Colorado On The Verge Of Signing Two Americans

Tom Bogert at the Athletic broke two major stories about the Rapids today.  First, that the rumored deal for Zack Steffen from Man City is done, its a 3-year deal with a team option for a 4th year, and he won't take a DP slot.  Bogert reported that Steffen has passed his medical.  The team seemed to later confirm this report by posting a teaser on social media, specifically "0161 -> 303" which are the primary phone codes for Manchester and Denver, followed by a pair of glove emojis.

Bogert's second report was that the club is nearing agreement on a club-record $3M transfer fee for attacking midfielder Djordje Mihailovic from AZ Alkmaar in the Netherlands.  Reportedly he's been held out of training as the final details get worked out and he takes his medical.  The Rapids didn't go so far in confirming this report, but they did post a meme suggesting more deals are to come.  At this point I feel fairly confident that Steffen will be announced tomorrow and Mihailovic will likely be next week.

Since we're certain Steffen is signed, we'll start there.  He'll be in 29 in early April. coming off leading Middlesbrough to a 4th placed finish in the Championship in the 22-23 season (6 points better than my Rovers) before being eliminated in the promotion playoffs 1-0 in a 2-legged series.  He then had knee surgery and hasn't played regularly since.  He mad ~ 20 appearances for Man City in his time at the club.  Before that he was the regular starter for the Crew from 2017 through his transfer to Man City midway through the 2019 season.  He has also, at times, been the #1 for the U.S. but due to injury and a decrease in his play he didn't make the squad for the 2022 World Cup.  Part of his goal in moving to Colorado is almost certainly to move back up the depth chart for the U.S.

There has been no report on what fee, if any, we're paying for Steffen.  For reference Man City paid $7 million to get him from the Crew.  Obviously we're not paying anything close to that.  He's on a $3M contract at City, but given that he's reportedly not a DP he's making at most ~$1.6M with us (the max-salary for a TAM player).  So taking about a 50% pay cut.  This is a big investment for the Rapids, and comes on the heels of buying Marko Ilic this past summer.  Burgundy Wave reported that we paid $800K for Ilic, plus possibly a bit more in performance clauses, and he's making $430K.  So in the last ~6 months we've invested $2M in salary and probably at least $1M in transfer fees in goalkeeping...all while having William Yarbrough as our capable starter already signed.

Speaking of Will, Bogert's report is that his rights have been traded to San Jose as part of this deal.  No report as to what we got out of the trade, but probably something on the order of $50K in GAM, since its just the MLS rights to an unsigned player.

Maybe its just me, but this seems like digging out of a hole we created unnecessarily.  The move for Ilic never made much sense from the beginning, starting with loaning in a guy only through July 5th, when he'd be lucky to get more than a couple of spot starts in MLS play and a couple of Open Cup matches before we would need to make a decision, to then deciding to purchase him.  By the end of the season he seemed like a less-capable keeper than Yarbrough but maybe good enough to play in MLS.  Credit to the Front Office for realizing that we had weakened that position and moving to reinforce it, but maybe we shouldn't have spent time weakening it when we had so many other problems?  And really, with LAFC having signed Loris and having a couple of MLS capable keepers who are looking for homes there may have been a cheaper way of fixing this problem.  Still, I expect Steffen to play very well for us so its a positive step from that point of view.

Next up a more expensive move that makes more sense, Djordje Mihailovic.  He got his start in the Chicago Fire academy and with the Fire for 4 seasons.  He really broke out as an attacking mid and a winger after being traded to Montreal (for $1M in GAM) before the 2021 season.  Over two years in Canada he made 61 appearances, scoring 13 times and adding 22 assists.  That let to him being sold for $7 million to AZ Alkmaar last August.  Unfortunately things didn't work out as he had hoped in the Netherlands, and along with the fact that he and his partner are expecting in May it was time to come home and get a fresh start.

Mihailovic got a look from the Nats back in 2019 but was not part of the squad leading up and through the World Cup.  He's had 5 callups in 2023 though and at 25 still has time to claim a spot on the team, though with our talent up front likely as a substitute.

This is absolutely the type of player a team like the Rapids should be looking at, so I'm very happy with this move on the field.  I'm not sure how you get Mihailovic, Ronan, Bassett, and the #6 we desperately need on the field at the same time though, unless you play Mihailovic on one wing and Fernandez on the other in a 4-5-1/4-2-3-1.  Djordje would clearly be the best midfielder on the team though, so its more about how to work Ronan/Bassett in than him.

I do question a bit making him the highest transfer ever paid by the Rapids.  Before this the record was the $2.65 million spent on Juan Ramirez in 2015 (and by the gods was that move even worse than I realized, but that's for another time).  Mihailovic has shown a lot of potential, but he feels more like a guy you put on a max-TAM deal at most.  He's currently AZ Alkmaar's highest paid player at ~$1M a year, so its really only the transfer fee that makes him a DP (likely).  It will be interesting to see the exact terms of this deal, it feels like with some creativity there might be a chance to get it low enough to be that max-TAM move and leave that DP slot open.  If we can't, Maxsø will have to be bought down to a TAM deal to open the DP slot.

Finally, Bogert mentioned that the Rapids aren't done yet, so we'll see what else in in the plan.  Today it appears the club is spending somewhere north of $3M in transfer fees and likely $2.5-$3M in salary, which is a singificant unexpected step, but one in a good direction.