Conor Casey Rapids #9 Is Back!

By now I'm sure you've all heard the news.  Anthony Hudson was dismissed as Colorado Rapids Head Coach today and Conor Casey has been given the interim title.  A much needed change for a club that's been at a historic awful start.  Hudson finishes with a league 0.77 pts/game average, worse in club history (not counting Wegerle's single game as player/manager at the end of the '96 season that he lost) and with only 8 wins in 46 competitive matches in charge of the club.  It was also the second shortest tenure for a non-interim coach, only Houghton's 31 games in 1996 was shorter.

So very much out with the bad and, hopefully, in with the good.  For now club legend Conor Casey has the reins and he was the logical choice.  Of all the assistants only two of them, Casey and GK coach Chris Sharpe, were not brought in by Hudson from his prior jobs and Sharpe splits time between the first team and working with the Academy keepers.  Combined with his top 3 all-time player standing (Pablo and Balboa being the other two) and for an interim role he's an easy choice.

Note, I said interim.  Let's talk about the full time role.  Padraig Smith has the biggest decision of his career ahead of him.  He has to get the right coach this time or this club is in deep trouble for a long, long time.  Smith has two options.  With many of the top leagues ending their seasons in the next couple of weeks Smith could already have targets lined up and be planning to hire somebody in the next few weeks.  The other option is to let Casey handle the rest of the 2019 season and hire the coach in the offseason.  Honestly I think this could go either way an neither option would shock me.  The only thing that would be surprising is hiring somebody before the end of the season but after, say, July 4th.  If I had to put my money on something I'd go with a quick hire.

So who should fill that role?  Not Conor Casey.  Well, with one exception.  If Casey has the club for the rest of the season and somehow makes a miracle run into the playoffs he can have the job.  Short of that however we should be looking for somebody for more experience.  After Hudson, Pablo, Pareja, and Smith, all having essentially no club head coaching experience we need to hire somebody who's run a club before, preferably successfully.  Despite what some people like to claim there's actually a number of selling points for the Rapids job.  One, there's nowhere to go but up.  Two, there is a lot of dead weight rolling of the roster at the end of the season allowing a chance to build the team the new coach wants.  Three, two big DP spots will be open going into 2020.  That's a great chance to shape the future of a club.  But it also shows the biggest risk to the club at this point.  A bad coaching hire and/or bad DP signings could block this club from moving forward for a long time.

A couple of names are already floating around out there.  The two most notable ones are Josh Wolff and Eric Wynalda.  I don't particularly like either pick.  Wolff might be a good coach but never having been a head coach before we don't really know.  Wynalda's actual results don't match his hype.  He's never spent more than one season with his team and his "big" successes were building a team specifically to make USOC runs, not play full league seasons.

I'm sure we'll hear more names as time goes on and we'll be talking about the most likely of them here.  For now though its a new start to 2019 for the Rapids, lets see if we can put a run together with this bounce.

Hudson Out, Casey In?

Multiple rumors have broken this morning that Hudson has been fired and Casey is now interim manager.  First long-time reporter Marco Cummings tweeted that the Rapids and Padraig Smith have scheduled a major announcement today.  Specifically Smith and the Rapids, not Hudson.  Cummings has since deleted that tweet.  Rapids Rabbi has just tweeted that sources are telling him Hudson has been fired and Casey is now in charge.  More on this tonight when, presumably, we'll have official news.

Rapids Finally Make Hudson Official

What we hope the rest of the league is thinking right now

Fair warning, you're going to have to get used to Bill Paxton from Aliens gifs for a while as there's enough quotable Hudson lines to keep me entertained for at least the offseason.  Today Colorado announced what we all knew was coming, Anthony Hudson is the new head coach.  We've talked plenty about his background in past posts so there's not much more to say about him.

My reaction is a bit of "eh, we'll see if this works".  He talks the talk and his players and other people associated with him all speak highly of him.  I like his reported attention to detail and willingness to accept some newer coaching methods and statistical analysis.  His lack of fully professional club coaching experience is still a big weakness though and I wasn't overly impressed with his coaching decisions in the recent Peru playoff series.  This isn't a horrible hire but its not one that's got me super excited for next season either.  Certainly he's a better hire at the time than Pablo was and arguably Smith.  Those two both came with more knowledge of the organization but significantly less experience.

There was news today as well on the CCL draw, a player rumor, and preseason plans.  I'll cover that in another update either tonight or tomorrow.

Roster Cut Day And Hudson "News"

Big day today as the Rapids announced their option pickups and roster cuts going into the offseason.  Lets break them down:

• Sam Hamilton's option picked up - Easy decision, first round draft pick, cheap, still has time to develop
• Eric Miller's option picked up - Meh.  He is versatile, being able to play anywhere on the back line, but he's not particularly good at any of those positions.  Hopefully this is due to interest in trading for him.
• Jared Watts option picked up - Watts is a sold MLS-quality backup CB.  If that's how we're going to use him, great.  He should not be in the running as a starting CB.
• John Berner's option declined - No surprise, he's clearly plateaued and we could draft somebody as good as him with a possible higher ceiling.
• Dennis Castillo's option declined - If he had a green card I think he'd still be on the roster, but international spots are too valuable.
• Josh Gatt's option declined - Too expensive for what he brought (which wasn't much).  That was fine last year when Minnesota reportedly ate most of his contract but not when we're eating it.
• Alan Gordon's option declined - We always knew that was likely a one year move.  We could bring him back at a lower number but I bet he holds off to hope for a contract from LAFC.
• Mohammed Saeid's option declined - This is the real surprise move to me.  I thought he had done enough ton  stay with the team.  I expect they're trying to offer him a contract at a lower number.
• Mekeil Williams option declined - Duh.
• Luis Gil option to buy declined - Also duh.
• Bobby Burling out of contract and released - At his age and injury history and with Ford coming on there was no real future for him there.

The rest of the roster is under contract for next year which includes, surprisingly, Mike da Fonte.  However there are already multiple reports that the plan for da Fonte is for him to play out the rest of his contract on loan in the USL.  Clearly its cheaper to do that then to eat his contract.  If they are able to send him on season-long loans with no recall option then he wouldn't take up a roster spot and as a young, low-paid player he's not on the senior roster and doesn't take up any cap room.  We'll call that being Ramirez'ed.

That leaves 18 players on the roster (including Blomberg) going into the offseason and up to 12 open slots.  Plenty of room for the new manager to work with.

And speaking of that new manager, we have all but official confirmation that its Hudson.  A report from this weekend said that he was en route to Colorado to sign a 3 year deal.  If accurate we should expect an announcement sometime this week,

There were some positive words about Hudson in an interview of Andrew Durante, who announced his retirement from the New Zealand National Team last week.

With a "wider range" of talented players coming through, Durante said he believed the future was bright for the All Whites and he urged New Zealand Football to find someone who could "equal the passion and drive" of outgoing coach Anthony Hudson.

"I can't speak for the general public but I know within the group he was an awesome coach and a really detailed coach. Every camp was very intense and very detailed and structured. You just knew going into every game that you would be prepared. You knew exactly what the other team's strengths and weaknesses were, the training sessions were always challenging and he always pushed us," he said.

"In terms of the playing group, I think he will be very fondly remembered."

Generally there's been a lot of talk about how he brought a level of professionalism and preparation to the NZ team that was very lacking prior to his arrival.  Those are positive attributes to bring to the Rapids.

Hudson Watch 2017 Part 2

The New Zealand Herald has had two articles in the last 3 days reporting that Hudson is on his way to Colorado.  The first says the deal is not yet complete but there's nothing that's going to prevent it.  The second says that Hudson's assistant and NZ U-20 coach Darren Bazeley is expected to join Hudson in Colorado as his assistant.  At this point it would be astonishing if anyone but Hudson was the coach next season.

I took a look at New Zealand's record in competitive matches over the last few managers to see if Hudon had a notable effect (W-D-L):

Hudson (2014-2017): 8-4-1 - 2.15 pts/game
Emblen (2005-2013): 16-9-6 - 1.84 pts/game
Herbert (2002-2004): 8-0-6 - 1.71 pts/game
Waitt (1998-2001): 11-0-6 - 1.94 pts/game

So a small sample size (Hudson had less competitive games than any manager since 1998) but he was obviously the best record in the last 20 years.  Of course Herbert did take the team to the World Cup and got 3 draws despite having the worst record, so its hard to say that Hudson was the best manager.

Hudson Watch 2017

The newest twist in the Hudson/Rapids saga hit tonight as Hudson officially stepped down as the New Zealand coach.  There's no news as to his next move but all signs continue to point to Colorado as his next stop.  I've also heard secondhand that the new manager, whomever he is, was involved in the decision to sign Blomberg.

Obviously with the holiday we won't hear anything official the rest of this week but I assume if it is Hudson that we'll start getting some leaks by early next week,

Clock's ticking

Barring a miracle in the next 25 minutes Peru is going to eliminate New Zealand and Anthony Hudson will be able to take the Rapids job.  Given that we've heard no other rumors for a couple of weeks all signs point to Hudson being the man.  Now the clock starts ticking,  The Rapids needs to get the deal done, announce him this week, have a press availability early next week, and have him get right into it as soon as the holiday is over.  Any delay at this point in announcing Hudson (or whomever) is inexcusable.