From Goal Bassett To Gone Bassett

Tom Bogert broke the news early this evening and its been confirmed by Nourse at the Post and Burgundy Wave.  Cole Bassett is being sold to Portland for $2.65M and 1.05M in performance add-ons.  The Rapids retain a sell-on percentage.

A stunning move by Padraig Smith and (presumably) Matt Wells.  Bassett is the best homegrown player the Rapids academy has ever developed.  He was probably the player most likely to be the next addition to the Gallery of Honor in 10-15 years, and he's only 24.  Instead the majority of his career will now not be in Colorado.  He's also the long-time face of the team in the Colorado market.

Bassett was an expected starter in 4 weeks and started the one preseason match that has been played so far, setting up Yapi for the only Colorado goal of the game.  Bogert's report says the relationship between Cole and the club "remains strong" which doesn't suggest that Bassett asked out.  Tom also said that multiple clubs had asked about him this offseason.

There is a new manager with a new style of play.  Its possible that Wells doesn't see Bassett as the player he wants in the midfield 8 position.  Or maybe he's not planning to use an 8 at all.  If that's the case A. I think that's a poor decision given the rest of our roster but also B. it does make Bassett the most valuable asset we have to move.

Two years ago this month I wrote an article for Burgundy Wave about how Padraig Smith's methodology seemed to map to the one laid out in Soccernomics.  One of the principles of that methodology is "Sell any player if some club offers more than he’s worth.".  That's followed by this quote:

Buying and selling players is not an activity for improving soccer performance. It’s a trading activity in which we produce gross margin. If an offer for a player is greatly superior to his market value, you must not keep him

This move feels like it falls into that rule.  We got an offer for Bassett we were happy with, so we sold him.

The only reason I'm not fully convinced is that $2.65M guaranteed is too low  for what Bassett means to this club on and off the field.  We got $8M for a 26 year old Mihailovic (and that seemed low), we get barely a third of that for a 24 year old Bassett?  This doesn't seem like being offered "more than he's worth", especially if multiple teams were asking.  Essentially selling Cole paid off what we paid for Sealy.  Those two do not feel like equal players.

If we had gotten the full $3.7M up front it would make more sense.  Maybe those performance goals are so low we think we're going to get the full amount without difficulty and breaking them out just let it fit into Portland's budget?

The real problem I have with this, beyond the low number, is the timing.  We are 26 days from the season opener.  If this was going to be our major move of the offseason (so far) it needed to happen in December so we could spend the money we got before the season starts.  Now whomever we spent the money on has to be negotiated, signed, and processed in less than a month.  Unless that player(s) is American or already has a visa its a safe bet they won't be in Seattle for the season opener.  So once again we're starting the season at less than full strength.

With Mihailovic, Larraz, and Bassett all gone we have lost 6500 2025 minutes from or midfield in the last 5 months.  Obviously we should expect Aaronson to take a third of those.  But what about the other two-thirds?  Hamzat?  Atencio?  Ronan?  Unknown signing?  Going back to my post two weeks ago we now need ether another signing or another young player like Atencio to step up just to get us back to our 2025 levels.  This offseason is not filling me with a lot of hope that we're going to see a significant improvement in 2026.  We seem to be going all in on Matt Wells being the secret to unlock this roster.

Goal Bassett re-signed, and a trade with FSL?

As mentioned yesterday Bassett has signed a new 4-year deal through the 2027 season.  Its essentially a 3-year extension on his current contract that would have run out after the 2024 season, but now he'll play this year at his new contract level.  

As Burgundy Wave first reported, this contract will be a U-22 Initiative contract.. Being signed under that program is unusual, as only players who do not turn 23 or older in the calendar year can sign such a contract (Bassett turns 23 this year) and only new players to the league or homegrown players signing their first or second contract are eligible (this is Bassett's third contract).  Somehow, the rules are being changed and that means Bassett's salary cap hit will be at a reduced number at $200K rather than his actual contract, which is a nice perk.

This is an obvious and great move for the Rapids.  Bassett has the longest tenure on the team, being the only player who played in 2018 left on the roster, and despite that he's still only 22 right now (Rosenberry, Abubakar, and Anderson would join the squad in 2019)..  While I'm sure he still wants another European shot, this way he has some safety and we have the ability to get a return on him if he moves.  If he doesn't move and becomes a lifetime MLSer then he has a chance to break a number of team records.  Win-win all the way around.

Matt Pollard at Burgundy Wave is also reporting that Colorado has traded for Jasper Löffelsend from FSL for an international slot this year and a 2nd round pic in next year's draft.  Incentives could have up to $100K of GAM going to the dark place as well.  This is the second time I've heard this about Löffelsend in the last week so where there's smoke there's fire.  Löffelsend is a German defensive mid who came here for college at Pitt and was drafted in 2022 by FSL.  He does require an international slot then.  He's had 51 appearances over two seasons with 34 starts.  He's buried on the depth chart and there are some who think he's a legitimate starting 6 in MLS.  I'm not sold on him at that level yet, my hope is that this is a depth move and we still plan to go get a starting 6.

Once this move appears, or doesn't, or we get to Friday I'll break down our current roster before players report this weekend.

Mihailovic,Max, and Bassett

A quick post before tonight's National Championship game (Go Dawgs!).

The Rapids made the Mihailovic  signing official today, as we expected.  He's signed as a DP on a 4 year deal, with a 5th year as a team option.  The $3M transfer fee is a team record, jumping to the top of the top5 list that (per BW) is Mihailovic, Juan Ramirez, Jack Price, Max, and Marko Ilic.  Outside of Captain Jack the rest of that list is very uninspiring so far from a Rapids POV.  Hopefully Mihailovic can turn that around.

Also today Colorado announced that Max has been transferred to Cuiabá in Brazil.  Nothing has been confirmed on any transfer fee paid (unlikely) but there is a report that the Rapids have a 35% sell-on clause.  There is still no resolution to to the allegations that he was involved in match-fixing, and in fact the press release calls out that the MLS investigation is on-going.  He is supposed to be introduced by Cuiabá in a press conference this week and will presumably have to address it.

Finally tonight Burgundy Wave is reporting that Cole Bassett is signing a new 4- year deal as a U-22 player.  This is a great move if it happens, but we'll get into the details on that when its official.

Goal Bassett Returns

The Rapids made it official today, recalling Cole Bassett from his loan to Fortuna Sittard.  Based on the media they posted today he's actually been back for a couple of days at least (sun and minimal snow at the Dick suggests those images were filmed Tuesday or Wednesday).  Things in the Netherlands didn't work out for Bassett at either Feyenoord or Fortuna Sittard.  Both teams seemed to change direction after the decision to bring Bassett in on loan and her wasn't in the new plans.  At the same time, a player has to force a manager to consider him even if that wasn't the plan and that never seemed to happen either.

Colorado posted an interview with Cole today and it sounds like he's all-in on being back here for the 2023 season.  He turns 22 in the middle of the season so he should know that putting up a season or two like his 2021 season for the Rapids will get him another chance to go to Europe, hopefully long-term next time.  Until then he's going to provide the kind of pressure for playing time to other midfielders that was missing in 2022, which is good for the Rapids.

Bassett Returning?

Before we get tot he Bassett news/rumor I want to mention that, as expected, no Rapids were taken in today's expansion draft.

Now, this report out of the Netherlands via 1908.nl states that the Rapids are likely to exercise their recall option in Cole Bassett's loan this winter.  When the new deal was created between Feyenoord, Fortuna Sittard, and the Rapids to allow Bassett to move to Fortuna Sittard this fall, it included a clause that if he didn't reach a minimum number of minutes/appearances before the end of the year the Rapids would have the right to terminate the loan and bring him home.  This report states that according to sources Colorado is preparing to do just that.

As much as this probably sucks for Cole, it makes a ton of sense for him and the Rapids.  If he's not getting minutes he's losing valuable development time on the bench.  At 21 years old he needs to be playing and not riding the pine.  Colorado has a need in midfield and he knows the system and most of the players so he should be able to slot right back in.  He gave it a full calendar year in the Netherlands with two different teams and couldn't break in as a regular starter.  He still has two years on his Rapids contract.  Time to come back, hit it hard for a MLS season, and hope for another shot in Europe next offseason.

Cole Bassett To Fortuna Sittard

Cole Bassett is currently, well as of earlier this week, on an 18-month loan to Feyenoord in the Netherlands.  Despite a strong pre-season where he started a number of the final games and scored twice, the talk coming out of Rotterdam is that Feyenoord isn't planning to play him much this season  Recently there's been a lot of scuttlebutt about him being loaned out to Fortuna Sittard, also of the Eredivise.  They barely avoid relegation last year, so they're om the other end of the table.

Well today it looks like that talk has become all but official, as numerous social media accounts reporting on Fortuna Sittard have reported the deal as done, and Sittard's own Twitter account teased an announcement with a blurred picture that does seem to be Cole.

The interesting thing here is that Feyenoord is not allowed to loan a player on loan.  So one of two things happened.  Either Feyenoord triggered the purchase option in Bassett's loan deal, and then loaned him to Fortuna, or the Rapids and Feyenoord cancelled the loan for Basset and Fortuna Sittard and Colorado created a new loan deal.  Early reports were all sides were working towards the latter option, but that the new loan would include Feyenoord having the right of first refusal on buying Cole before Fortuna Sittard could.

Regardless of how its being done, it appears that Bassett will be playing for Fortuna Sittard this season.  Hopefully he'll get more playing time than it appeared he would be getting at Feyenoord.  Otherwise there's a team in Colorado that could use his help.

Good luck to Cole Bassett!

Today the Rapids and Feyenoord made official what had previously leaked, Cole Bassett has moved to Europe.  He's going on an 18-month loan with an option to buy.  As part of the deal Bassett has signed an contract extension through 2024 with Colorado, so if at the end of the 2022-23 Dutch season Feyenoord decides they don't want to keep him he'll come back to Colorado.  There is a fee for the load being paid to Colorado, and the buy option in the loan includes a sell-on clause for the Rapids to get part of any transfer fee Feyenoord would negotiate if they sold him.

We've known for a while that Bassett had his eye on Europe, and this was really a best case scenario for both him and the club.  The negotiated fee + the loan fee is reportedly bigger than the $2 million Antwerp paid for Vines, and Cole gets to test himself in Europe with an 18 month period to prove he belongs.  I wish him nothing but luck!

For fans wanting to track how Cole is doing, the Dutch Eredivisie is available on ESPN+.  It appears most games are at 4am MT on Sundays.  This Sunday ESPN+ will be showing the Feyenoord game but I assume that's going to be too soon for Bassett to make an appearance.  After this week the team has two weeks off for World Cup qualifiers, and ESPN hasn't posted the February schedule of games they'll be showing yet.

Also, unlike Sam Vines at Royal Antwerp, Feyenoord's official team shop does ship to the U.S. and already has Bassett as an option for customized name and number on a jersey.  On the down side though, the jersey, name, number, and shipping will set you back about $160.

Speaking of Sam Vines, Cole had a friend show up to help him settle in to his new home:

Credit: Richard Fleming on Twitter

Rotterdam (where Feyenoord is) and Antwerp are about 100km apart, or about a 30 minute train ride.  So I wouldn't be surprised if we get more pictures of these two while they're so close together.

Three Core Rapids Head For New Homes

It has been quite a day for the Rapids fanbase.  Three Rapids who have been at the center of this team's growth in recent years have left, for three different reasons.  We're going to go through these in reverse order to immediate impact (and announcement), mainly because its easier for me to deal with that way.

First, Sporting KC announced the signing of free agent Kortne Ford today.  As we're all well aware, Ford signed for the first team out of the Academy in 2017 and looked like a rising star that would be the first real successful homegrown player.  Then a series of knee injuries kept him from making an appearance for the Rapids since 2018.  Each time he got close to healthy further injury knocked him back.  He di finally get back on the field this year for San Antonio and preformed well.  On top of that there was his mother's fight against cancer that the Rapids community followed for many years.  Sadly, as we know, we lost Mamma Ford recently,

Given all that, its not a surprise that Kort would want a fresh start somewhere else, and he is originally from the KC era.  Everyone in the Rapids fan base wishes him the best and hopes for nothing but success for him (outside of head to head games against us, of course).  Kort was the last Rapid on the roster from Pablo's final 2017 team, though of course Drew Moor and Clint Irwin played for and with Pablo for many years.

The second move today is Cole Bassett going on loan to Dutch giants Feyenoord.  This hasn't been officially announced but Cole has left U.S. Nats camp, reportedly to return to Denver to prepare to head to the Netherlands next week, and Dutch papers have gotten quotes from the Feyenoord manager about Bassett's arrival.  So its a done deal, it just hasn't been announced.  This is an 18-month loan with an option to buy.  Bassett only has 12 months left on his contract, so the other part of this news is that he has signed a 3 year extension to his contract, though its unclear if that's 3 years from now, or 3 years from the end of his deal at the end of this season.  Hopefully the official announcement will clarify that.

Feyenoord currently site 3rd in the table, 3 points back of Ajax and 4 back of PSV, so Cole will be right in a fight for the top spot.  Also next month the Rotterdam derby will happen, which could feature Cole Bassett against Sparta Rotterdam's Younes Namli.

This is clearly a good deal for everyone involved.  Bassett has been very clear about his desire to move to Europe, but while there's been a lot of smoke the only confirmed offer we got was the Benfica offer this summer, which wasn't a good move for him.  This allows him a chance to really earn a place on a significant European team, and meanwhile the Rapids get a contract extension that seemed unlikely a while ago.  If it works out they sell him for (reportedly) a number higher than Vines.  If not he comes back home and we have a great asset to play or possibly sell to another team.

Now the big one.  Colorado traded Kellyn Acosta to LAFC for $1.1M in GAM, plus up to $400K more depending on performance, at least $150K of which both sides expect to achieve.  The rest of it requires LAFC to win a trophy by the end of 2023.  So we'll call it $1.25M of GAM for this analysis.

This is obviously a ground-shaking move for the core of the current Rapids.  Acosta was the first significant addition by Padraig Smith when he was given full control of the team, and he's been in the center (literally) of the team since then.  I think all Rapids fans had a moment of WTF? when they heard the news this morning.

Once the initial shock wore off though, the move made more sense.  Colorado entered the day with Jack Price and 3 central midfielders that cost the team a million a piece in different ways (Acosta, salary, Kaye, GAM, Max, transfer fee).  Its very hard to get all 4 of those players on the field at once, not to mention our wingers.  The only way I could see to do it is to play Acosta at left wing with the other 3 in the middle, and that means putting Esteves of Galvan on the bench.  So we had room to move somebody.

An offer of $1.1M guaranteed GAM is the second largest in MLS history.  Those offers don't come around often.  This is because Acosta is probably at the height of his value right now.  Coming off a season where he set a record for U.S. Nats appearances in year for a player with a club contract (he tied the record, but the record was sent when the Nats had a year+ long residency in preparation for the '94 World Cup and those players weren't signed to a club) and having played for the best team in the West, combined with being 26.5 years old, means this was the time to strike if we were going to move him.

Of course, after this news was announced, Kellyn himself got on Twitter to express disappointment in the club.  While he said all the right things in his follow-up, he accused the club of pushing him out and not taking the European offer on the table which is where he wanted to go.  In order to evaluate this claim we're going to have to get down into the nitty gritty of MLS rules.  So the tl;dr of this is that the odds that the Rapids had a European offer that was as good or better than the LAFC offer for the Rapids is very low.  You can skip beyond the bracketed section if you want to skip the MLS roster rule discussion.

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It does require one assumption, namely that at this point in their respective careers Vines is generally more valuable than Acosta. At 26.5 years old Acosta is largely who he is now, while players can improve from this point they usually don't take large jumps in quality. Meanwhile at 22 Vines still has a chance for significant improvement.

So, that assumption in place, lets look at what we know. 

1. Vines was sold for $2M 

2. Because of MLS roster rules, that limit the amount of transfer fee that can be converted to GAM for salary use, from a team-building (not owning) perspective GAM is more valuable than cash once you break $1M (the max cash you can convert to GAM from a sale). 

3. Acosta was traded for $1.1M in GAM that both sides feel is likely to go up to $1.25-$1.3M (per Sam Stejskal's Athletic article and something I've heard) 

So, in order for the Rapids to have pushed Acosta out and ignored a European offer, and for that to somehow been the wrong choice, the offer from Europe would have had to have been better than $1.25M in GAM. if we believe (and I do) that Acosta isn't as valuable as Vines, that means he likely tops out at around $1.75M, if I'm generous. So does it make sense for, in the best case scenario for Acosta, Padraig Smith to give up $250K in GAM to get $750K in cash that can't be used on the roster? At that number yeah, probably. But at anything less than the possible max for Acosta? Probably not. Trading $250K of salary for $500K or less in cash doesn't help build the team, and of course anything under $1.25M in cash is less than the GAM.

So while its possible that the Rapids had a real offer for Acosta that we passed on, and while its possible for that offer to be higher than the GAM, and its possible that its enough higher than the GAM for it to be a good deal for the Rapids, the odds seem very very low. Or I'm significantly undervaluing Acosta.

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In the end moving Acosta frees up significant salary, gains us GAM, and means we don't have to use xAM to pay him down to the max salary level.  In exchange while we lose a notable part of our midfield, its an area where we already have a replacement.  In the end its a logical move, even when at first it seems like its completely out of left field.

Needless to say this is a huge day for the Rapids, and have significantly changed the makeup of the team going into 2022.  With Bassett and Acosta gone our midfield will be a new group working together this year.  We have also put together a nice nest egg of GAM that I would expect to see us use soon to replace some of the missing players, and hopefully find a #9.  I expect the next two weeks will be quite busy.

Cole Bassett Turns Down Benfica Move

Late yesterday news broke that at the close of the European window (for most European leagues at least) yesterday Cole Bassett turned down a transfer to Portuguese side Benfica.  As more details came out it turns down the offer was really for their B side, playing in the second division, with the opportunity to work up to the first-team squad.  I decided to wait until today to write about it hoping more details would come out.  Today Burgundy Wave spoke directly with Cole about the offer and his decision.  The article covers the details well enough that I'm not going to be able to do much better than that, so you should just go read it at BW.

In the end this sounds like the right move for Cole, and it makes sense to me, so who am I to argue?