Au Revoir Awaziem

The expected transfer of Chidozie Awazeim to FC Nantes in Ligue 1 was made official this morning.  Terms of the deal were not announced but Burgundy Wave is saying the transfer fee is around $1.5M, with an expectation of 10-20% of that going back to Cincinnati.  Colorado paid Cinci $1M of GAM to get Awaziem and Murphy.  So we're going to come out a little ahead on this by getting Murphy and some money we can use other ways while getting our $1M of GAM back.

One target of that money appears to be English center-back Rob Holding, who Bogert is reporting (and confirmed by Burgundy Wave and the Post) is in discussions with the Rapids.  Holding is a 29 year old who made 98 appearances over 7 seasons with Arsenal (KSE connection).  Since 2023 he's been with Crystal Palace where he almost immediately had a falling out with the manager and was relegated to the reserves and U-21 team though he made 11 appearances for Sheffield United on loan in the Championship earlier this year.

According to Tom Holding also has an offer from an English team, so we have to hope MLS and the Rapids aren't being used as the stalking horse for him to drive up his contract to stay in England.  That said I did see today that his long-term girlfriend is American so he might have a reason that he wants to come to MLS.  Somebody who had a training blow-up with his manager has some concerns (see Aigner, Stefan) but you would hope the Rapids have access to Arsenal's information and know what they're getting.  He would be an unusual signing for Smith and Taylor, being on the backside of his career, but we need immediate help at CB, not "potential" so that's not a bad thing.

Two Out For Sure, Third Probable, One In Possibly?

I was going to spend today focusing on the new kit but that's going to have to wait for the weekend because the Rapids had a busy day of roster moves today.

The big one was that Kevin Cabral has been waived.  This immediately frees up a DP slot that can be converted to a U-22 slot if we want.  There's now sugar-coating this, Cabral was a disastrous signing that not only hamstrung us for 2.5 seasons but also helped the Galaxy, who went on to win a  MLS Cup in that time.  On December 2nd 2022 the Galaxy were fined $1M, had $1M of GAM taken away, and were put on a transfer ban in 2023 for international players due to not reporting Pavon's salary correctly and cheating the cap.  This put LA in a bind as they had no open DP slot and little flexibility to bring in helpful signings from around the league (inter-league moves were outside the ban).

Enter Padraig Smith 6 days later, who gave LA $1M in GAM for Cabral, instantly making them hole on GAM after the fine and opening their DP slot for the flexibility they needed while under the ban.  All this for a player who looked out of place in MLS while playing for LA.  It was a bad move on it face and Cabral's play proved it.  He started less than half the games while he was here, played 3772 minutes across 2.7 seasons across all competitions (34 game regular season is 3060 minutes, plus playoffs, CCC, and Leagues Cup) and had 7 goals and 5 assists.  Those are MLS bench warmer numbers and for this he was getting paid $2.2M a year, half of which was paid by the Galaxy.

Its not hard to make the argument that he is the second worst DP signing in team history behind Juan Ramirez, and unlike Ramirez we knew how he would react to MLS since he had been in LA for two seasons (1689 minutes) and scored 6 goals with 0 assists.  The decision to trade for him alone is enough to explain why Padraig Smith should not have any say in player moves, before we get to any other mistakes.

The good news is that cutting him free instead of letting him finish his contract and be released in the offseason is a sign that the Rapids are willing to do something this window.  We'll get to that in a second after we go over the other move today and an update on Awaziem.

After announcing Cabral's departure the Rapids also announced that goalkeeper Adam Beaudry has been loaned to the Switchbacks for the rest of the season.  This is a logical move to get him playing time above MLS Next PRO now that Hansen has surpassed him for the number 2 spot.

Braidon Nourse at the Denver Post, among others, is reporting that the Rapids are finalizing the deal to send Awaziem to Nantes.  Its now a matter of not if, but when. he leaves it seems.  I would expect it to happen before the Philly game next week but it would be very helpful if they could work it out for him to be here for that one.  The transfer window for incoming players doesn't open until Thursday and with the Rapids not linked with any CB's right now the odds of us filling his spot before the Philly game 48 hours after the window opens is essentially nil.  That means some combination of Cannon, Rosemberry, Murphy, and Atencio would need to play CB in Philly.  That's not a great set of options.  Still, I expect the deal to get done early next week.

Lastly there is a rumor about what the Cabral move is setting up.  Before today the Rapids had 3 DP's (Navarro, Mihailovic, Cabral) and 3 U-22 players (Bassett, Atencio, Ku-DiPietro) which meant we were limited to TAM deals to bring in anyone new.  The league allows teams to move from the 3+3 model to a 2 DP + 4 U-22 model if they want.

Enter Alexis Manyoma.  Multiple sources are reporting the Rapids interest in the Colombian winger who currently plays for Argentinian side Estudiantes.  Tom Bogert, however, is suggesting they are considering him as a U-22 signing, something that wasn't possible until Cabral was waived today.  Right now the reports point to a loan with an option to buy.  Transfermarkt shows his value at $1.7M.  He turned 22 this year and was an off and on starter in this year's Apertura, with no goals or assists in 369 minutes of play.

Look I'm going to be blunt.  We've all seen this story before.  Smith goes out and finds a young player to bring in at midseason on a loan to buy, and then (Navarro excepted) either the player doesn't work out out or the agreed on price in the buy option is higher than we want to pay and we let him go.  I don't see why Manyoma will be any different.  He's clearly another prospect with "potential", not somebody who's going to have an immediate impact on results.  I'll get excited about this move when he shows up and is able to contribute regularly at MLS level.  AKA, when he's better than Cabral.

Awaziem to France? USMNT To Commerce City?

Two pieces of news before the Seattle preview later tonight.  The big news is that French sports newspaper L'Equipe is reporting that there's a deal on the table for Chido Awaziem to return to Nantes, where he played the 2018-19 season on loan.  L'Equipe is as good as it gets in sports reporting in France and really all of Europe (they are the paper that, under their prior name, started the Tour De France in 1903) so if they're reporting it its solid, but in case you were worried Burgundy Wave has also confirmed it.  I had to pick up a copy of L'Equipe while I was in Paris even though I don't know French just because it felt like something I should do while I was there.

the deal isn't done yet but if its to the point that its being reported in mainstream press I'm going to assume they're just haggling over money and it will get done.  We all assumed that the Rapids pursuit of a CB for this summer window was because of the reported off-season interest in Maxso from the Middle East, but it may be because they knew this was coming from Chido.  There's no assured link but Awaziem did miss a game a month or so ago due to "personal reasons" which much be related to this.

Losing Maxso was going to be tricky, losing Awaziem would be worse.  He's the better of the two of them.  It is possible that we lose both of them and with Maxso on an option year next year I think its a safe bet they'll both be gone before the start of 2026.  So the Rapids need to be looking for two starting MLS CB's in the next 6-7 months.  As far as selling Awaziem we spent $1M in GAM to get him and Murphy from Cinci this offseason, with another $200K in GAM being possible based on performance.  Cincinnati also retained some percentage of any sale.  Awaziem is making $1.4M this season.  So to break even on this I'm guessing the bare minimum of a transfer fee the Rapids would need would be $1.5M, probably $2M to be safe.  We would then want to turn around and reinvest that into our defense.

On a happier(?) note the rumored USA - Australia game on October 14th was finally announced yesterday.  The surprise is that it won't be at Empower Field as originally reported, it will be at the Dick.  This is the first time the USMNT has been at the Dick since the T&T qualifier in 2017.  Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday, with Rapids Season Ticket holders getting their shot at 10am tomorrow.  Given the recent track record I expect it to be pricy, which will impact if I go or not.