Earth Day Roster Notes

Two roster notes for today.

First, Serna and O'Neill got a callup for tonight's U-23 National Team match against Mexico and both got the start (the game just kicked off).  They will be unavailable for Friday night's game against Dallas.

Secondly, due to injury and missing players the Rapids have recalled Eloundou from Charlotte.  He's already back in Denver and will be available Friday night.  No word on if he'll return to Charlotte once we're back and full strength.

Berner, Calvert, Eloundou Officially Loaned To Charlotte

The Rapids just announced that John Berner, Caleb Calvert, and Charles Eloundou have been officially loaned to Charlotte for the season.  Colorado does retain the right to recall them early if needed though.  This is just the official confirmation of something we've known for a few weeks but its good to know the details.  Now we need to know if that means their roster spots are freed up or not.

Schedule Changes and Roster Movement

Over the last two days the Rapids have announced 3 schedule changes:

• The Sun. July 12th home game against FSL has been moved to Sat. July 11th at 7pm
• The Sat. October 3rd home game against FSL has been moved to Sun. October 4th at 5pm

What happened is that with the Gold Cup schedule being announced on Thursday the planned FOX Sports 2 coverage of our Rocky Mountain Cup match on July 12th conflicted with FOX's Gold Cup coverage.  So FOX gave the July game back to Altitude and the Rapids moved it to the better attended Saturday night.  In exchange FOX took the October Rocky Mountain Cup game and moved it to their Sunday night national TV slot.

The other change is the Red Bull New York road game on Sat. July 25th.  It has been moved to Wed. April 29th so the Red Bulls can use that Saturday in July for a friendly.  This is a lousy move for the Rapids as it will now have them play Dallas at home on the 25th, fly to NY for the game on the 29th, then turn around and fly to LA for a game 3 days later on May 2nd.  Meanwhile both the Red Bulls and Rapids have a bye this weekend.  Had somebody at MLS or Red Bull been paying attention when the schedule came out months ago they could have rescheduled the game to this weekend and allowed both teams to play on regular rest.  Yes it would have risked an early season weather delay but is that really worse than 3 games in 8 days on both coasts?

Also some roster news.  Reports are that Eloundou is in Charlotte going through preseason training with the Independence.  However it sounds like this is just a temporary thing while he works on his fitness and he's expected to rejoin the Rapids in a couple of weeks.  He missed almost all of preseason due to his visa issue so this is probably a way to get him back into playing shape with other players going through the same thing.

It does sound like that both John Berner and Caleb Calvert will be joining the Independence on a longer-term basis though as part of our partnership with them.  This will be a good chance for both younger players to get some competitive playing time.  If they stayed in Colorado neither of them would be likely to see the field.

The last piece of news today is that Joseph Greenspan is back with the Rapids during the Naval Academy's spring break.  The team is still working with the Navy to maximize Greenspan's time with the team this season but obviously his responsibilities to the Navy will come first.  When announcing this the Rapids also mentioned journeyman Jeff Parke is trialing with the team.  He's a defender that is probably being looked at to help fill out our thin backline, especially with the suspensions we picked up.

Rapids Beat Houston Baptist 3-0, Eloundou Injured

Yesterday the Rapids finished out their week in Houston with a scrimmage against Houston Baptist University.  Again they made changes every 30 minutes.  The lineups through the game:

First 30 minutes:

Irwin

Ibikunle - Van De Casteele - Moor - Klute

Watts - LaBrocca

Sanchez - Torres - Chavez

Brown

Second 30:

Irwin

Ibikunle - Van De Casteele - Moor - Klute

Guzman - Sturgis

Sanchez - Torres - Chavez

Buddle

After half:

Nasco

Edward - Wynne - Kindle - Burch

Guzman - Sturgis

Serna - Hill - Eloundou

Brown

In the 52nd minute Eloundou was injured with what's being called a high ankle sprain and was replaced by Hairston.

Final 30:

Nasco

Edward - Wynne - Kindle - Burch

Guzman - Ayarna

Serna - Hill - Eloundou

Galindo

The goals were scored by Brown in the 12th (assist by Sanchez) and Serna and Galindo late, with Edward getting an assist on both.

The Rapids flew home today and will be in Colorado until mid-week when they head out to Las Vegas to play UNLV and Chivas USA before going to Tucson for the Desert Diamond Cup.

Eloundou, Cascio, Rumors, and Draftees

Lots of roster news today not even counting the Superdraft.

• First, the news I'm most excited about, Charles Eloundou has signed a contract with the Rapids and will be with the team when they start the season.  He still needs his work visa (shouldn't be an issue) and ITC (gulp!) but he is currently under contract with Colorado and nobody else.  I've been following Cameroon for a few years now and I am really looking forward to having one of their young stars in Colorado.
• As rumored Tony Cascio was loaned to Houston for 2014 in exchange for an international spot.  Part of the loan stipulates he can't play against Colorado in any competitions.
• Chris Bianchi tweeted tonight that neither Thomas or Rivero are likely to return.  Thomas apparently wants DP money, and the million-dollar buyout is the stumbling block for Rivero.  Disappointing, but neither of these players are worth that investment so best for the team to move on.  It does leave quite a hole at defensive mid though that will need to be filled ASAP.
• In the 3rd round of the SuperDraft the Rapids took defender Tolani Ibikunle out of Wake Forest.  He can play anywhere in the back line, being comfortable both in the center or on a wing.  The 4th round (and final) pick was Australian defender Albert Edward out of NAIA Lindsey Wilson College.  Edward is mainly a right back, a spot where we could use some competition.

With camp opening on Friday I expect we'll see some more roster moves the next couple of days.  On Thursday night I'll do the first of my regular roster tracking posts to see where we are as we head into the preseason.

Welcome to Colorado Charles Eloundou!

Surprising news from Commerce City, the long-lost Charles Eloundou arrived in Denver this evening.  For those of you who have forgotten, the Rapids won the rights to the Cameroonian forward in a lottery back in January, only to have his rights get tied up by the Cameroonian FA and his club in Cameroon.  Eloundou slipped off the radar after talks to get him to Colorado died down during the summer transfer window.  Out of nowhere the Rapids announced his arrival a few minutes ago.  No word as to what changed to get him here.

The roster freeze date has passed so he won't be eligible to play for the first team until the 2014 season starts.  He has been playing with Coton Sport, his old club, this fall and he's been called up to the Cameroonian National Team in the last year.  He'll start fitness work and acclimation to Denver tomorrow at the Dick.

Conor Doyle & Charles Eloundou

Last week Derby County's American striker Conor Doyle was given to DC United on loan through a lottery.  On its own, no big deal.  The catch though is that he had been training with the Rapids for the last few weeks due to Tim Hinchey's connections at Derby County (He was head of Marketing there before coming to Colorado) and possibly Pareja's contacts with Doyle as Conor was a youth player in Dallas when Pareja was running FC Dallas' youth program.  Colorado had arrange the training and did the work to get him in MLS through a loan, only to be told they couldn't sign him and he'd have to go through the MLS lottery process since he's a former U.S. youth international, a lottery process Colorado couldn't participate in due to their winning of the Charles Eloundou lottery before the season.

Meanwhile on the Charles Eloundou front there's been no news.  Well that's not entirely true.  A month or so ago Cameroon's FA (FECAFOOT) was put on suspension by FIFA due to government interference in their recent elections.  First they re-elected their current head, who was in jail on charges of mismanaging and embezzling from the state cotton corporation.  He also founded and runs Coton Sport, Eloundou's current club.  This week FIFA dropped the suspension as an independent group have taken over control of FECAFOOT working towards new elections next spring.  With that out of the way maybe FIFA will get around to making a decision on the protest the Rapids asked USSF to file over Eloundou.

So to summarize at this point:
1. MLS signs (presumably legally and with correct contracts) Eloundou
2. MLS awards Eloundou to Colorado in lottery
3. Eloundou doesn't show up due to corruption in the Cameroonian FA
4. Rapids do (apparently) all the work to get Eloundou here, so far unsuccessfully, while MLS does nothing
5. Rapids do the work to get Conor Doyle here due to still needing striker depth with the absence of Eloundou and uses their contacts at Derby County (and possibly between former Dallas soccer connections in Pareja and Doyle) to do it
6. MLS says Rapids can't have Doyle because he has to go in a lottery which Rapids can't participate in due to Eloundou

So the Rapids have done the work to get two young strikers into MLS, and currently have neither one on their team.  While everything has followed the MLS rules, I don't see how anyone could consider it a just result.

The league's history is littered with machinations and rule changes to get players to specific teams.  Personally I think the Rapids were given a wink and a nod by someone in MLS HQ that MLS would "work it out" when it came to Doyle, only for the league to decide to follow the rules on this one when push came to shove.  Doyle seems to have a similar feeling:

Did you expect to end up with the Rapids?“I don’t know. I was given a lot of mixed signals. I was told I would. And then they were like, ‘We have to go through this [MLS process].’ And then I was told I would still [end up with Colorado]. Then I actually signed the papers [with MLS] and they were like, ‘Well, there are three teams in the lottery, so you are not going to end up here.’ ”

I'm generally not a fan of MLS's flexible rules so I'm not too upset that the Rapids didn't just get Doyle.  I think a fair result would have been for the league and Rapids to give up on Eloundou and give the Rapids Doyle in his place as a way of making up for MLS's screw-up in signing somebody they apparently couldn't deliver.  The second option, assuming the they still have hope that they'll get Eloundou, would have been for MLS (not the Rapids) to make a statement on the status of the case and how they managed to sign a player and give him to a team without being able to actually get that player to show up, thus costing that team a chance at other players later in the season.

From my point of view it seems like MLS has signed a player, taken away the Rapids lottery spot, and then told the Rapids "He's all yours if you can get him to show up, good luck with that, no returns."  Then they took the work that the Rapids did on Doyle and said "Thanks, he's DC's now, but we appreciate the work."  time for MLS to take some of that money and single-entity power and get some work done for their teams, instead of the other way around.

Roster Notes and USOC Bracket News

German Mera

Three roster notes today:

• As you can see by the above picture, German Mera has arrived in Colorado and is eligible for selection on Saturday
• MLSSoccer.com's Rapids beat writer Chris Bianchi has tweeted that he expects resolution, probably in the Rapids favor, of the Charles Eloundou saga in the near future.
• Jaime Castrillon received his green card today, which brings the Rapids back down to a total of 8 internationals (assuming Eloundou does end up here), which is how many slots they have.  They still have 31 signed players against a roster cap of 30 though, but that's not a problem until every single one of them is healthy, which I'm not sure is ever going to happen this season (though Calderon and Eloundou were the only ones not at training today).

Also today Colorado found out their possible USOC 4th Round matchups.  If they beat Orlando City SC next week they'll face the winner of the matchup between Sporting Kansas City and the PDL's Des Moines Menace.  If its Des Moines they'll host the game at 7pm MDT on June 12th.  In the more likely case that its KC, they'll travel to KC for a 6:30pm MDT kickoff on June 12th.

At this point, with one guaranteed road game against possibly the best non-MLS side in the competition and a highly likely road game against a good MLS team to follow that, I'm actually going to do a complete 180 from my normal feeling on the USOC and suggest the Rapids punt the competition by sending a reserve side to Orlando.  The odds of us winning both those games and making it to the quarter-finals is low, while the team is finally getting healthy and putting together a decent string of results in league play.  There's no reason to risk more injuries to players like Buddle, Mastroeni, Powers, etc. by taking a number of first-team players across the country in mid-week between home matches against Western rivals in Chivas USA and Dallas.

If the backups and reserves beat Orlando and we find out we'll host the quarterfinal if we beat Sporting, the team can then consider sending a top side to KC, especially since the prior weekend will have been an international break and the team will be rested.

The Strange Story Of Charles Eloundou

Many weeks ago you might remember that the Rapids won a lottery for the rights of Charles Eloundou, a 18-year old Cameroonian striker.  So far Eloundou has been unable to join the team in Colorado due to "administrative issues".  Today a couple of articles were posted detailing some of these issues.  First Chris Bianchi of MLSSoccer.com posted an article discussing things from the Rapids point of view.  It doesn't have much detail as to what the problems are, but the Rapids feel MLS has all the contracts they need to bring Eloundou over and they are enlisting FIFA's help to get the process moving.  You might remember last season when the Argentine FA held up Rivero's paperwork and FIFA had to step in to clear him.  There's also clarification that Eloundou's signing is now a full signing, not a loan.  Bianchi later tweeted some clarification as to one of the major hold-ups

Cameroon FA tops the list. Clubs want more money.

This seems to match what was revealed in the second article found today but posted last week.  Cameroon-Info.net has dug into things from the Cameroonian end and they appear to be very interesting.  There's a couple of caveats here though.  I have no idea of the reputation of Cameroon-Info.net, I don't know if its the equivalent of NPR or the News of the World.  Secondly the article is in French, which I don't read, and I'm relying on Google Translate to interpret for me.  With those advisories in place lets take a look.

Th article states that the Cameroonian FA (FECAFOOT) is pressuring Eloundou to break the contract with MLS and stay in Cameroon by joining Coton Sport FC in Garoua.  The FA has threatened him with being left out of any National Team call-ups and have bribed his family members to convince him to stay.  Reportedly the head of the FA has even called his mother to try to pressure Eloundou, but his mother appears to say Eloundou is ready to fight to pursue his dream of playing in the U.S.  It appears that MLS took advantage of the fact that he was signed as a youth player until he turned 18 and there was a provision in his contract that allowed him to leave if he got a full professional contract offer.  The Cameroonian FA now wants to keep this talent at home, probably thinking of the transfer fees they can gain from a European club if he stays, while MLS signed him on a free transfer due to the age issue.  Reportedly MLS signed him in December, and Charles' 18th birthday (the earliest a player can be signed to a full contract by a team outside his home country) was Dec. 4th so MLS did their research and made their move as soon as they could.

MLS may be behind the curve in on-field talent, but they're second to none on the business side.  I'm sure that MLS crossed the t's and dotted the i's on their contract offer, just as they did with Martin Rivero last year.  Assuming that nothing was missed I would assume that FIFA would come in like they did with Rivero and officially transfer Eloundou's rights to MLS.  However this is FIFA so the right money in the right place could change the expected result.  The Denver Post said they'll have more about this tomorrow, we'll see if its anything more than what Cameroon-Info.net says.

Part 2 and Rapids Sign Two

I haven't had time to watch it yet, but here's part two of the Inside the Superdraft series:



The big news today was two signings by the Rapids.  First this morning Colorado participated in a lottery for the rights to Charles Eloundou, a Cameroonian striker who signed a contract with the league prior to the SuperDraft but a delay in his work visa prevented him from being available on draft day.  Colorado beat out FSL and DC in the lottery.  Eloundou, 18, has played for Cameroon's U-20 team, scoring 8 goals during the 7 games of U-20 World Cup Qualifying in 2012.  That earned him a cap for the full National Team and his joining of the Rapids will be delayed until next month has he's been called up to the full Nats again for their friendly with Tanzania on Feb. 6th.  He's on loan from Cameroonian side AS Fortuna de Mfou with an option to buy at the end of the 2013 season.  As a bit of a fan of the Cameroon National Team I can't wait to see him in action.

This afternoon the Rapids announced that they had signed Nick LaBrocca to a new contract.  He'll immediately challenge for a starting spot in midfield and if Pablo spends any time on the bench he's the natural replacement.

The updated camp roster is below, but just some numbers on the camp.  There are 38 players trying for 30 spots.  26 players are already under contract.  If we assume that one of the 3 goalkeeper trialists will claim the 3rd GK spot that leaves 9 players trying for the 3 remaining field spots (assuming a signed player isn't cut or traded).  The Rapids have 7 international players under contract and 3 internationals from the Supplemental Draft on trial for a total of 8 international slots.

Updated camp roster:

Goalkeepers:
Steward Ceus
Matt Pickens
Joel Helmick - Unsigned trialist
Clint Irwin - Unsigned trialist
Jim Mauer - Unsigned trialist

Defenders:
Diego Calderon - International
Marcello Castro - Unsigned draftee, International
Brenton Griffiths - Unsigned draftee, International
Kory Kindle - Unsigned draftee
Chris Klute (Atlanta loan through late-Sept)
Drew Moor
Anthony Wallace
Marvell Wynne
Luke Vercollone - Unsigned trialist

Midfielders:
Davy Armstrong - Homegrown Player
Tony Cascio
Jaime Castrillon - International
Machael David - Unsigned draftee
Kevin Harbottle - International
Nick LaBrocca
Pablo Mastroeni
Brian Mullan
Shane O'Neill - Homegrown Player
Dillon Powers
Martin Rivero (Rosario Central loan through 2013) - International
Dillon Serna - Homegrown Player
Nathan Sturgis
Hendry Thomas - International
Carlos Diaz - Unsigned trialist
Jamie Smith - Unsigned trialist

Forwards:
Andre Akpan
Deshorn Brown - Generation Adidas, International
Edson Buddle
Charles Eloundou - International
Atiba Harris
Kamani Hill
Stefano Souza Pinho - Unsigned draftee, International
Cesar Romero - Unsigned trialist