Along with the recent departure of Nick Garcia, the news that Jose Burciaga Jr is going to Colorado for more draft picks reveals signs that the Wizards will be looking to play a new formation. The lineup will feature 1 defender (who needs more than Jimmy Conrad anyway?), 6 in the midfield, and 3 strikers.

Gary Smith is a now officially the head coach for the Colorado Rapids. Smith was signed to a 3 year deal. The Rapids also announced they re-signed Pablo Mastroeni, coming off arguably his best year ever in the MLS, to a 4 year deal. Mike Petke, Bouna Coundoul and Jose Burciaga Jr. are all out of contract with no announcements having been made on their status.

For those unfamiliar with it, I have dedicated myself to follow and, to some degree, conflate the relatively separate fates of the Columbus Crew and the Colorado Rapids for the 2008 Major League Soccer (MLS) season. The idea is to see which of these long-struggling MLS original clubs make progress this season.

(* Assuming I botched the usage, could someone hep me to the proper term for all persons of Mexican/Mexican-American/Central American descent?) Holy pre-SuperDraft trading, Batman! Between the one player who we all thought would go (Carlos Ruiz to LA) and two that came out of left field - Nick Garcia to San Jose for the [.

Nick Garcia is not the only player that looks to be on his way out of Kansas City. According to Ives, Jose Burciaga Jr. is also on his way out of Kansas City. Apparently Burciaga will be heading to Colorado for a draft pick. This pick likely won't another first rounder, more likely to be a 2nd or 3rd rounder.

The Kansas City Wizards are looking to further rebuild their team beyond today's trade of Nick Garcia to expansion San Jose Earthquakes for their 1st pick (1st overall in the draft). That gives KC the 1st pick overall and the 11th overall picks in the draft. The conventional thinking is that KC is positioning themselves to take promising striker Patrick Nyarko with their new pick.

The trade of Jose Burciaga Jr. to the Colorado Rapids was finalized today. Yesterday the terms of the deal were unknown, but today we have learned that the Wizards have traded the left back for a 2nd round draft pick in next year's (2009) Super Draft. Burciaga is only a year removed from a Best XI performance in 2006 where he had 8 goals and 8 assists, earning him the team's MVP award.

View From The Couch (VftC) pieced together a plausible starting XI for the Colorado Rapids from a report on an intra-team scrimmage. This came, as all communications regarding the Rapids, from official sources. By combining what looked closer to the first team from the two scrimmage squads with who he expects would take their place [.

What a terrible game by the Rapids last night. It was a painful example of the cliche about a team not showing up to play. They didn't last night and instead of getting 3 realitvely easy points at home, they gave San Jose their first franchise win. Nick at We Want Rapids Man was right about confusion in the Rapids back line.

New feature I'm going to try to do on Wednesdays now. I'm going to go through former Wizards and give an update on what each player in season has actually done with their new club.
MLS
Nick Garcia - San Jose - Played 81 minutes in San Jose's 1-1 draw wtih Houston
Scott Sealy - San Jose - Played the full 90 against Houston.

Here are rounds 7 & 8 of the Wizards fantasy draft.
Previous Rounds
1 & 2
3 & 4
5 & 6
7(1). Team Shook - Alexi Lalas - And with the the first pick in the seventh round, Team Shook selects Defender Alexi Lalas. Lalas played only one season for the Wizards, coming over in a 1999 trade from the Metrostars with Tony Meola.

I think this gets it about right:

Things didn't look so bleak for the Los Angeles Galaxy by the end of the first half. And, yeah, one could argue Omar Cummings picked up a soft penalty kick; as Max Bretos noted in his commentary Cummings popped back to his feet ...

So, there I am, watching the clock through my (soon-to-be) 10-year-old's birthday party, figuring I can just wait for the archived footage of the Kansas City Wizards v. Colorado Rapids. While they're downstairs watching Little Miss Sunshine, it's about 10:30 p.m. and I'm looking for the video feed.

One of the best problems a soccer team can have is having too many good players to field them all. That, and the ability to adapt the line-up to different opponents, is a sign of a good soccer team. The Rapids have both.

The biggest question on my mind as we await the game against Houston (with much anticipation, by the way) is who will be starting.

The match kicks off at Dicks Sporting Goods Park in a few hours. Rapids have only won once in their last five and twice in their last 10. They've been scoring goals, with only Columbus and Houston keeping them out of the net (incidentally both of those games were at home).

Toronto hasn't tasted victory in nearly 2 months.

My apologies for overlooking the obvious and not mentioning that Soccer by Ives is reporting that KC will be trading Burciaga to the Rapids for a draft pick. I should have mentioned it in the previous post [link]. A draft pick, eh? Surely the Rapids wouldn't be so daft as to give up their 1st round pick, #5 overall, for Burciage.

Onto 2006.
Previous seasons.
1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, & 2005
1. Preki - 81 (71 league, 8 playoff, 1 open cup, 1 international) (-)
2. Chris Klein - 43 (39 league, 3 playoff, 1 open cup) (-)
3. Mo Johnston - 32 (31 league, 1 playoff) (-)
4.

Here are rounds 7 & 8 of the Wizards fantasy draft.
Previous Rounds
1 & 2
3 & 4
5 & 6
7(1). Team Shook - Alexi Lalas - And with the the first pick in the seventh round, Team Shook selects Defender Alexi Lalas. Lalas played only one season for the Wizards, coming over in a 1999 trade from the Metrostars with Tony Meola.

I read somewhere that Colorado Rapids head coach Fernando Clavijo made building a solid defensive corps his top priority for 2007 (here? Yep; it's toward the bottom). I'll leave it to others to explain how taking care of half of the overall equation brought to fruition Clavijo's "Three-Year Plan," but the numbers argue he succeeded in that specific aim: after surrendering 49 goals in 2006, and too often in bunches, the Rapids allowed a stingy 34 goals through 30 regular season games in '07.

(Dang it! Wrong Stephen Keel! Sorry to be brief, but life is attacking me right now...not much time...)

Looks like the Colorado Rapids ended their pre-season on a high in the lower part of our fair nation: they beat the Chicago Fire 1-0 on a goal scored by ...