One In, One Out, One Changed

Going in reverse order of the title and going fairly quickly since I'm on the road in our Mexicali office tonight a set of roster updates.

One changed: Kevin Cabral has gotten his green card and will count as a domestic player going forward.

One out: The Rapids and Daniel Chacon have agreed to a mutual separation of his contract.  He has already been linked (I don't think its official yet but it will be) with Alajuelense in his native Costa Rica.  The Chacon signing always felt like a move to sign a guy to make money off of him, not to improve the team.  Which was good because he made 8 appearances with Rapids 2 and none with the first team, while going on loan twice to make 11 appearances each time.  So 30 appearances over 3 years and walks away with no transfer fee paid.  To be fair his injuries derailed the plan for him, but it is another in a long line of international signings with "potential" that didn't pan out.

One in: This isn't official yet, but reported by Tom Bogert this morning and confirmed by everyone from Burgundy Wave, Matt Doyle, and the Denver Post the Rapids are buying homegrown midfielder Ted Ku-DiPietro from DC United.  This is part of the new cash transfer fee system MLS announced last month.  Colorado will buy him for $1.125 million with up to $275,000 in add-ons.

Ku-DiPietro was recently re-signed to a U22 contract so he'll have a low cap hit.  He's also a domestic player who's already familiar with MLS.  He had a strong 2023 season but suffered in 2024 (as did most DC players) and dealt with injury as well.  The thinking is he was misused in DC's system last year but will be a good match for Colorado's system.

If we play the 4-2-3-1 we did last year he will probably slot in at one wing with Cabral on the other side.  If we go with the rumored 3-5-2 he's more likely to be a supersub off the bench to spell Djordje, Bassett, or possibly Cabral up top.

Its nice to see what is, essentially, the Bombito money starting to be spent.  Along with the GAM we sent Cinci. to get Awaziem and Murphy that's essentially 3 players brought in with that sale, and we've only spent about a third of the initial fee.  Its also our first significant attacking signing since bringing in Djordje (unless you're going to count bringing in Navarro on a permanent deal last summer).