We Stand With Ukraine

More on the game tomorrow or Monday, but for tonight as we enter the 11th day of the war in Ukraine:

League Home Opener? In Early March? Weather's Going To Suck.

Slightly better than this tomorrow, but not much

Forecast is calling for just above freezing temps in Commerce City at 4pm tomorrow, with a slight chance of snow.  So of course the Rapids are playing their home opener then.  Its Atlanta United in town for this one.  Based on our first 3 games this season, I'm not expecting a lot of fireworks but it will be good to get back into the swing of things.  That includes, of course, the C38 tailgate's return kicking off at 1pm.  And at 12:30 the U17 MLS Next team plays on the turf field outside the stadium and has asked for fan support.

Injury Report:

OUT: D Keita Aboubacar

Atlanta has 8 players questionable or out so they're a bit banged up coming into this one.  We've got a full week's rest after the ugliness in LAFC so everyone should be available to start other than Keita.

Determining our wingers can be a bit tricky right now, there are a few options and nobody has staked a claim to be an every game starter.  Lewis, Shinyashiki, and Acosta could all be in the rotation.

Prediction: 2-1 loss, goal by Max.  So far we haven't seen enough this season for me to predict getting any points against what's expected to be a good Atlanta team, even with their injuries and our altitude/cold advantage.  A draw would not shock me though.  I expect things to look better than last week but still come up short.

Roster Updates, Rumors, and Rapids 2 Signings

With 3 games in a week last week we didn't get a chance to cover some of the roster moves.  Most of these are official, with a couple obvious but not announced changes and one rumor.  We also have a few Rapids 2 signings to over.

First the official stuff.  The Rapids signed first round pick Anthony Markanich last week.  He'll give us some defensive depth and will likely get time with Rapids 2.  I don't expect him to rack up a lot of minutes for the first team this year, but don't be shocked if he gets some time late in the season after Trusty leaves.

The Rapids also announced an contract extension for Braian Galvan through 2024, with an option for 2025.  This a good move and a great way to show support for him after his season-ending ACL injury.

Finally today the Rapids waived homegrown forward Matt Hundley.  Originally singed before the 2019 season Hundley never got an appearance with the first team and struggled at times to get off the bench for the Switchbacks and Memphis.  Hopefully he can find a team in USL to catch on to.

Their have also been some unannounced changes with international players, currently the Rapids only show 6 players with that designation on their roster.  Acosta, Max, Esteves, Galvan, Price, and Wilson are still listed.  That means Mayaka, Mezquida, and Shinyashiki apparently got their green cards before the deadline last Friday.  This hasn't been announced yet but given that Mezquida and Shinyashiki made trips home this offseason that would sync up with the green card process.  The Rapids should have 7 international slots so they have room for one more signing (the from FSL/to Vancouver trades cancel out, and we sent one to LAFC).  Which leads us to the one rumor in this post.

Yesterday Irish site The 42 reported that 19 year old Irish striker Michael Harris is set to move from Derry City in the Irish League to the Rapids.  Harris doesn't have much first team experience, being on the bench for a number of games but not getting subbed in.  This is clearly a move for the future and it will be interesting to see if this is a first-team or a Rapids 2 contract.  Regardless I expect to see him playing for Rapids 2 this year and not the first team.

And speaking of Rapids 2, they've announced their first three signings.  The honor of the first signing goes to an old friend, welcome back to Commerce City Dillon Serna!  Dillon spent 2020 with SKC 2 and 2021 in the Springs, making a combined 22 appearances between the two teams (SKC II only played 16 games in 2020 due to COVID and Serna was injured for a good chunk of 2021).  The other two signings are midfielders Yosuke Hanya, out of UMass-Amhearst, and Omar Gomez, out of Salt Lake Community College and before that the Rapids Academy.  Gomez can also play in defense.  Hanya is one of a few Japanese players to have played professionally in American soccer, arguably the Japanese player with the most success here has been long-time Rapids player and fan favorite Kosuke Kimura.

Well, This Season Is Off To A Rough Start

90 minutes of play, 1 shot on goal.  This goes with 0 shots on goal in Guatemala and 2 shots on goal against Comunicaciones at home before they went down a man.  That's 195+ minutes against full 11 man opposition, 3 shots on goal, 0 goals.  This is a pretty significant problem.  With Atlanta and Sporting KC coming up the next two games its a problem that needs to be fixed ASAP.

What we saw in this game wasn't just a failure to have a pure goal scorer (though that would certainly have helped).  We only seemed to have one strategy, get it out to Esteves on the left and cross it in.  Once that became obvious it was very easy for LAFC to just sit in the box and clear balls all day.  Our midfield felt non-existent most of the match which reduced the pressure on the LAFC defense allowing them to do that.

On the other side of the ball things weren't great.  A stupid play by Abubakar gave up a PK (to Kellyn Acosta no less).  Danny Wilson sleeping on the offside trap let Vela get through with a free run at Yarbrough.  Then the third goal was ridiculous.  A long outlet punt from the LAFC keeper went three passes and in the net, without a single Rapid getting within playing distance of the ball.  Now a nod has to be given to Vela for his great shot, not many re going to pick up the upper corner from that distance and angle, but Trusty gave him far too much space an nobody put any pressure on the ball before that.

All in all, not a good performance from much of anyone.  Some of it may be due to tired legs, all four teams who played in the CCL last week lost and went scoreless, but at least those other teams racked up a CCL win in exchange for it.  Fraser has work to do, and fast.  It would also help if we went out and traded for Gyasi Zardes or Ola Kamara this week.

Man of the Match: Jack Price.  This is really an award for not having a bad game more than rewarding a good one.  He was at least trying to drive the team forward in the second half.  Though his free kicks are still rusty so far this season.

And So It Begins

Well with CCL sadly out of the way its on to the regular season.  First up, a trip out to LAFC in LA-LA land.  If you remember we ended the season by beating them 5-2 at home, but they seem to be everybody's trendy pick for this season, getting the best odds to win MLS Cup.  And of course, they now have Kellyn Acosta who seems to have a (ridiculous) chip on his shoulder about the Rapids.  Needles to say people aren't giving us much of a chance in this one.  Kickoff tomorrow is at 1:30pm because the match us in Univision and TDUN (and in English on Twitter).  So we can all watch it!  That's the good news, as Altitude announced this week that they'll be carrying 31 of the 34 regular season matches.  thier dispute with Comcast is still not resolved.

Injury Report:

OUT: D Aboubacar Keita, M Briain Galvan*

* - I'm listing Galvan for this first game, but as we known he's gone for the season so I'm not going ton list him again unless/until his status changes

So other than Keita we have everyone we expected for this one.  That includes first round draft pick defender Anthony Markanich, who's agent announced today that he had signed with the Rapids.  Still waiting for the official word from the team.

Its a tight turnaround after the CCL match on Wednesday, a match that probably took a bit out of the team in cold weather.  Despite that I think Fraser asked the back line to go another 90 as its early in the season and we have a week off after this.  Plus its not like they had to do much defending on Wednesday.  I expect we'll see rotation in the attack, with none of the starters from Wednesday starting this one.

Prediction: 1-0 loss.  Sadly, despite having a couple games under our belt unlike LAFC, I don't think this is going to go well.  We're going to be tired after our CCL match and lets face it, there are questions about our offense.  I think we keep the game close but never look like we're going to take a result home with us.