Rapids Making Moves As The Window Closes

The summer transfer window closes in about 3 hours (11pm MT) and it sounds like there's one move left in progress that's not official yet.  But Colorado made two moves out yesterday, then we'll get into the couple of rumors that were out there along with the all-but official move to come.

Yesterday we sent Bryan Acosta to Portland and Anthony Markanich to St. Louis, getting GAM back in both trades.  We got $150K in GAM for Acosta, with up to $175K more GAM possible depending on how he finishes the season.  For Markanich we got 75K in GAM plus St. Louis's first round pick in the next draft, with up to $75K more in GAM depending on how he plays in 2024.

Moving Acosta was about dumping salary.  He's on $700K this year and isn't playing regularly enough or well enough to be worth that, especially for a team that's done this season and needs to look for the future.  With Gutman and Bombito there wasn't really any playing time for Markanich, so might as well get what we can for him.

During the second half of this windows there were two rumors that bubbled up very briefly but then faded away just as quickly.  The first was a 19 year old defensive midfielder from America in Brazil, Breno Lemos, about a week ago.  After one tweet from a Brazilian source nothing else ever came of it.  The second was early today when the Rapids were briefly linked to Iranian striker Allahyar Sayyadmanesh from Hull City but at the same time the rumor leaked the report that the move was off also broke, supposedly because of the light calf injury he just suffered.  Either this was CYA by a source who reported something that was never going to happen, or the Rapids got cold feet for another reason and used the injury as an excuse.  I don't believe that a light calf injury would have stopped a deal if everything else was good, especially with 2.5-3 weeks until our next match.

The one report that seems solid came out late this afternoon, and has been confirmed by both Brendan Ploen of the Post and Tom Bogert of the Athletic, who had it first.  21 year old Portuguese central midfielder Sidnei Tavares will join Colorado on loan from Porto B through June 2024.  Tavares was previously at Leicester City where he made one EPL and one UEFA Cup appearance for them.  He has yet to play for the Porto first-team, but is a regular with the B squad.  He's also Nani's cousin.

So far I'm not seeing this as a major move, coming from Porto B means he's probably MLS quality, but I wouldn't expect him to be a MLS star.  I expect he'll fill the spot Acosta (and others) have filled alongside Ronan and Bassett for the rest of this season.  

I'll admit to being a little frustrated that our two big signings this window (Tavares and Navarro) are both loans until the summer transfer window opens next season.  Its hard to get excited about new additions when you don't know if they're just rent-a-players or not.  Both loans have options to buy in them, but as we've discussed before the Rapids never pick up buy options in loans, they always try to renegotiate them.  I understand that strategy from an economic perspective, but not from a "building team cohesion and fan interest" perspective.  When you know the loan is likely to be completed and then you have to hope the teams can come to a new deal its hard to feel like the club is really committed to a long-term plan.

Again the window closes at 11, so we could still see another move.  And even if Tavares isn't announced by then as long as the paperwork is filed by the deadline the announement could come tomorrow.