Calvert Back, Pappa Still Out

Two piece of roster news:

• Marco Pappa out until mid-June

Not ideal but this weekend's game is the big impact.  With no Jones, Gashi, or Pappa I wonder where the midfield creativity is going to come from.  After that we have a break until the USOC game on June 15th and the home game against the Fire on the 19th.  We probably don't need Pappa to win those games.  We'll want him back when we go to LA on the 22nd though.

• Caleb Calvert recalled from Charlotte

Odd timing on this.  He would be cover for Doyle being gone but Doyle will be here Saturday.  After that we won't need him until the 19th.  He's already cup-tied to Charlotte so we can't use him in the USOC match on the 15th.  Given that, why not leave him in Charlotte at least through their USOC 3rd round match nest Wednesday?

Loans & International Call Ups

A little bit of mid-week roster news:

• Appiah and Calvert have been loaned to Charlotte.  This was fairly predictable.  Calvert spent most of last year with the Independence while Appiah as a draft pick will be more likely to get time there than in Colorado.  We'll see if anyone else makes the trip to the East Coast.  ?Unless their loans are full-season loans with no recall clauses they still count against the 28 man roster cap.  As reserve players they already don't count against the salary cap so no change there.
• Kevin Doyle was called up for Ireland, Marco Pappa for Guatemala.  They'll both leave after the DC game.  With (most of) the league taking the following weekend off due to the FIFA dates they won't miss any Rapids games.  We'll wish Doyle great success and no injuries in Ireland's friendlies against Switzerland and Slovakia.  We'll wish Pappa no injuries and no success as Guatemala will be playing the U.S. in back-to-back World Cup Qualifiers during the window.
• Oddly enough Gashi was not called up for Albania for their pre-Euro friendlies against Austria and Luxembourg.  I don't know if this was due to his illness and fitness level, just giving him a chance to adjust to his new team, not needing to see what he has pre-Euros, or not needing him any more..

Weekly Recap

After a bout with whatever bug is going around I'm back.  Let's recap what's happened since Monday.

• We got allocation money for the rights to Maynor Figueroa

Nice job by the FO on this one.  I figured when we declined his option that he just waled away.  Getting allocation money for him means we made a real offer to bring him back and he declined it.  Unless we found out he took $125K from Dallas or something this was the right move by the FO.

• Ramirez loaned to UD Almeria for 6 months

Again another good move by the Front Office.  If Ramirez is having problems adjusting as reported then this is probably the best way to get value for him.  There's no way a team like Almeria is going to pay the reported $2 million that we paid for Ramirez right now.  This gives him 6 months to earn that kind of transfer fee from Spain and if it doesn't work then we get him back with another chance to make it work for us.

• Top Drawer Soccer hammers the Rapids offseason

Can't say this is at all unfair.  Its up to the FO to do something soon to turn it around.

• Cristian Canga not coming

That appeared to be a passing rumor.  Its since been replaced with...

• Rapids linked with T&T fullback Mikeil Williams

Well, at least we're targeting the right position, though I don't think we can rely on a guy struggling to get playing time in Central America to be a starter in 5 weeks.

• Pulido's good play in Greece making a deal less likely

There was even a tweet that Pulido himself had turned down the offer from the Rapids though that's not "in print" anywhere.  Regardless its starting to look like our third major attacking strikeout this offseason (Vela, Bedoya).

• Colorado Cup coming in July

Not strictly Rapids related but fairly interesting.  Good to see some non-EPL teams in the state.  I'd be more interested if they were playing each other or the Rapids though, I'm not real interested in seeing Liga MX teams.

• Tim Howard rumors heating up

This is of course the big news this week.  All sources (including some of my own) are pointing to Howard coming to Colorado.  As we saw in the guest post there are positives to this signing but they come with a number of "ifs" and "maybes".  I have no real faith in the Rapids pulling those contingencies off and Howard isn't going to fix anything on the field for us.  This is screaming marketing move with now game upside to me.

• Details on Marco Pappa's stabbing are released

The notable detail in this is that the stabbing occurred on Dec. 17th, two days after he was traded to the Rapids.  Its always tricky to judge some of this without the details but the reports of him being intoxicated and changing his story aren't what you want to hear from a guy who was only 4 months removed from the league's substance abuse program.  If accurate I can't imagine that will play well in the league Front Office.

• Finally (no link on this one), former Rapid Stephen Keel spotted at Rapids camp

Keel didn't have his option picked up by Dallas.  He's a local boy so it makes sense he'd come here first.  He's at best a depth signing this year.

So you'll notice the great big absence of something in all that news.  Not a single player signing.  That's a problem more than a week after the players reported, all 19 of them.

Current roster:

GK John Berner
GK Zac MacMath
D March Burch
D Bobby Burling
D Marlon Hairston
D Axel Sjoberg
D Sean St. Ledger
M Michael Azira
M Sam Cronin
M Marco Pappa
M Zach Pfeffer
M Dillon Powers
M Dillon Serna
M Marcelo Sarvas
M Jared Watts
F Dominque Badji
F Caleb Calvert
F Kevin Doyle
F Luis Solignac

Unsigned draftees:

GK Chris Froschauer
D Dennis Castillo
D Bradley Kamdem
D Javan Torre
M Emmanuel Appiah
F John Manga

Trialists:

D Stephen Keel
M Yann Ekra - Charlotte
M Brian Ownby - Richmond

Marco Pappa Gets Stabbed By Miss Washington

No, that's not an Onion headline.  Apparently sometime in December Seattle police were called to a South Lake Union apartment (not too far from where I used to live in college on Queen Anne Hill) where they found Miss Washington and Marco Pappa, the latter of whom was bleeding from a stab wound to the abdomen.  Both parties offered changing explanations for what happened.  This is also not the first run in with the law for either one as they both had separate DUI arrests last year.  There's no date on the stabbing incident so its unknown if it happened before or after Pappa was traded to Colorado.

Those are the facts.  Any opinions I'm going to leave until more information is released as there are way too many ways this story could go to offer any insights at this point.

Crazy Superdraft recap coming later.

Pappa Traded To Colorado

The Rapids made it official today, trading allocation money to Seattle for Marco Pappa.  From the press release its obvious Pappa is expected to play the same role, though hopefully more centrally, that Sanchez did.  He's going to be looked for to be the creator and setup man for Doyle and the other strikers.

This is a solid move by the club but it can't be the highlight of the offseason like Sarvas was last year.  This is piece of the puzzle that is the 2016 roster but its not the final piece.

Current roster:

GK John Berner
GK Clint Irwin
D March Burch
D Joseph Greenspan (when on leave from the U.S. Navy)
D Marlon Hairston
D Axel Sjoberg
D Sean St. Ledger
M Michael Azira
M Sam Cronin
M Marco Pappa
M Dillon Powers
M Dillon Serna
M Juan Ramirez
M Marcelo Sarvas
M Jared Watts
F Dominque Badji
F Caleb Calvert
F Kevin Doyle
F Luis Solignac

With Drew Moor still negotiating (though signs point to him signing with Toronto).

MacMath In, Pappa Likely

Welcome back Zac MacMath.  Today the Front Office announced that MacMath will be returning as a full member of the Rapids as we sent our 2017 2nd round draft pick to Philly today for him.  This isn't that much of a surprise as the language used in the announcement that his loan ended and he returned to Philly made it pretty clear we wanted him back, but not at the cost of the previously negotiated first round pick next year, which is the #2 pick overall.

This is a sold move to pick up a MLS quality keeper for a cheap price.  I'm a little concerned about paying 6 figures for a backup though.  The other possibility is that there's a deal brewing for Irwin and there's some rumors to that extent.  I'd hate to lose Irwin but if the deal's good enough then this move makes a lot of sense.

Late today lots of reports started appearing that Seattle's Marco Pappa removed his name from today's Stage 1 Re-entry Draft (all but two teams failed to make a pick BTW) because Seattle is on the verge of announcing a trade to send him here to Colorado.  This is a really good move to reinforce the midfield, especially if Powers' trail at Reading turns into a move.  Of course the details matter so we'll have to see what the cost is but I'm cautiously optimistic (of course I was optimistic about Sarvas last off-season and that didn't pan out as well as I hoped).