Homegrowns In, Bravo Out

Interesting times in Commerce City yesterday as the Rapids add two homegrown players but lose a Technical Director.  We'll do this in chronological order. ;)

Yesterday morning there was a press event at the Dick to announce the signings of the 4th and 5th homegrown players in team history, Ricardo Perez and Kortne Ford.  They join Davy Armstrong (now with the Switchbacks), Shane O'Neill (NAC Breda), and Dillon Serna as products of the Rapids youth academy that have made it to the first team.  For the last few years they've both been playing in college.  Perez just finished his senior season at Creighton and Ford had one more year of eligibility at Denver U.

Perez is a 21 year old midfielder who played the third-most games  in Creighton history.  He was named Big East Midfielder of the year in 2016 and to the 2015 Big East All-Tournament team.  He prefers to play centrally but is willing to play anywhere the coaches put him.

Ford is a 20 year old defender who led the DU backline to their first ever College Cup appearance and a final 4 in 2016 (beating my Washington Huskies on the way).  He has twice been named to the All-Summit League first team.  Like Perez he prefers to play centrally but is willing to go wherever the coaches put him.

One thing about the announcement that people noticed but thought nothing of is that Pablo Mastroeni and Brian Crookham were present, but Paul Bravo was not.  Later in the day we found out why as the Rapids announced that Bravo is leaving his position as Technical Director.  No reason was given as to why and no future plans for Bravo were announced.

This seems like odd timing to make a leadership switch, coming off our most successful regular season and 5 days before the Superdraft.  However, as Jonathan Boraz pointed out to me last night, Bravo was promoted to VP before the 2014 season and got a 3-year contract extension.  That would put him out of contract after the 2016 season (probably technically on 12/31/2016).  The timing is still a bit odd as you would expect his departure to be announced shortly after the season, not just as preseason was about to start, but maybe they had been negotiating a new contract and over the holidays they realized they weren't going to  be able to make a deal.

Regardless, this leaves a bit of a gap in the Rapids structure going into the critical player management time.  We've had no free agent signings yet and we've got the draft coming up next week.  I assume that in the short-term Padraig Smith will be taking over the roster construction duties (something he's already heavily involved in) with the help of Pablo and Tim Hinchey.  It will be interesting to see if this changes the type of players we sign.  Already Daniel Boniface is reporting the Rapids are not looking to fill their open DP slot in this window.

Next up, the Superdraft on Wednesday.  Here's the first look at my preseason roster tracker with 22 of 28 slots filled (including on-loan Ramirez):

GK John Berner
GK Tim Howard - Designated Player
GK Zac MacMath
D Marc Burch
D Bobby Burling
D Dennis Castillo - International
D Kortne Ford - Homegrown
D Eric Miller
D Axel Sjoberg - International
D Jared Watts
D Mekeil Williams - International
M Micheal Azira - International
M Sam Cronin
M Marlon Hairston
M Ricardo Perez - Homegrown
M Dillon Powers
M Juan Ramirez - Designated Player, International, On Loan
M Dillon Serna - Homegrown
F Dominique Badji - International
F Caleb Calvert - Homegrown
F Kevin Doyle - International
F Shkelzen Gashi - Designated Player, International

Bravo and Hinchey Interviews Shed Light On The Off-Season

Two interviews with the Rapids leadership were published today.  Let's start with Chris Bianchi's interview of Paul Bravo for MLSSoccer.com.

“What people fail to realize is I’ve been around this club for a long time as a player, as an assistant coach, and now as a technical director,” Bravo told MLSsoccer.com last week. “We don’t make decisions here for our own personal good. We’re here to do what’s best for the club.

I think this is fair. There have been some unfair things said about Bravo over the last year from fans on BigSoccer and Facebook. There was even one fan who accused bravo of taking kickbacks from agents for signing their players (commonly referred to in soccer as a 'bung'). I don't doubt Bravo is doing what he thinks is best for the team and he's not intentionally tearing things down for the sake of his ego. That said, passion and best intentions isn't enough. You also have to be good at your job. The team made it fairly clear in the preseason that Bravo holds final responsibility for the roster makeup. He made some good moves this year (Rivero, Thomas) but also some poor ones (Edu, not having a backup for Pablo).

“We don’t make personal decisions,” Bravo said. “Now, what [the Kimura] deal netted us is Hendry Thomas [due to the allocation money acquired], at the end of the day is the way I look at it.”

Interesting note that we did use the allocation money we got in the Kimura trade, and used it to sign Thomas. Because the details of that stuff is never revealed to the public we don't know if the Rapids could have gotten the Thomas deal done without the Kimura allocation money, so we'll have to take Paul's word for it. That makes the Kimura trade a solid move for the team, even if it meant losing a fan favorite like Koz.

Moving on there was a more in-depth interview with Tim Hinchey at isportconnect.com.

What’s the latest regarding the shirt sponsor?We’ve been engaged with a particular company for the last couple of months....After having success delivering one for Derby County, I thought we could come in, take the same best practices and get it done, but it’s not gone as fast as I thought.

Good to hear that negotiations are proceeding for a jersey sponsor. Earlier this year Hinchey said that it wasn't an absolute requirement to sign a DP, but it would go a long way to making it possible. He also stated that we would start the 2013 season with a sponsor, so the clock is ticking.

How important is that the ‘fan experience’ to your success? Any plans to expand it?The ‘driveway to driveway experience’ is critical to the success of our club. That fan experience journey – when they’re putting on their kits at home and when their getting excited about it – that’s something unique about our sport. It’s a good day out at the park; our key supporters’ base come early, parking is free, they tailgate, they barbecue, they have their flags out.

I'm glad to see Hinchey appears to recognize the value of the supporters groups.  I know there's work to be done this off-season between the club and SG's, so lets hope things continue in the direction they've been going the last 3 years.

You had your first international friendly in years versus Swansea City. Do you have any more plans to bring in any more events to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park?We’re going to look at that every year. We purposely wanted to illustrate to our fan base that we were prepared to invest and bring quality clubs back into Dick Sporting Goods Park.... It was a fantastic day out and we got fantastic feedback, but when it came down to the matchday, 8000 people came versus our average crowd now is about 15,000. We get a lot of request for this, but the turnout was a bit disappointing.

The answer also talks about the success of the women's National Team game at the Dick and that they want to bring more of these events to the Dick.  Last week the Rapids announced they would be bidding for one of the 6 home World Cup Qualifiers in 2013.  I had similar concerns about the success of the Swansea friendly as Tim seems to have.  Its hard to justify that expense if you're only going to draw 8K.

What would it take for Mr Kroenke to allow you to sign a marquee name?First and foremost, I am never going to recommend that we bring over a marquee player over 30. I’m not interested in retiring a player in our league and paying that kind of potential salary on someone who may have one or two good years – that’s just not what our philosophy is going to be. If we can illustrate to our fan base that we’re authentically investing in a quality product, that’s going to mean more to me than bringing in a name that we think might marginally increase our commercial output.

Of course this is the $64,000 question for Rapids fans.  I like the fact that they;re more interested in signing a young player than an older name.  Of course, as I said last week, I'll believe it when I see it.

Fascinating Happy Hour With Rapids Executives

Tonight I was invited along with other bloggers and press to a happy hour with Rapids President Tim Hinchey, Rapids General Manager Paul Bravo, Rapids Head Coach Oscar Pareja.  Rapids Director of Media Relations David Lindholm organized the event and was also present.  There were 8-10 of us talking with the Rapids leadership trio.  Some of the other blogs and press included the Denver Post, Goal.com, ColoradoRapidsfan.com, and Burgundy Wave.

Most of this is going to be just a random set of impressions and information I got out of the gathering but I wanted to mention how interesting it was to listen to Coach Pareja speak.  I don't know if he's the long-term answer in Colorado yet but he is certainly passionate about his plans.  He talked about his time with the Colombian National Team in the 90's, the fact that parts of the game are "in his blood", and the mentality of players he wants playing for him.  I don't know what the result of his time in Colorado will be, but I'm glad I got the chance to listen to him talk.

Otherwise here's some of the random information and impressions I got out of the evening:

• Hinchey stated that he's put his stake in the ground, that there will be a shirt sponsor by the beginning of the 2013 season.
• The shirt sponsorship will probably make the Rapids profitable.  The average sponsorship in the league is 2.5 million a year, and the Rapids lost 2.2 million last year.
• The shirt sponsorship is not a requirement to sign a DP but it would go a long, long way to making it possible.
• Bravo's trip to Africa last month turned up two players they're working on getting visas for, a 17-18 year old striker and a 20-21 year old central midfielder.  It was unclear if they're just coming over for trials or the Rapids are actually signing them.
• It sounds like one of these players was on one of the Olympic teams eliminated before the semis, but Bravo may have been referring to a 3rd player they're pursuing.
• Pareja's system isn't just his system.  The whole club, from the 8/9/10 year olds up to the first-team, are using the same playing style and system.  This started even before Papi was hired when Bravo first showed up in 2009.
• The team has had to work hard to make in-roads into the Colorado youth system, but its finally starting to pay off.  They have to do very little recruiting now, the success of the youth teams is starting to drive talent to them.
• The biggest obstacle right now seems to be inertia.  Players who have played with Rush/Real/Storm teams since they were 6 years old tend to want to stay with their friends and club instead of moving into the Rapids system.
• OP seemed to be willing to go down with his system.  He's learned about the team and made tweaks, but the foundation of the system won't change.
• One of the tweaks started with the Swansea game, where he flipped the midfield triangle from one holding mid and two attackers in front of him to two holding mids and one attacker.
• Mullan playing right back in the second half last week after Nane's injury may not be a one-off thing.  It sounds like he spent some time training there this week.
• The door is open anywhere in the club for whatever Pablo wants to do.  If he wants to come back and play, coach, announce, get involved on the business side, whatever.
• All three of them admitted places where they had been wrong this season, and they weren't minor things.

I can't say my perception of where the team is or my opinion of any of the three leaders was changed significantly by spending time with them, but it was interesting to get their take on things.   When push comes to shove though, its still going to come down to results.  The one thing I realized is that this system that the team is using is coming from all the leadership, not just Pareja.  So if the system is the problem just changing Pareja isn't going to be enough, its going to take a complete change of leadership.  If the system is right though, the club's development is going to feed right into it for years.

Turmoil In The Front Office/All-Time Team Recap

I was just going to do a recap of my All-Time Team tonight but the Denver Post had an interesting article about tension in the Rapids Front Office this afternoon. It seems that Gary Smith is happy to sign a new contract for next year, but not if he has to continue to work with Technical Director Paul Bravo.

Apparently Paul and Gary don't see eye to eye on some of the decisions made this season. There's no details as to which issues have caused the conflict, but given some of the reaction I've heard from various points in the Front Office I'm willing to bet that some of it stems from the choices made for the CONCACAF Champions League. Needless to say this leaves Managing Director Jeff Plush a big problem he'll have to handle quickly to keep it from becoming a distraction.

If it were up to me I would tell Smith that Bravo's the Technical Director next year and he can either accept that and sign the contract offer or he can choose to leave. Its no secret that I have been less than thrilled with Smith's decisions this year and I'm not sure I want the Rapids to bring him back anyway, despite him being the best coach in Colorado history (unfortunately not a tough bar to cross). To add this on top of it means I wouldn't be all that interested in going out of my way to make Smith happy.

**********************

On to better things. Over the course of the season I've been picking my Rapids All-Time Team, which I finished last night. For those who came in late or just to jog your memories, here's the full team:

Cannon

Vermes - Balboa - Kotschau

Limpar - Mastroeni - Paz - Henderson

Cummings - Casey - Spencer

Head Coach: Gary Smith

Bench: Hahnemann, Bent, Moor, Karanak, Ben Dayan, Valderrama, Bravo

Assistant Coaches: Glenn 'Mooch' Myernick, John Murphy

What do you think? Who would be on your team? Discuss in the comments or in the BigSoccer thread I created.

Paul Bravo named Technical Director

Today the Rapids announced former player Paul Bravo as their Technical Director. Bravo is one of three former players (along with Marcelo Balboa and Chris Henderson) inducted into the Rapids Gallery of Honor. He is still the Rapids all-time leading scorer with 39 goals in 135 games for the team.

This position had first been offered to Chris Henderson and then Jurgen Sommer, both of whom initially accepted the position before changing their minds (and in Henderson's case taking the same position with his hometown Seattle Sounders). Bravo retired and became an assistant coach with the Rapids, UCLA, and the Galaxy. At the end of 2007 he was given the title of Director of Soccer with the Galaxy, the equivalent of his new position with the Rapids. Bravo will essentially be the General Manager of the team's soccer operations, leaving the business side of the GM's job to Charlie Wright and actual GM Jeff Plush. He'll be responsible for scouting, player acquisition, and the youth system.

This is a position that's been sorely needed by the Rapids. Currently after you get pat the coach there's nobody in the Rapids organization with strong soccer knowledge (And given Clavijo's tenure I'm not sure you could make that claim about the coach!). The key to this position working though is that the person in it has to be more than a yes man for Plush. He has to have the ability to make the call on players and coaches without undue influence from above.

Assuming that happens, is Bravo the guy for the job? We don't have that much to work on. Last year's Galaxy was a mess under Ruud Gullit, but they were operating with some limitations that the Rapids don't have, namely Alexi Lalas, David Beckham, and Landon Donovan. Until late last season LA's focus was on off field issues. The image of the team appeared to be more important than the results. Acquiring names like Ruud Gullit and Abel Xavier was the focus, not players that would fit in the system. If Bravo's hands were tied then he can't really be blamed for the mess that resulted. If Bravo thought these were the best players to bring in, that doesn't bode well for his judgment. With his long tenure as a Colorado player he knows the city, lifestyle, and what players will need to adapt to to make it in Colorado, so that's a point in his favor. Hopefully we'll avoid situations where we've seen players leave because they aren't happy here.

Time will tell if this was a good move or not. On the surface it looks like a strong move though and I'm hopeful that having a soccer focused person in the FO will help stabilize the team.