Rapids Attempt To Continue Magic Against Wizards

The Rapids are in Kansas City tomorrow at 3pm MDT on Altitude. Here's the injury and discipline report:

OUT: FW Conor Casey (L knee), DF Ugo Ihemelu (R hip), DF Mike Petke (R foot); GK Justin Hughes (L groin); PROBABLE: MF Mehdi Ballouchy (L hamstring), FW Jovan Kirovski (R hamstring); MF Nico Colaluca (L groin)

SUSPENDED - Ciaran O'Brien - Through April 12th

My lineup prediction:

Bouna Time!
Kimura - Keel - Erpen - Burciaga Jr.
LaBrocca - Pablo
Cooke - C. Gomez - Clark
Cummings

I could see Gargan in for Kimura, but I assume that after the job Kimura did keeping PrimaDonnavan quite last week that he's earned another start. The defensive midfield is a bit of a toss up. When fully healthy Gomes and Pablo are the starters. Neither of them are on the injury report, but Pablo got some game time last week and Gomes didn't. I'm predicting Pablo is now ready to start but Gomes isn't 90 minute ready yet. I tossed a coin between LaBrocca and DiRaimondo for the open spot, they both played well against LA.

Critical Matchup: Claudio Lopez. vs. Erpen and Pablo

KC lost Eddie Johnson and until right before the start of the seson it appeared that they had no replacement for him. Without a strong strike force KC wasn't a major threat. The signing of Lopez as a DP vaulted KC up into the ranks of a contender, but with so much invested in him he has to produce. Pablo is one of the best destroyers in MLS, and assuming he plays I think he'll be assigned to shadow Lopez and deny him the ball. Erpen, being the more experienced fo the two center backs, will have to keep an eye on Lopez as well.

Keys To Look For:

• Have the Rapids solved their road woes?
• Ruud Gullit and the Galaxy let the Rapids have the wings on a large field at The Dick. With a smaller field and smarter coach, can Cooke and Clark get free?
• I don't think we can expect a shutout again, so how does the team respond after giving up a goal?
• Burciaga Jr. He's coming back to the team that traded him and he's going to want to prove it was a mistake. As much as he wants to get involved i nthe attack though, he has to remain disciplined.
• Bouna Time! took some hard hits last week. I love his lack of fear, but eventually he won't get up from one of those, and with our backup GK out we can't afford to lose him.
• How well is the integration of Christian Gomez going?

Prediction: 1-1 draw, Kansas City is a better team than LA, and we're on the road. A point would be a solid step for the Rapids, a win would be a pretty big upset.

Rapids Salary Info - August Update

The MLS Players Union has released it list of 2008 salaries. Its not quite up to date, as it doesn't include the last minute signings right before the season started, but its got most of the players.

The Rapids 2008 team salary based on these numbers is just over 2.6 million, which puts them 5th in the league behind LA, Chicago, DC, and RBNY. Those 4 teams have DP's, which raises their 2008 salaries considerably. The 5th team with a DP, Kansas City, signed their's after the list was put together so the DP salary is not included. You'll notice that 2.6 million is higher than the rumored cap of around 2.3 million. This is because Generation Adidas players and other dev players aren't counted agains the cap.

Here's the list of the Colorado salaries. The first number is their base salary, the second number is their guarenteed salary for 2008.

Ballouchy Mehdi M $ 75,000.00 $ 93,000.00
Burciaga Jose D $ 80,000.00 $ 82,500.00
Burpo Preston GK $ 55,116.18 $ 55,116.18
Casey Conor F $ 190,008.00 $ 190,008.00
Clark Colin F $ 33,000.00 $ 33,000.00
Colaluca Nico M $ 70,000.00 $ 103,000.00
Cooke Terry M $ 167,500.00 $ 172,500.00
Coundoul Bouna GK $ 33,000.00 $ 33,000.00
Cummings Omar F $ 33,000.00 $ 33,000.00
Dalby Greg M $ 33,000.00 $ 33,000.00
DiRaimondo John M $ 17,700.00 $ 17,700.00
Erpen Facundo D $ 125,000.00 $ 125,000.00
Gibbs Cory D $ 96,000.00 $ 103,000.00

Gomez Christian M $ 385,000.00 $ 430,000.00
Gomez Hercules F $ 51,817.50 $ 51,817.50
Grazier Brian M $ 12,900.00 $ 12,900.00
Harvey Jordan D $ 17,700.00 $ 17,700.00
Hughes Justin GK $ 12,900.00 $ 12,900.00
Ihemelu Ugo D $ 60,500.00 $ 60,500.00
Keel Stephen D $ 33,000.00 $ 33,000.00
Kimura Kosuke M $ 17,700.00 $ 17,700.00
LaBrocca Nick M $ 12,900.00 $ 12,900.00
Mastroeni Pablo M-D $ 300,000.00 $ 318,000.00
McManus Tom F $ 134,400.00 $ 140,462.50
O'Brien Ciaran M $ 45,000.00 $ 78,750.00
Peterson Jacob F $ 75,000.00 $ 93,750.00
Petke Mike D $ 133,000.00 $ 133,000.00
Ward Tim D $ 44,620.00 $ 54,620.00
Zambrano Cesar M $ 12,900.00 $ 12,900.00

As you can see there are some interesting numbers in that list. Christian Gomez is the 8th highest paid player in MLS, Pablo Mastroeni is the 15th highest paid player. LaBroacca isn't listed, but I would assume he is paid similarly to the other reserves, in the 33K region. Colaluca managed to parlay that Generation Adidas contract into a big payday, making more than first game starters Keel, Clark, and Bouna Time! put together. Kirovski is overpaid given his contribution, while Bouna Time! might be the most underpaid player in MLS.

Our starting 11 last week will make about 925K + LaBroacca in base salary this year. For comparison's sake Landon Donovan alone will make 900K by himself. That 4-0 win looks even better in that light.

Weekend Roundup 3/29-3/30

OK, after a couple of weeks off Weekend Roundup is back. Here's a rundown of last week's games and an update of where each team stands in their competitions.

Colorado Rapids - My game wrapup can be found elsewhere in the blog but the 4-0 win put the Rapids in 1st place in the Western Conference, and in the lead for the Supporter's Shiled. So what if its only 1 game, you have to take the victories where you can find them. ;)

Queen of the South - Torrential rain and blowing winds greeted Queens in this home fixture, and it appears that the weather got the best of both sides. Noether team managed to put together a goal, and both seemed happy to just get out of the lousy conditions as fast as possible. In the end a scoreless draw was a good representation of the soccer on display.

The draw was followed with a 1-0 loss to Livingston on Tuesday night. A questionable non-call on Livingston's goal ended the game in some controversy as a Livingston player was standing on the goal line as the winning goal was scored but did not take part in the play. He was considered to be passively offside and the goal was awarded.

The good news from the Morton result is that the draw ensured Queens survival in division 1, as with only 4 games to play Morton can no longer catch the Doonhamers. Queens sits in 4th place, 7 points back of St. Johnstone who is the only team they can still catch. Partick Thistle and Dumferline are only 3 points back though, and Thistle has a game in hand against the probable relegation-bound Stirling Albion. QoS hosts Aberdeen in the Scottisch Cup semi-final a week from Saturday.

Blackburn Rovers - A drab first half and a colorful but futile second half at the Madejski Stadium resulted in a share of the points in the battle between two American keepers. There were no significant opportunities in the first half, while the second half had end-toend action that resulted in nothing but a red card for Reading's Marek Matejovksy and a man advantage for Blackburn in the last 20 minutes. They were unable to capitalize and left 2 points for the taking on the field.

Blackburn sit 7th in the table with 6 games to play. They are 7 points back of Everton for the last guarenteed spot in Europe, however Portsmough in 6th have declared that tthey will not be applying for the Intertoto Cup, so that route to Europe is open for Blackburn should the table stay the same. Aston Villa and MAchester City are each just one point behind Blackburn however.

Tenerife - This week brings a new link, I have found out that Tenerife fan and Armada Sur member Colin Kirby does an English match report on his blog. The updated Tenerife score on the right side will now link there.

Tenerife went into this weekend's match against cellar dwellers Poli Ejido with every expectation of an easy 3 points. After giving up a goal midway through the second half though it took 2 goals from Nino in two minutes to pull out the victory. For a team hoping to make a promotion push, this was much harder than it should have been.

Tenerife move up to 7th place with the victory, with 11 games to play. They are 6 points pack of Sporting Gijon in 3rd place, the final poromotion spot. Next week is the HUGE game againt their Canaray Island rivals, Las Palmas in Las Palmas. Las Palmas is in 15th place, so it should be another easy 3 points, but with rivalry games you never know.

Ebbsfleet United - Ebbsfleet travelled to York City for this week's matchup and faced a game in the driving rain. determined to make quick work of it the Fleet scored in the 8th minute on a Stacy Long free kcik that deflected off a York defender, fooling the keeper. After that it was a long 80 minutes od defending in the rain, but the clean sheet was successful and Ebbsfleet travelled home with 3 points.

Ebbsfleet is in 11th place with only 8 matches to play. They are 12 points out of 5th place, the last playoff spot. While still possible, it doesn't look like promotion is in the cards for Ebbsfleet this season. All eyes now look towards Wembley, where Ebbsfleet will face Torquay United in the final on May 10th.

Time Change for Wizards Match

The Rapids Front Office has just announced that the time of the Rapids game has changed from 6pm MDT to 3pm MDT. The game will now be available on Altitude instead of Altitude-2.

The Best English Winger in MLS

Cookie was MLS's David Beckham before David Beckham ;)