Rapids Loan Cobb, Agree With Holding?

Two quick player updates in this post with my Philly game preview immediately following.  Colorado has taken Atlanta United centerback Noah Cobb on loan for the rest of the season with an option to buy him.  Atlanta will get $100K GAM   Cobb is 20 years old and came up through Altanta's academy.  He's also played for the U.S. U-20 team.  He's made 3 starts and 13 appearances for the Five Stripes this season after 13 starts and 19 appearances last season.

Cobb has some really good passing instincts and is good in the air.  I wouldn't expect to see him starting regularly this season but it gives us some depth with Awaztiem gone.  He's not a direct replacement though. for that we're still looking at Rob Holding.

Speaking of, EFL Analysis is reporting that the Rapids and Holding have come to terms and he'll be flying in for his physical this weekend.  That has yet to be confirmed by anyone else yet, but they also report it would be a free transfer.  I also found out today that Holding's girlfriend is not an American, as I had earlier heard, but Icelandic striker Sveindís Jane Jónsdóttir, who recently signed with Angel City FC of the NWSL.  So that's one draw for him to the States.  Denver is a lot closer to LA than London.

Au Revoir Awaziem

The expected transfer of Chidozie Awazeim to FC Nantes in Ligue 1 was made official this morning.  Terms of the deal were not announced but Burgundy Wave is saying the transfer fee is around $1.5M, with an expectation of 10-20% of that going back to Cincinnati.  Colorado paid Cinci $1M of GAM to get Awaziem and Murphy.  So we're going to come out a little ahead on this by getting Murphy and some money we can use other ways while getting our $1M of GAM back.

One target of that money appears to be English center-back Rob Holding, who Bogert is reporting (and confirmed by Burgundy Wave and the Post) is in discussions with the Rapids.  Holding is a 29 year old who made 98 appearances over 7 seasons with Arsenal (KSE connection).  Since 2023 he's been with Crystal Palace where he almost immediately had a falling out with the manager and was relegated to the reserves and U-21 team though he made 11 appearances for Sheffield United on loan in the Championship earlier this year.

According to Tom Holding also has an offer from an English team, so we have to hope MLS and the Rapids aren't being used as the stalking horse for him to drive up his contract to stay in England.  That said I did see today that his long-term girlfriend is American so he might have a reason that he wants to come to MLS.  Somebody who had a training blow-up with his manager has some concerns (see Aigner, Stefan) but you would hope the Rapids have access to Arsenal's information and know what they're getting.  He would be an unusual signing for Smith and Taylor, being on the backside of his career, but we need immediate help at CB, not "potential" so that's not a bad thing.

What Is it? It Is...Its Green

 

Its been a busy week so I'm just now getting around to talking about the new third kit.  My first impression was "that's it?".  After some time I've refined my take.

This is a good, possibly great, third kit.  This is not a good 30th anniversary throwback kit.

During the lead up to the reveal the Rapids used the wave theme you see on the old logo in the center of the kit a lot.  The 90's were also known for bold kits with memorable designs (not to mention baggy fits).  This is...not that.  Take a look at the 1996 home kit (below) and the 1999 away kit (in the upper left corner of the image above):

They have bold colors and interesting design elements.  The throwback kit is a green polo with the old logos put on it.  Compared to the rest of the throwback kits revealed on Wednesday it looks the least "90's" (in fact its on the bottom of a number of rankings of the kits).  It feels like the Rapids dropped the ball on the design of this one based on its intended purpose.

Like I said though, as a general third kit its pretty good.  I like the Balboa bike on the jock tag and the use of both old logos.  The shade of green is perfect.  And I really like that part of the proceeds go to a charity of Balboa's choice and its the Boulder Humane Society.  There's also a nice touch that the UC Health sponsorship has been moved to the back below the numbers, right where the old Pepsi logo used to be.  I would love it if this became part of our regular rotation in future years and wasn't just a one-year and done kit.

Of course the elephant in the room is the price, which the Rapids have nothing to do with.  These kits are $110 for the replicas and $150 for the authentics.  That is disgusting by Adidas.  Looking at English teams Aston Villa's Adidas kit is similarly priced but Nottingham Forest's is $86 (plus shipping from the UK).  Leeds United, in the Championship, is $94.  My Blackburn Rovers are outfitted by Macron and are selling their new kits for $80.  MLS needs to step in here and tell Adidas to cut prices by like 30%.

The Rapids will wear these kits four times this season.  Their next game, against Philly, will be the fist time and the only time on the road.  They'll wear them in their next home league match on August 16th when Balboa's number gets retired.  They'll also wear them on September 27th against Minnesota and on the final day of the season against LAFC.  I kind of want them to wear them in the Rocky Mountain Cup match in Sandy the week before that too, but they won't be (at least as of now).

Two Out For Sure, Third Probable, One In Possibly?

I was going to spend today focusing on the new kit but that's going to have to wait for the weekend because the Rapids had a busy day of roster moves today.

The big one was that Kevin Cabral has been waived.  This immediately frees up a DP slot that can be converted to a U-22 slot if we want.  There's now sugar-coating this, Cabral was a disastrous signing that not only hamstrung us for 2.5 seasons but also helped the Galaxy, who went on to win a  MLS Cup in that time.  On December 2nd 2022 the Galaxy were fined $1M, had $1M of GAM taken away, and were put on a transfer ban in 2023 for international players due to not reporting Pavon's salary correctly and cheating the cap.  This put LA in a bind as they had no open DP slot and little flexibility to bring in helpful signings from around the league (inter-league moves were outside the ban).

Enter Padraig Smith 6 days later, who gave LA $1M in GAM for Cabral, instantly making them hole on GAM after the fine and opening their DP slot for the flexibility they needed while under the ban.  All this for a player who looked out of place in MLS while playing for LA.  It was a bad move on it face and Cabral's play proved it.  He started less than half the games while he was here, played 3772 minutes across 2.7 seasons across all competitions (34 game regular season is 3060 minutes, plus playoffs, CCC, and Leagues Cup) and had 7 goals and 5 assists.  Those are MLS bench warmer numbers and for this he was getting paid $2.2M a year, half of which was paid by the Galaxy.

Its not hard to make the argument that he is the second worst DP signing in team history behind Juan Ramirez, and unlike Ramirez we knew how he would react to MLS since he had been in LA for two seasons (1689 minutes) and scored 6 goals with 0 assists.  The decision to trade for him alone is enough to explain why Padraig Smith should not have any say in player moves, before we get to any other mistakes.

The good news is that cutting him free instead of letting him finish his contract and be released in the offseason is a sign that the Rapids are willing to do something this window.  We'll get to that in a second after we go over the other move today and an update on Awaziem.

After announcing Cabral's departure the Rapids also announced that goalkeeper Adam Beaudry has been loaned to the Switchbacks for the rest of the season.  This is a logical move to get him playing time above MLS Next PRO now that Hansen has surpassed him for the number 2 spot.

Braidon Nourse at the Denver Post, among others, is reporting that the Rapids are finalizing the deal to send Awaziem to Nantes.  Its now a matter of not if, but when. he leaves it seems.  I would expect it to happen before the Philly game next week but it would be very helpful if they could work it out for him to be here for that one.  The transfer window for incoming players doesn't open until Thursday and with the Rapids not linked with any CB's right now the odds of us filling his spot before the Philly game 48 hours after the window opens is essentially nil.  That means some combination of Cannon, Rosemberry, Murphy, and Atencio would need to play CB in Philly.  That's not a great set of options.  Still, I expect the deal to get done early next week.

Lastly there is a rumor about what the Cabral move is setting up.  Before today the Rapids had 3 DP's (Navarro, Mihailovic, Cabral) and 3 U-22 players (Bassett, Atencio, Ku-DiPietro) which meant we were limited to TAM deals to bring in anyone new.  The league allows teams to move from the 3+3 model to a 2 DP + 4 U-22 model if they want.

Enter Alexis Manyoma.  Multiple sources are reporting the Rapids interest in the Colombian winger who currently plays for Argentinian side Estudiantes.  Tom Bogert, however, is suggesting they are considering him as a U-22 signing, something that wasn't possible until Cabral was waived today.  Right now the reports point to a loan with an option to buy.  Transfermarkt shows his value at $1.7M.  He turned 22 this year and was an off and on starter in this year's Apertura, with no goals or assists in 369 minutes of play.

Look I'm going to be blunt.  We've all seen this story before.  Smith goes out and finds a young player to bring in at midseason on a loan to buy, and then (Navarro excepted) either the player doesn't work out out or the agreed on price in the buy option is higher than we want to pay and we let him go.  I don't see why Manyoma will be any different.  He's clearly another prospect with "potential", not somebody who's going to have an immediate impact on results.  I'll get excited about this move when he shows up and is able to contribute regularly at MLS level.  AKA, when he's better than Cabral.

A Tale Of Two Halves

Back to back surprising results from this team, but last night they made us work for it.  Colorado started out like many trips to Seattle, falling apart early and digging themselves a hole they couldn't get out of...until they did.

The Rapids were under heavy pressure early and it was obvious they were going to break.  The eventual goal was a weak one, a rolling shot from Vargas that Steffen moved to cover only to see it deflect off Maxso and leave the keeper sprawling.  Unfortunate but deserv3ed based on the play.  Colorado fought back and was dangers in the middle of the half, forcing Seattle's backup keeper, Thomas,  to make a couple of huge saves but as always our lack of finishing came back to bite us.  A poor backpass from Awaziem left Steffen to scramble out of the penalty area deep in the far corner.  Steffen cleared it poorly and Mihailovic was beaten on the resulting header.  That left a wide open goal for Rusnak to finish in as Steffen was slow to scramble back to cover.  Another goal conceded in the last 5 minutes of a half and the visitors looked pretty cooked entering the locker rooms.

It got worse right after the break as Seattle stormed out and found a third goal.  Rusnak was left unmarked at the top of the box and didn't miss.  3-0 and that's all she wrote.

And then Seattle fell apart.  2 minutes after going up 3-0 a bad touch in the box led to Navarro pouncing on a loose ball only to be kicked in the back of the leg ad the ref pointed to the spot.  Mihailovic stepped us and made sure we weren't going to be shut out.  And then 3 minutes later a through ball into the box was gotten to by Navarro just before Thomas and Thomas hauled Navarro down.  The ref pointed to the spot again and Bassett stepped up this time to make it 3-2.  8 minutes into the second half and Seattle went from a 2-0 lead to a 3-0 lead to a 3-2 lead.  Colorado had all the momentum at this point.

Just 2 minutes later Thomas came up with another big save to deny Cannon an equalizer.  Suddenly it was the Sounders on their heels and mentally they broke.  Roldan and Ferreira picked up yellow cards in the 72nd minute as Roldan kicked a ball away and Ferreira complained about Roldan's card.  Right after that Yapi found himself in the box 5 minutes after he came on, beat a couple of defenders, and slotted the ball home on the far post to level the score.  Seattle was sill spiraling with Kee-Hee getting a card for hacking down Mihailovic and Ragen immediately getting a card for complaining about it (to be fair, Mihailovic sold the foul and worked the ref on it).  At this point both teams were out of gas, they combined for 1 shot (by Seattle) after Colorado equalized.

• 19 days ago the Rapids gave up a 3 goal lead for the first time ever in New England, allowing the Revs to come back from a 3 goal deficit for their first time ever.  Last night the Sounders gave up a 3 goal lead for the first time ever and the Rapids came back from a 3 goal deficit for the first time in their history.
• It turned out to be a big point as the other teams in the playoff race picked up points as well.  On PPG the Rapids are on the outside looking in by 0.01 PPG behind.  FSL.  Their undefeated in 5 with 4 wins.  Meanwhile Houston has dropped off a cliff.  Its now FSL, Austin, and San Jose fighting Colorado for the last three playoff spots.  The 4 teams are separated by 0.11 PPG.  Colorado is closer on PPG to Austin in 7th than Houston right behind them in 11th.
• Lots of complaints from the Sounders about the officiating, but the penalties were obvious and the yellow card for kicking the ball away was obvious.  That said there were a couple of advantageous calls.  The decision to stop the game while the Sounders had possession and Mihailovic was still down was beneficial.  And late in the second half Steffen restarted play with a short pass to Awaziem that Chido wasn't ready for and Seattle pounced on it.  For some reason the ref stopped the play and told Steffen to redo the restart.  That was a gift.
• Awaziem did not have a good game.  That pass he wasn't ready for, the poor backpass on the second goal not great.  Unfortunately it might be his last game in burgundy as it sounds like a deal with Nantes is all but done (more on this tomorrow).
• I was all set to light into Steffen for his weak play on that second goal.  From clearing the ball to appearing back on screen it was 607 seconds and he still wasn't back between the pipes.  After the game though Armas said he was playing with illness, which certainly could have left him pretty tired by the end of the half.
• On the PKs Armas also said that Mihailovic has the call.  He took the first and he made the call on the second to have Basset take it.  It worked.  Stick with that plan going forward.
• This team needs to learn to clear the damn ball.  Multiple times, especially late in the game, they got far too cute trying to play it out of the back.  Sometimes just blasting it out of danger is ok.  Sam Vines in particular tried two short chips that did not work and immediately had Seattle coming right back at goal.  A poor night overall for him.
• Cannon  struggled in the first half, as did Harris.  The whoile right side was not in sync.  Harris never found the game and eventually came off for Yapi but Cannon settled in and had a strong second half.
• I really hate Rusnak.  You'd think some of the old-timers (Bassett, Vines) would have warned the team about how many times he burned us at FSL, instead he was left wide op on his second goal.
• Mihailovic had a goal and an assist, Navarro earned the two PKs, and Bassett had his best game in a while.  Getting those three clicking is key to the rest of the season.
• The team has 10 days off now before a game in Philly after the All-Star Game.  Nobody was selected for the ASG roster so they should all be able to get some rest.

I'll have updates on Awazime, a new loanee, and a take on the 3rd kit tomorrow.  After that, barring news, we'll also take a break for a week before the Philly game.

Man of the Match: Darren Yapi.  His equalizer might be the best goal, technically, he's scored for the club.  He's certainly making it harder for me to argue we need a quality striker backup still.