from Red Bull Leipzig in time.  He also stated that they are working on signing a couple of free agents before the roster freeze deadline next month.

His core explanation for the failures this season were that we are underperforming our expected goals and the reason for this is largely injuries, particularly to Rubio and Price.  He thinks we're doing good enough attacking except for the finishing.  Of course, it was Padraig Smith who decided the best plan for this season was to have Diego Rubio backed up by three players (Cabral, Harris, and Yapi) that had a combined 7 goals and 6 assists in almost 4500 minutes of MLS play.  Smith said "In a salary cap league, missing one of your key players is a tough blow" and it is, but it doesn't help when you've spent $1.2M in GAM and over a million dollars in cap space (plus an international slot) on three backups that aren't yet MLS-quality players.  Not to mention the million dollars, international spot, and $300K in cap space on a guy who could fill in for Price but decided fixing a game was a good idea.  Yes injuries are a problem, but the players chosen for this roster behind those who were injured were bad choices.  That's the core problem.

Speaking of Max (and jumping forward a bit) Padraig addressed the idea of using loans the way the Rapids do.  He said that its important when they're considering spending significant money, like we would if we brought in Navarro or Tavares, that we get not only players who are good on the field but players that have good character and a good mentality.  Ironic that the one guy they spent big money on signing directly (Max) is the one that clearly doesn't have good character.  It makes me think that now they're gun shy about signings after that.

Going back to the injuries, Smith finds the number of muscular injuries this season troubling, so much so that they've brought in Steve Tashjian as a consultant to examine what the team is doing.  Tashijan has worked for the Crew, Everton, and the USMNT as a high performance specialist.  Its interesting that Padraig is calling this out, earlier this season I heard that the team had installed a new fitness régime this preseason in order to improve fitness throughout the season.  I wonder if they regret that now.  He also talked about how there are a lot of minor injuries that not everyone knows about, which, maybe that's because you're so secretive about your injury reports?

There was a question about how Navarro is integrating with the team, and it sounds like its gone well, but one thing was mentioned was that he had to get into game fitness because he wasn't playing before the loan deal was finalized.  Why does it always seem like we pick up players who aren't in game shape but we see other midseason additions in this league go right into the lineup and improve the team?

Last, but hardly least, Smith talked a bit about losing top players and struggling to replace them.  Specifically he mentioned Sam Vines and Auston Trusty.  On the latter he mentioned bringing in Keita, who's been unlucky with injuries, and Vallecilla, who didn't work out.  On Vines he mentioned that Esteves was not a good match with this team (something I've heard as well) but it seems like Gutman will be able to fill that hole.  Notably he did not mention Gersbach.  My thought here is, wasn't it Smith's job to find these replacements?  I mean, it wasn't a surprise they were leaving.

That pretty much covers it.  Honestly, it didn't make me feel any better about the team in any way and I think this turned out to be a bad idea poorly planned.  They needed to do something but it needed to be more than "injuries, stats, and not good enough".  This was more insulting than educational IMO.