Before we get to the main thrust of tonight's entry the Rapids lost for the first time this preseason, going down 2-1 to Houston on Saturday. The starting XI was the same group that started against Seattle on Tuesday and who I largely expect to start in Guatemala. A nice cross from Esteves (who was probably the Rapids MotM) set up Rubio for the header. Houston equalized a few minutes later, and then a dumb foul allowed them to score from a set piece on the last kick of the game. The other thing of note from the match is that Aboubacar Keita played his first minutes of the preseason as a sub. Still nothing from Shinyashiki, Galvan, Mezquida, Hundley, or Max (who's latest IG shows him at the airport in Brazil so maybe he's on his way?).
Now on to the focus of this post. There's been a lot of grumbling the last couple of weeks over the lack of a #9 signing, and some people questioning if the Rapids can really recruit internationally or not. Certainly its safe to say that historically the Rapids have done their best when acquiring players from within MLS and the larger U.S. Soccer sphere. 2010, 2016, and 2021 all came on the back of two offseasons with almost zero transfers outside those groups. So I decided to review the track record.
My parameters for this was any player who came to the Rapids from a team outside the U.S. So no intra-league transfers (except for trading for their rights), no USL signees, and no draftees. I also decided to go back to the beginning of the Padraig Smith era that started in mid-2017 when he was named General Manager. I did this for two reasons, one it makes a logical break point as the focus of the club changed when Smith took over and the league has changed significantly from what it was before that. Secondly it gives me a nice round number of 10 transfer windows (including this offseason).
In those 10 windows the Rapids have signed, by my count, 16 players internationally. I may have missed a signing that never appeared for the Rapids but I'm pretty sure I got everyone. That average of 1.6 international players per window seems low compared to the rest of the league, but that's just a gut feel as I haven't tracked all the league transfers. So that's one data point, the Rapids don't sign as many players as many other teams.
Now on to quality. For this I'm going to rank the 16 players from worst to best, with some obvious break points as I do it. The rankings will be subjective (obviously) but will take into account amount of first team playing time, contributions, and salary. Only a couple of our signings included significant transfer fees and since we don't know how much they were they didn't really impact these ratings.
Group 1: The question marks, because we haven't seen them yet:
Michael Edwards, 2021 winter- Signed from VfL Wolfsburg II but originally started out in the DC United academy. Played 24 times for the Switchbacks last season and reportedly held his own, but it doesn't seem like he's going to be a big part of the Rapids in 2022. I expect a lot of games for Rapids 2.
Max, 2022 winter - As mentioned above, he hasn't even gotten to the States yet so we have no idea how he's going to do. He's go the right pedigree, but is he going to be a Brian Galvan or a Juan Ramirez?
Group 2: The failures, no sugar-coating it, these were bad to horrible signings
Stefan Aigner, 2017 summer - Well, what can you say about the Aigner signing but train wreck? Signed from 1860 Munich he played 10 times in 10 months in Colorado, despite an $800K salary. He clearly expected to show up, be "the man", and retire while getting paid. Instead he just moped around and left. Good riddance.
Yannick Boli, 2018 winter - Signed from Chinese second division side Dalian Yifang Boli seemed to be the backup backup option when we needed a striker in 2018 and were running out of time, and he played like it. 2 goals in 17 appearances for $900K. Needless to say his option was not picked up at the end of the year.
Joe Mason, 2018 winter - Signed from Wolves on season-long loan he only made it to July before having his loan cancelled after 3 goals in 14 appearances. Still that was better numbers than Boli. He was on $650K salary, so when you combine that with the two above the Rapids had $2.3M in salary tied up in 3 players that managed 32 appearances and 5 goals in 2018. No wonder that season sucked.
Nicolas Benezet, 2020 winter - Signed from French Ligue 2 sig Guingamp. In 2019 he was on loan from them to Toronto, so unlike most of these other signings he was familiar with MLS. Despite that he never found his spot in Colorado and was eventually pushed out of playing time by the likes of Lewis and Galvan. It wasn't helped that he broke his nose in 2020 preseason and just as he got healthy the COVID shutdown hit. Overall he made 22 appearances over two years, tallying 4 assists. He was on a salary of $600K.
Younes Namli, 2020 winter - Our first big DP field signing in a while, hopes were high for Namli coming on loan from FC Krasnodar. Unfortunately his adjustment period was blown up by COVID and he lost most of his second season to an ankle injury. All in all he made 28 appearances with 3 goals and 5 assists. This was a signing that had things broken other ways (no COVID and/or no injury) might have worked out but was a disaster of a DP signing because of bad luck.
Group 3: Replacement level MLS players or overpaid for their decent production
Giles Barnes, 2018 summer - Barnes was in MLS for most of his career, then left for Leon after the 2017 season. The Rapids brought him back 6 months later on a 6 month deal, and he was a player that filled out the roster. 6 starts, 12 appearances, 0 goals or assists. For $200K it was worth a shot but didn't amount to anything.
Johan Blomberg, 2018 winter - Blomberg was signed from Swedish side AIK, and MLS was his first experience outside of Sweden. 3 assists, 0 goals, in 27 appearances meant he didn't amount to much and he was eventually loaned to GIF Sundsvall back in Sweden to finish out his contract. At $250K it was low risk for low reward move.
Tommy Smith, 2018 winter - Part of Anthony Hudson's Kiwi invasion of Commerce City, Smith was signed from Ipswich Town at Hudson's urging after being a key part of his New Zealand national team squads. Smith was an above average MLS player, but came with a high MLS price of a $600K salary. A number he never really lived up to. In two seasons he was a solid center back who was prone to a serious gaffe every other game or so (including one stunningly good headed own goal). The club actually tried to bring him back in 2020 but couldn't agree on a price point that worked.
Edgar Castillo, 2018 winter - Signed on loan from Liga MX side Monterrey Castillo was a suitable stop-gap at left back between Marc Burch, who had been traded in mid-2017, and the young kid in the Academy everyone was talking about, Sam Vines. More attack minded than defense focuses he was still a regular starter in 2018, scoring 3 goals. After the season Monterrey got squirrely with the option to buy included in the loan and the Rapids (rightfully it turned out) decided to turn the LB position over to Sam Vines and move on. They did manage to trade Castillo's rights in a 3-way trade that landed us Diego Rubio, so well done there.
Group 4: Solid contributing players worthy of the international spot (eventually)
Lucas Esteves, 2021 summer - Signed on loan from Palmeiras with an option to buy, Esteves was brought in to replace Sam Vines at left back after he was sold to Royal Antwerp. It might be a bit early to put him in this group, but he's looked above average so far and at 21 years old he has room to grow.
Danny Wilson, 2018 winter - Signed from Scottish side Rangers, Wilson is a former Scottish young player of the year. That, along with a large salary, put high expectations on him when he arrived in Commerce City. Expectations he failed to meet. As the Hudson era continued to get worse and worse Wilson took the brunt of the frustration from the fan base as his play was awful. Then Hudson left, Casey and Fraser showed up, and Wilson turned out to be a decent MLS player. A new contract that put his salary at a more reasonable $300K also helped. He's now a regular starter on the back line.
Braian Galvan, 2020 summer - Signed from Argentinian side Colon in the winter of 2020 as a summer signing when his club dropped the ball on his contract renewal, to the point that Colon tried to protest the signing with FIFA and failed. It took him the back half of the COVID season to settle in but he really came on last season, pushing for regular starting time, and is expected to be a large piece of the Rapids going forward. So far only 3 goals and 4 assists in 33 appearances but at 21 years old he's going to be increasing those numbers.
Group 5: Top signings
William Yarbrough, 2020 winter - Signed on loan from Mexican side Leon Yarbrough is an American who had spent his whole career in Mexico. His addition raised some eyebrows when he was brought in just as the season opened, as it seemed that Clint Irwin was finally going to get a run as the number one after Tim Howard retired. Then COVID hit, Irwin had an injury at the MLS Is Back tournament, and by late 2020 Yarbrough had taken over the starting role. He went on to have a great 2021 and could (should?) have been in consideration for GK of the Year, but wasn't the best in the league. Of course, scouting an American who plays for Marcelo Balboa's second-favorite club is probably one of the easiest scouting jobs on this list.
Jack Price, 2018 winter - With Acosta's departure this winter Price is the longest serving Rapid (counting only Moor and Irwin's current stay) after signing from Wolves. He's also the clear team MVP and the best dead ball setup man in the league. Rightfully named team captain he's become the heart and soul of the current Rapids and if he sees out all 4 years of his new contract as a starter will probably end up in the Gallery of Honor. Hands down the best international signing in years.
So what does all this tell us? Well, first of all the Rapids haven't been very good at international scouting and transfers. We've averaged one good international signing a year, plus almost one signing that was replacement level at best. Oh, and we've averaged one horrible signing a year. Being generous our international signings have cancelled themselves out over the last 10 windows.
On the plus side though, take a look at the timelines involved. A majority of the bad signings were at the beginning of this time period (and one of the two that weren't, Namli, was more bad luck than bad scouting). And a majority of the above-average and great signings have been in the last two years. So that shows that the FO is learning from its mistakes and improving.
In the long run its fair to approach the Rapids overseas scouting with some trepidation. They have not yet built up a track record where was can have a ton of faith in signings. But we can probably move from expecting the worst to some hope mixed with skepticism.
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