Final Preseason Match? Hail No.

The Rapids played, or attempted to play, their final preseason match against Toronto on Saturday.  The weather had other ideas.  A wild opening 3 minutes had the score at 1-1 after the burgundy boys conceded in the first minute only to equalize on a Shinyashiki goal from a Mezquida pass two minutes later.  10 minutes after that the hail rolled in and the game went into a long delay.  The teams came back out and finished the half, only for another hail delay to hit at halftime.  It got o the point where they just called the game at halftime at 1-1.

Its hard to draw to many conclusions from a delayed and shortened match, but giving up a goal in the first minute isn't good.  The only regular starters missing were Vines and Namli (and the injured Benezet), while Moor got the start next to Abubakar.  I think we'll likely see this same lineup in DC on sAturday, with Vines and Namli re-inserted in place of Wynne and Mezquida.  Shinyashiki appears to be the one to get the nod in place of Benezet, and if I had to bet on the Moor/Trust battle I think the veteran will get the start.

Figuring out how to not leak goals is going to be key to the early season.  I expect the defense will add some depth this week as Kelly will almost certainly be signed and the fact that Afamefuma hasn't been released yet has me leaning towards him getting an offer as well.  That only leaves Will Vint as an unknown.  I'm assuming at this point he'll be signed once he qualifies as a homegrown player (there's some amount of time a player must spend in a team's Academy before he counts as a HG).

Later this week I'll have my annual roster review and predictions post before the first game preview on Friday!

Roster Moves

The Rapids have made a raft of roster moves over the last couple of days.

The big one is our newest homegrown signing.  Seventeen year old goalkeeper Abraham Rodriguez was signed to a homegrown contract yesterday.  Abe signed and played with the Colorado Springs Switchbacks last season and when the Rapids camp opened with only three keepers in it (Irwin, Rawls, and Rodriguez) it was fairly obvious he was going to be signed to be the team's third keeper this season.  He's already won USL Player of the Week honors last year, and Tim Howard has said how impressed he is by him, so that's a nice CV to bring to the role.  In case you're wondering the Rapids have only ever used their "3rd keeper" in 5 league games in their history, and 4 of those were Pablo's dalliance with Joe Nasco for 4 games in 2014.  (Steward Ceus playing the opening game of 2013 was the 5th).

Today the Rapids announced that Rodriguez, along with Niki Jackson, Seb Anderson, and Abdul Rwatubyaye, have been loaned to the Switchbacks for the 2020 season.  Given that Rodriguez has already started for the Springs he'll be expected to compete to start this year.  That makes it very unlikely we'll see him in a Rapids uniform this year, unless he's backing up Rawls in a friendly or something.  There's a slight chance we could see him as a backup for an Open Cup game but most likely he'll be cup-tied to the Switchbacks before we enter the competition.  Also today Matt Hundley was loaned to Howard's Memphis 901 side for the season.  The Rapids maintain the right to recall all of their players at any time should it be necessary.

Also catching up on preseason results the scrimmage on Wednesday resulted in a 2-1 Galaxy win.  Rubio had the Rapids goal to give us the 1-0 lead.  This was largely Rapids reserves versus Galaxy starters so its hard to draw much from the result but the one thing that's stood out to me over the two games I've seen is that both Trusty and Moor have struggled at center back.  That's suddenly gone from a position I was fairly comfortable with to our area of biggest concern, especially since Ford hasn't seen any minutes this preseason which is probably indicative of a further delay in his recovery.  In this match Trusty was beaten for the first goal and Moor gave LA their second goal on an own goal.  This will bear watching early this season.

Rapids Work Over Fire In First Full Warmup

Saturday afternoon the Rapids decided to shift from fitness and learning roles to actually playing to win.  And win they did.  In a game they controlled from start to finish, only a early defensive lapse gave the Fire any hope.  In the end a dominating 4-2 win gave Colorado its first result over another MLS team in preseason and has made it seem like they my pick up where they left off in 2019.

The Rapids started out with pretty close to their first-choice lineup:

Colorado controlled play from the opening whistle, but the Fire got behind the defense, first by beating Moor in a foot race, then by slipping inside Abubakar, for the first goal.  After that Chicago played on the back foot the rest of the way.  15 minutes after the Chicago goal Namli slipped a nice ball to Shinyashiki to level the match.  Things would stay tied to the break, but the Rapids were doing their best to score before it.  Rubio and Mezquida subbed in for Kamara and Namli at half and the team kept up the pressure.  Nicholson owned the first 15 minutes of the second half, scoring on a rebound and then setting up Acosta for a third goal.  The Rapids would sub 7 more players around the 75th minute, leaving only Price and Irwin to play the full 90 minutes.   The Rapids allowed a goal off a corner, but struck right back as Mezquida would get the final goal for the 4-2 scoreline.

We also found out on Saturday that Benezet broke his nose in Wednesday's scrimmage, which means he'll be out 2-4 weeks.  That most likely rules him out as a starter in DC for opening week.  The Rapids play LA tomorrow in what was a closed-door scrimmage, but apparently LA is streaming it on their website.  However its geolocked to LA.

Rapids Beaten By Revs In Preseason

Yesterday's match was largely contested by the reserves for Colorado, with the only likely starters in the opening XI being Trusty and possibly Lewis or Shinyashiki.  At halftime the Rapids were down 2-0.  Price and Irwin came in to start the second half and stabilized things a bit, giving up a goal but also scoring one as buildup work from Trusty and Shinyashiki Lewis got on an Anderson cross to make the score 3-1.  In the 60th minute pretty much the while first team subbed in, resulting in a lineup of Irwin, Rosneberry, Abubakar, Moor, Vines, Price, Acosta, Namli, Nicholson, Benezent, and Kamara.  Sadly, in a "that's so Rapids" moment, Benezet would only last 14 minutes until taking a ball to the face that ended up sending him to the hospital to get cleaned up.  Sounds like there's no long-term concern though.  The last 30 minutes would go scoreless and the Rapids lost 3-1.

Good to see Namli and Benezet (however limited) get their first work in a game.  While the scores don't matter and the coaches are clear the focus in these games are fitness and teamwork it would be nice to not get so blown out at times.  There are three games left, two full scrimmages at 1pm each of the next two Saturdays, both of which will be streamed online, and a closed-door scrimmage with the Galaxy next Wednesday.

Preseason Results

Over the weekend the Rapids took on TFC in a 120 minute game and lost 4-0.  The first half was split evenly between likely starters and reserves, with Rosenberry, Abubakar, Price, Nicholson, Acosta and Kamara starting.  This group gave up 3 goals in the first 60 minutes.  In the second half the full team subbed out with 3 starters on the second half team (Irwin, Trusty, and Vines).  They gave up an additional goal.  no time for Namli or Benezet, who had just arrived in camp, and oddly Rubio.

The Rapids next game will be tomorrow against New England.  The team also announced today that the two open games against Chicago (this Saturday) and TFC (next Saturday) will be streamed online.  Both games will kickoff at 1pm on the next two Saturdays.