Welcome Lucas Esteves!

As expected the Rapids announced the loan deal to bring Brazilian LB Lucas Esteves to the Rapids today.  The loan is for essentially one year, expiring at the end of June next year, and the Rapids have an option to buy him in the deal.  I expect that the rest of this season will essentially be a trial for him and we'd buy him on the offseason and get him on a contract that syncs up with the MLS season.

Esteves came up through the Palmieras youth system and has made 27 appearances with the first team since 2019.  He was also invited to Brazil's national team camp before the Copa America but has not yet been capped.  He won't be available tomorrow but I would hope it won't take long to get his visa sorted out.

Also today the Rapids loaned Ollie Larraz to the San Diego Loyal for the rest of the season.  I'm a little surprised by the move as Larraz has gotten a few appearances this season.  But this could be a case of having two players leave (Vines, Benezet) and adding three (Kaye, Badji, Esteves) and needing a free roster spot.  Also with the addition of Kaye the number of available minutes in midfield for somebody like Larraz is going to drop.  I'm excited for him to get some time under Loyal manager Landon Donovan though.  I gave LD a lot of crap during his career, some unfairly so during his break for his mental health, but since he took over as the manager of the Loyal he's been nothing but great.  Larraz could learn a lot from him.

Two Homegrown Signings!

 So the whole idea of this being a quiet week was a wrong one as the Rapids had a cascade of announcements today.  The two big ones were two new homegrown signings.

19 year old midfielder Oliver Larraz joins the club on a 2 year deal with 2 additional option years after having spent the last 10 years in various Rapids youth clubs.  Over the last two seasons he's spent time with the Duisberg youth sides in Germany and the Barcelona academy in Arizona.  Earlier this week I thought he was a long shot to make the roster.  Sorry Oliver, I missed badly on that one.

16 year old forward Darren Yapi becomes the youngest signing in team history.  He signed a 5 year contract with an additional option year today.  Yapi played for the Switchbacks last season and split training between the Springs and the first team in Commerce City.  He's also been capped 3 times by the U.S. U-17 National Team.

With the two signings the team is up to 31 signed players.  Obviously some of our younger players will be going on loan, probably to the Springs, so roster limits should not be an issue.

On a related issue the absence of Will Vint on the preseason roster is due to him missing the trip for personal reasons.

The other news is that the team announced its schedule of games in Arizona.  The last 3 games are part of the Tucson Sun Cup which will hopefully be streamed online.  The full schedule is below.

March 16th - 45 minutes against Portland and 45 minutes against USL club Phoenix Rising

March 20th - Sporting KC

March 27th - USL side New Mexico United

April 3rd - 5pm - FSL (Tucson Sun Cup)

April 7th - 2pm - LA Galaxy (Tucson Sun Cup)

April 10th - 6:30pm - Phoenix Rising (Tucson Sun Cup)