Updating My International Signing Rankings

Just about two years, during an offseason that had (at that point) seen few signings from outside U.S. soccer, I wrote a column that reviewed the international singings that the Rapids had made since Padraig Smith took over as GM/team President.  There was one discussion last month about how we well do in international signings so I thought now would be a good time to updated it and add in the signings in the last two years.

A quick explanation of the parameters we're covering.  These are players who came to the Rapids from a team outside the U.S/Canada.  Not just internationals but also Americans (Yarbrough was on the last list, and Steffen and Mihailović will be on this one).

Here's a quick recap of the categories and where the players fell two years ago.  Players marked with an * will have their ranking updated in this article, but otherwise look at the prior article for the details on the others.

Group 1: The question marks, because we haven't seen them yet:

Michael Edwards

*Max

Group 2:  The failures, no sugar-coating it, these were bad to horrible signings:

Stefan Aigner

Yannick Boli

Joe Mason

Nicolas Benezet

Younes Namli

Group 3: Replacement level MLS players or overpaid for their decent production:

Giles Barnes

Johan Blomberg

Tommy Smith

Edgar Castillo

Group 4: Solid contributing players worthy of the international spot (eventually):

*Lucas Esteves

Danny Wilson

*Braian Galvan

Group 5: Top signings:

Jack Price

William Yarbrough

Now, on to the new and updated players:

Group 1: The question marks, because we haven't seen them yet:

Djordje Mihailović, Zach Steffen, Sam Vines, 2024 winter - Obviously, we haven't seen them play yet (in Vines case, haven't seen him play yet since being in Europe).

Sidnei Tavares, 2023 summer - 5 appearances and 300 minutes on a last placed team isn't really enough to judge, but its not looking good

Group 2:  The failures, no sugar-coating it, these were bad to horrible signings:

Max, 2022 winter - Our first revision from two years ago.  Max hadn't played yet for the Rapids when I made this list originally.  Now he played, showed a little, got busted for potential match-fixing and got sold.  For $1M that's solidly in the failure category.

Alex Gersbach, 2023 winter - Signed to replace Lucas Esteves at left back Gersbach started the opening game of the 2023 season, and got absolutely smoked by the Sounders in a 4-0 loss.  He had the home opener off then started the next week in aa 1-0 loss.  He wouldn't see the field for the first team in league play again until mid-May when he started against Atlanta, a game we lost 4-0.  That's a -9 goal differential for a left back.  He didn't play another minute of first-team action last year and the team has made not one (Gutman), not two (Navarro), but now three (Vines) left back acquisitions to try to fill the hole.

Felipe Gutiérrez, 2022 summer - Honestly when I was making this list I saw his name and had to ask "who?", before I remembered our midseason loan pickup.  848 minutes, 2 assists, 0 goals, almost no impact.  Hard to call it anything but a failure.

Marko Ilić, 2023 winter - Brought in on loan to replace Clint Irwin as the backup and push Yarbrough, the pushing part seemed to work as Yarbrough had a good season last year.  But then we paid a transfer fee to buy him, replaced Yarbrough as a starter, and Ilić put up some of the worst advance stats in the league last season.  So much so we went out and signed Zack Steffen as the starter.  This was a badly handled moving on from Yarbrough.

Rafael Navarro, 2023 summer - Navarro was our big signing of the summer window, on loan with a team record $5 million purchase clause.  He's here until June 30th this year and certainly has an opportunity to move out of this category.  1 goal on 888 minutes over 10 starts is not any sort of success from a premier signing, even if he got no service.

Sam Nicholson, 2022 summer - Sam was a fan-favorite and a solid contributor in his first stint in Colorado.  In his second stint he was still a fan favorite, but it was clear the league had passed his game by.  You can never go home again, right?

Group 3: Replacement level MLS players or overpaid for their decent production:

Lucas Esteves, 2021 summer - I had listed Esteves in Group 4 on a small data set in the first rankings and even then I felt like it might have been too soon to put him there.  Turns out it was and he fell back to being a group 3 player.  He was good enough on the field but it sounds like he wasn't the best in the locker room.

Braian Galvan, 2020 summer - Hard to believe that Galvan has been here for 3.5 seasons.  It feels like he should have more than 4 goals and 4 assists in his 53 appearances and over 2000 minutes.  Plus he's shown himself to be a bit of a hot-head.  So I moved him down from group 4 to Group 3.

Collen Warner, 2020 summer - Somehow I missed Warner the last time around.  Probably because I forgot he had 5 appearances in Denmark before signing with the Rapids, so even though he's essentially a career MLS guy he was signed from a non-U.S. team and should have been included.  He was your basic replacement-level MLS player with us, provided veteran leadership, and had some time with his hometown team.  Pretty much the definition of a Group 3 guy.

Andreas Maxsø, 2023 winter - A lot was expected of Maxsø when he was signed as a DP, and unfortunately we didn't see much of that last season.  Of course we didn't see much of anything from anyone last season so its hard to tell how much of his skill was lost in that disaster of a year.  He's now been bought down to a TAM-level player, and with some more help (Vines) and hopefully better leadership we'll see more out of him this year.

Group 4: Solid contributing players worthy of the international spot (eventually):

Connor Ronan, 2023 winter - One of the few bright spots last season, Ronan came in and put up 10 assists, which would be a good number for this team in good years.  If he can do it again he could easily make the jump to Group 5 joining his former Wolves teammate Jack Price.

So since summer of 2017 we've signed 28 players from teams outside the domestic scene.  They break down like this:

Group 1: 5

Group 2: 11

Group 3: 8

Group 4: 2

Group 5: 2

A 40% failure rate is quite bad.  48% if remove the group 1 players since they're unknowns.  Since the last time I did this list two years ago the only new players to be replacement-level or better are Maxsø and Ronan.  If you want a reason the last two years have been so bad, that's a large part of it.

This might be why the focus this offseason has been on players who have been successful in the past in MLS.  Every one of our signings so far have either been players from other MLS teams or bringing home players who moved to Europe after successful MLS runs.  This seems to have worked for us in the past, our 2010, 2016, and 2021 offseasons (our most 3 successful seasons) were very focused on players already known in U.S. soccer circles, either MLS players or Americans playing overseas.  We'll see if the streak continues.