Rapids Trade For Nane

Colorado has sent a 3rd round pick in the 2012 draft to Toronto for midfielder Joseph Nane. He's 23 years old, drafted last year by Toronto and appeared in 11 games. Primarily a defensive midfielder he looks like he'll be a backup for Mastroeni and Larentowicz. He's Cameroonian so he will take a International slot.

Kudos To The Rapids Front Office

We've all talked at length about the great run the Rapids made this year. Cummings was clearly the MVP. Pablo had his best season ever as the Rapids captain. The young backline came together to allow just 3 goals in 420 minutes of playoff soccer. What we haven't talked as much about is how well the Front Office did putting this team together.

Part of this is a mea culpa. Regular readers will remember in August when I ripped Jeff Plush for an interview he gave to MLSSoccer.com. Of particular note I pointed out his belief that DP's hadn't been proven to be winners was wrong, and how I felt like he was using it as an excuse for not improving the team. I followed that up with a post about how the Rapids wouldn't go anywhere with other team's cast-offs.

Oops.

OK, I was wrong. Badly wrong. Of the 14 players that played in the MLS Cup final, 10 of them were acquired by the Rapids from other MLS teams. One of the two other Rapids that played at least half the minutes this season was acquired from another team. It appears that the Rapids went quite far with the other team's cast-offs! The Rapids took two draftees (Cummings and Kimura), added in a pair of players found in England (Baudet, and Smith), threw in one USL player (Earls) and covered it all with a group of MLS players that their former teams either didn't want, or had to give up for other reasons. The Rapids Front Office clearly made a decision to use this strategy, and executed it well. While I'm sure there were many people working on it, I assume that the heads of this plan were Jeff Plush, Paul Bravo, and Gary Smith and they, and everyone else involved, deserve a hearty congratulations for their success.

Not 72 hours after the championship they were at it again. They traded away two players that, while valuable, were more expendable than others in order to protect most of our starting XI in the Expansion Draft. This was followed up by putting deals in place prior to the draft that would allow the Rapids to keep the rest of their players protected and/or get them returned to the team in exchanged for allocation money. The cherry on top was picking up another MLS cast-off, Sanna Nyassi, for next year's team.

I won't promise not to be critical of the Front Office in the future, but I will be giving them more credit. I may not have done enough of that this year.

Rapids Waive Ross Schunk

Busy roster day today. The Rapids finished their activity by waiving Ross Schunk. A forward that missed the 2010 season with injury after being drafted in 2009, he played a total of 10 minutes in 3 games last season. With Akpan, Amarikwa, and Kandji the team must feel it has enough depth up-front.

Rapids Dealing With The Draft

As expected in today's expansion draft the Rapids lost Anthony Wallace as he was selected by Portland. What wasn't expected is what happened next. The Rapids sent allocation money to Portland and got Wallace back. Great move by the club. We're not exactly known for going out and spending allocation money to sign big international players, so this is just as good of a use of the money. Now out starting XI from MLS Cup is intact going into next season.

Colorado wasn't done though, as they traded an international player slot to Vancouver for Sanna Nyassi, who Vancouver had just taken from Seattle in the expansion draft. With the green cards for Cummings, Kandji, and Kimura and the trade of Baudet and Earls the Rapids only had two internationals on the roster, so we had a surplus of international slots. In Nyassi we get a young (21) attacking midfielder. Nyassi is Gambian and has played for the Gambian U-20 team. Mac Kandji last week declared that he would represent Gambia as well (he could have also chosen Senegal) so we've got a small Gambian influence on the team now.

This was another good move by the Rapids. Kandji blew out his ACL scoring the winning goal in MLS Cup, so anything we get out of him in 2011 will be a bonus. Nyassi plays the wing but can also push up, he scored both goals in Seattle's Open Cup Final win this season. That is similar to how we used Kandji this year.

The Rapids Win The Cup!!!!

Champions!!!!!!!

What a game! Highs, lows, and what just happened! moments all over the place. I'm going to dispense with the normal post-game recap as I'm assuming anyone who's reading this has a least watched the highlights if not the whole game, and I'm not sure if I could really recap everything anyway. Just a few notes about the more important moments in the game.

The PK that wasn't early in the game was a mess. Honestly all 3 players involved could have been called for a foul. I can almost see letting everything go except the attempted kick at Casey. That has to be a card, and in the box, a penalty. Or if a more strict ref is calling the game, the first fouls get called and the kick never happens. Either way, poorly handled.

Dallas' goal was just a beautiful sequence. They took advantage of Wallace playing off and found space to send in the cross, and league MVP Ferreira found the open space between Moor and Wynne. Well played all around.

Casey's goal was the ugliest beautiful goal you'll ever see, at least until Kandji forced an own goal. A 3 way collision between Hartman, Ihemelu, and Casey ended up with only Casey finding the ball and poking it into the net from his backside. This isn't college football though, you don't get points for style and they all count equally.

Kevin Hartman must have sold his soul to somebody with the way he played this post-season. His save on Ginger Ninja's free kick was amazing. The ball was shielded and curving away from him. A goal there, just 5 minutes after the Rapids leveled the score, might have put Dallas away.

Kandji gave everything for the team, including his knee, to score the winning goal. Sometimes you just have to put it in the mixer and hope something good happens. It was a "lucky" goal, but it happened because Colorado was putting on pressure. Hopefully the knee is no worse than the expected hyper-extension. It looked like his leg could have been broken.

Matt Pickens save with 3 minutes remaining? Incredible. Everyone at the Celtic thought we had given up the tying goal. We were discussing it post-game and nobody could think of another save like that to preserve a win in extra time in any of the leagues or Cups we've watched.

Drew Moor - Ironman. He played every minute of every regular season game (2700 minutes). He played every minute of the 3 playoff games, including the 30 extra minutes in Columbus (300 minutes). All of that, and in the 120th and final minute of the final he's in position to clear the tying goal off the line. 3120 minutes in a season has to be some sort of MLS record.

My keys to the game were controlling midfield, especially Ferreira, and the goalkeepers. Well Ferreria got free once, but the rough style of play favored the Rapids midfield and they used it to full effect. Both keepers came up huge once, so that was a draw.

Other Observations:

• Great time at the Celtic, even through the pressure. The confetti got a bit out of hand, so a bit of a mess got left. I hope they understand.
• That's 5 for 5 against Dallas in the playoffs!
• Lousy officiating by Toledo. He let everything go and quickly lost control of the game. That's how you end up with both Cummings and Kandji being injured and Casey knocking everyone in sight over.
• Larentowicz had a great game. He was stealing balls and breaking up any attack that came through the middle. Great to see him get a ring after 3 lost MLS Cups with New England.
• Dallas is a bunch of punks and I was very disappointed with them. Daniel "No offense to the Eastern Champs, but this game was the championship" Hernandez waited for the ref to turn his back and smacked Thompson on the head. Hartman got into Kandji's face while he was coming off injured. Twice Casey was out and out kicked with no attempt to play the ball. Former Rapid Ugo Ihemelu actually pushed the hobbling Kandji as he was coming off the field. If Toledo hadn't last control of the game that should have been a red.
• Cummings did not have a great night, but Dallas obviously went out there with the plan to prevent him from beating them. Too bad it was the player that subbed in for him that beat them!
• Wallace struggled at times, bringing Baudet in for him was a good move.
• Mullan was strong but silent in adding a 5th ring to his hand.
• Pablo caps off perhaps his best year as a Rapid by getting a trophy after 13 years in the league. Its great that he finally got the reward he deserved.
• Great to see the team celebrate with the fans by taking a trip around the stadium with the trophy.
• The team is having a rally at Skyline Park South, on Arapahoe between 15th and 16th, tomorrow at 4!

Player of the Game: Denver South's Conor Casey. A goal, an unofficial assist, and constant pressure all night keeping Dallas from getting into their groove. Matt Pickens could have also gotten the nod, but Casey bringing a championship back to where he grew up gives him the edge.