A Legend Retires

This morning Pablo Mastroeni announced his retirement.  Starting with the Miami Fusion in 1998 he played 16 MLS seasons, almost 12 of them with the Rapids before finishing his career in LA for the last half of 2013.  He holds the Rapids record for starts, appearances, and minutes, as well as being a 3-time team MVP and captain for almost 9 full seasons.

In his time with the Rapids he also earned 63 of his 65 National Team caps (his first 2 were while he was with the Fusion), including playing in the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, the only player to make multiple World Cup appearances for the U.S. while a member of the Rapids (Balboa played in 1 game in 1998).

Alone that would make Pablo a Rapids legend, but the pinnacle of his career in Colorado came in 2010 when he captained the squad to their only MLS Cup victory, being named team MVP for that season.  There has never been a greater player in a Rapids uniform.  The Rapids will honor him at a to-be-named game in the 2014 season.  At minimum he'll be added to the Gallery of Honor alongside Balboa, Bravo, Henderson, and Spencer but he has earned more if he wants it.  A testimonial match would be appropriate/

The Rapids have said in the past that the door is open for however Pablo would want to join the organization after hanging up the boots.  I expect he may take some time off before considering his options so we won't see him much in 2014, but hopefully he'll be part of the club in 2015.

The Rapids also released player updates on the whole roster today ahead of Thursday's Re-Entry Draft.  I'll cover that tomorrow, today's article was saved for Pablo.

Roster Churn Prior To Re-Entry Draft

A ton of roster news in the last couple of days.  Knocking it down 1 by 1.

• The Rapids have declined the option on Steward Ceus

Not to be harsh, but that's a good move.  Ceus obviously lost something this year.  He was one of the last eight players on the roster from the Cup winning team.  Ceus will be in the Re-Entry Draft on Thursday.

• Mullan's, Smith's options declined making them eligible for the Re-Entry Draft

No surprise here, both these guys (another 2 from the Cup winning team) are approaching retirement.  In the Ceus article Bravo said he expects everyone but Ceus to opt out of the Re-Entry Draft, so he mush have some feeling that Mullan and Smith will sign new contracts, leave the league, or retire.  I wouldn't mind keeping them around as coaches but their time to help on the field is basically over.

• Wallace and Armstrong are out of contract.

Sounds like Armstrong is being kept on until he's healthy, then probably let go.  Wallace is wanted back but will probably go somewhere where he can get more playing time, which I can't blame him for.  These are another two of the Cup winning players.  The only 3 with no news this week are Moor, Pickens, and Wynne.

• Griffiths and Kindle are extended new deals.

This one surprises me I figured the team might move on from both players.  Particularly Griffiths since he takes an international spot.  The coaches must see enough in practice to keep them on.  The article does say they're being offered their same minimum contracts they had this year.

• The Rapids want German Mera back next season.

Makes sense, especially after Calderon was let go.  I can understand not wanting to go through an expensive buyout for Mera and bringing him back on loan.  Smart way to go about it.

• Colorado wants to bring back Danny Mwanga.

Meh, from an age perspective he makes the most sense out of the Cascio/Hill/Mwanga trio, but from a play and cost perspective I like Cascio better.  Still it was a safe bet that at least 1 of those 3 would be back.  Maybe they can get him cheaper.

Next major even is the Re-Entry Draft on Thursday afternoon, though we may hear news about some of these players signing new contracts before that.

World Cup Draw

Well, today's World Cup draw went about as bad as it could have for the U.S.  The worst possible draw for the Yanks from Pots 1 and 4 (based on FIFA ranking) would have been Spain and Portugal, the draw was Germany and Portugal.  Germany was the second worst choice in Pot 1.  To round out the group the Americans got their recent nemesis, Ghana, essentially the 3rd worst choice in a tie with Ecuador from Pot 2.  The U.S. was the highest ranked team in its Pot, leaving a group of the 1st, 1st, 2nd, and 4th top teams from the pots.  Added to that is that the U.S. was drawn into the 4th spot in the group, tying them with Italy for the worst travel schedule in the Cup.

That's the bad news.  The good news is the order of the games and that the travel isn't as bad as it first appears if the USSF makes an important move.  The U.S. starts off facing Ghana in Natal, then takes the long trip into the jungle to face Portugal in Manaus, before finishing the group stage against Germany in Recife.  This is probably the best order we could hope for.  Ghana is a must win game and we get it first while Germany hopefully gets 3 points off Portugal.  Assuming we get the 3 points we need we can fly to Manaus and try to take Ronaldo out of the game and get a draw while Germany probably beats Ghana.  That leaves the U.S. in a spot where the worst case scenario is a loss to Germany while Portugal beats Ghana, with goal differential being the tiebreaker between the Yanks and the Portuguese, and the best case being a Germany squad that's already qualified resting up a bit and the U.S. stealing a point and 2nd place.

Natal and Recife are 175 miles apart, essentially the same as Seattle to Portland.  Manaus to Recife is 1760 miles, about the same as Denver to Boston.  So essentially this travel schedule is the same as a MLS team playing a Sunday game at home, flying to play a road game against the other conference on Friday night, and then playing back at home on the following Wednesday.  A rough schedule but one MLS teams regularly face.  The key for the U.S. is their training base in Brazil.  Currently the U.S. has arranged facilities outside Sao Paolo, which is in the southern part of Brazil, 1300 miles from Recife and almost 1700 miles from Manaus.  Adding that additional travel will hurt the Yanks.  What the USSF should do is find a new training camp on the northeast coast around Natal or Recife.  It should be relatively easy to find another team interested in the Sao Paolo training camp as there are a number of stadiums nearby that other teams are playing at but even if its not it would be wroth paying for two training camps just to cut down on the travel.

Here's a quick recap of the rest of the draw.  Bold are the teams I expect to go through, italics are the teams I want to go through.  Don't hold me to these predictions though, 6 months is a long time and player form could change a lot in that time.  I'll do antoher set of predictions in early June before the Cups starts.

Group A:
Brazil
Croatia
Mexico
Cameroon

Clearly the hosts will get out of this group, and who wouldn't want to see that.  If I have a 2nd team in this competition its Cameroon, but they're not on form right now.  Despite struggling the last year Mexico will get it together and get out of this group, unfortunately.

Group B:
Spain
Netherlands
Chile
Australia

The group starts with a rematch of the 2010 final, but both teams will get out of the group.  I like Chile and they'll probably be favored to get out, but I see an upset here.  I'm tired of Spain.  Australia is going to be road kill.

Group C:
Colombia
Greece
Ivory Coast
Japan

Japan could be a spoiler in this group, especially since they'll have good fan support (the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan is in Brazil), but I think the Colombians and the Elephants will take it.  I'm excited to see the Colombians play and I've enjoyed the Ivory Coast's play for a while.

Group D:
Uruguay
Costa Rica
England
Italy

With the exception of Costa Rica this is a tough group.  Being on their home continent Uruguay should win the group and England and Italy will battle it out for 2nd.  I think England under performs again and Italy takes it but I don't particularly care for either team so I'll root for the Ticos in a lost cause.

Group E:
Switzerland
Ecuador
France
Honduras

Everyone sees the Swiss as the easy draw, which is probably true.  France and Ecuador seem likely to make it out of the group but I'll root for the dis-respected Swiss and our CONCACAF brethren.

Group F:
Argentina
Bosnia
Iran
Nigeria

Argentina won't break a sweat getting out of the group and will almost have home games being in southern Brazil.  Nigeria will take second against the Bosnian newcomers, despite being an underdog to them, and a weak Iranian team.  Works for me.

Group G:
Germany
Portugal
Ghana
United States

Ah, the moment of truth.  Clearly Germany should win this group but which team finishes 2nd.  My heart is going with the U.S. but my brain is telling me I'm showing my bias.  I can't root for a second team in this group as the 2nd team will be whatever result will be best for the U.S.

Group H:
Belgium
Algeria
Russia
South Korea

Belgium and Russia are notably better than the other two teams in the group.  I've got to root for South Korea after 2002 though, and I'll pick Belgium over Russia to root for.  Algeria isn't really going to factor in.

Castrillon Out, Thomas Returning?

Two more pieces of roster news this week.

First, Jaime Castrillon will not be returning to the Rapids in 2014.  Much like Calderon, his injury-limited playing time in 2013 opened the door for Brown to claim a starting spot, and the addition of Torres as a DP and Sanchez has made it obvious who the starting strikers will be.  Apparently Castrillon doesn't necessarily want to go back to Colombia (though there was interest from his former team there last offseason) so there's a chance we could see him land with another MLS team, or possibly even Orlando City in the USL for their final season before joining MLS in 2015.

Secondly, the Rapids want Hendry Thomas back, just not at the number his option was for so they've declined it.  At the right price Thomas would be an important piece to have returning.  Last year Thomas made 200K and I can't see paying him for than that, but if we could get him for 150K-200K that seems reasonable.

Diego Calderon Returns To LDU Quito

Well we have our first roster move of the off-season.  After finishing his season-long loan the Rapids have decided to let Diego Calderon return to LDU Quito in Ecuador.

Calderon started the first 5 games of the season before injuring his knee saving a goal in Salt Lake (and the Rapids won the Rocky Mountain Cup by 1 goal this year) in LA and spending the next few months on Injured Reserve.  By the time he got healthy Shane O'Neill had already made the center back spot alongside Drew Moor his, even pushing Marvell Wynne out to right back, so Calderon wasn't able to break back into the lineup.

While he showed good skills and looked like a solid part of the lineup, there's really no reason for the Rapids to buy him from Quito with the O'Neill-Moor pairing they have now.  If they want a backup for them they're more likely to sign German Mera.

EDIT: My bad, Calderon injured his knee saving a goal in the LA game the game after the first FSL game.  Updated.