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The Rapids open the regular season 1 month from today against the Crew. Tonight they'll play San
Jose in San Luis Obispo. The Earthquakes will be streaming the game live on both team's
websites.
We also found out today that Colorado will announce the new Argentine midfielder at 3pm on Monday.
Earlier today MLSSoccer.com reported that the reason Mac Kandji wasn't in camp right away is that
he was looking for a team in Europe. This afternoon the Rapids announced that Kandji had been
traded to Houston for a conditional 3rd round draft pick in 2014. Probably a fair trade for a guy
who's had 0 goals and 3 assists in 16 games.
Colorado faced Chivas USA in a scrimmage at the HDC today. A late Qunicy Amarikwa goal from a
Steven Emory assist gave the burgundy boys a 1-0 win. Of course its preseason so its meaningless
but wins are always better than losses. The starting XI (trialists makred with a *):
Angulo* - Cummings - MullanLarentowicz - Castrillon - MastroeniZapata* - Marshall - Wynne -
KimuraPickens
After subs the team finished with the the following lineup:
Cascio - Amarikwa - AkpanThompson - LaBauex - EmoryFreeman - Palguta - Guido* - AbabioJoyce
Guido is a local player playing with the team while they're in California.
Today the Rapids had a fan event on the 16th St. Mall to announce their new initiative and club
slogan. The new slogan is 'One Club' and to celebrate it they announced that anyone who buys season
tickets for the 2012 season by March 1st will have their name printed on the authentic home player
jerseys in 2013 and 2014 (example above).
The Rapids played their first friendly of the preseason today against the Ventura County Fusion at
Oxnard College in California. The game was a scoreless draw and with no coverage its hard to draw
much of anything from the result, but here are the starting lineups for each half (* denotes
trialist):
1st Half:
Cascio - Amarikwa - AkpanThompson - Nane - LaBauexFreeman - Marshall - Palguta - Zapata*Ceus
2nd Half:
Angulo* - Archer* - ArmstrongThompson - Nane - Guido*Huazo* - Marshall - Palguta - AbabioJoyce
Obviously this was a game for some of the reserves to try to make their mark in competing for a
starting spot.
There's been murmurs all week that Folan was looking for a a new club in Europe. Today the Rapids
made it official, releasing him from his contract. Anyone who read this blog last year knows I was
no fan of Folan, mainly due to the lack of effort he displayed on the field. This move frees up
around 200K of salary cap space, possibly to go after that rumored Argentine midfielder.
Last night the Rapids held a Supporters Forum at Fado's in Lodo. I was unable to attend, but the
big news that came out of the forum was that Colorado is pursuing a young #10-style Argentine
midfielder. No details have been leaked on his name or his background but there may be a new
arrival from South America in Commerce City soon.
The addition of Wilmer Cabrera as Pareja's right-hand man has been the worst-kept secret in
Commerce City for some time. Today the Rapids made it official, along with the rest of the coaching
staff (all of which had been leaked prior to today). The new additions:
Wilmer Cabrera - Assistant Coach
Former Men's U-17 coach for the U.
The Rapids have sent out an update on some of the trialists in camp. Sam Archer is still with the
team while Issac Cowles was injured during training and he will be sidelined for a couple of weeks.
Edrissa Jarra, Daniel Navarro, and Steve Cronin have been cut from camp. Joining the team is
defender Draymond Washington, who's played for George Washington University the last 4 years.
The Rapids had an article today about the trialists where they mentioned that Cascio and Yamada
were signed to contracts with the league before the draft. Their statuses have been updated in my
master list. I've also changed the list so unsigned players are all in one group but I've added a
note next to Helmick to note that he was drafted (as our only unsigned drafted player).
The Rapids signed Jaime Castrillon this morning, their first major player move of the offseason. As
is typical terms were not released but those will leak out eventually. Castrillon is expected to be
an immediate starter in the midfield, and Pareja has talked recently about playing a 4-3-1 or
4-2-1-3.
The Rapids made a trade late today, sending an international roster spot and our 2nd round pick in
the 2014 draft to Vancouver for allocation money. I'm guessing the signing of Castrillon is
imminent. The Rapids now have 3 open international spots and 3 filled ones.
Colorado also invited two players from their open tryouts earlier this week into training camp with
the team.
Colorado announced that they've re-signed Steven Emory to a new contract today. They also announced
that Miguel Comminges, Danny Earls, and Michael Holody will not be returning to the team this
season. This gives the Rapids 27 players under contract and the rights to 3 players from the recent
drafts.
The Rapids had two picks in today's 4 round Supplemental Draft, in the 3rd and 4th rounds. In the
3rd round they picked Kohei Yamada, a Japanese midfielder who was an international invitee to this
year's MLS Combine. He was considered one of the standouts of the first combine game but his play
faded in the other two games.
The Rapids released their preseason plans today. They'll be making two trips, first to Oxnard and
San Luis Obispo in California and second to Hawai'i for the Hawaiian Islands Invitational
Tournament. In between the trips they'll be training out at the Dick. The first day of training is
a week from today, though players report on Thursday for physicals and fitness assessments.
The Rapids only had one pick in today's two round Superdraft, their first pick at #14 (The second
was traded for Quincy Amarikwa). They used it on UConn midfielder/forward Tony Cascio. He's a
senior who played for 4 years with those other Huskies (go Washington!) and last year he was a
first team All-American and the Big East offensive player of the year.
The Denver Post has confirmed a rumor that came out of Colombia this weekend, Independiente
Medellín midfielder Jaime Castrillón is in talks with the Rapids. He was also in talks to join
Colombian side Millionaires but has decided to set his eyes on MLS. Some sources are reporting that
he's already signed, but the Rapids told the Post that discussions are still on-going.
Today the Rapids announced that they had signed Hunter Freeman to a contract. As normal, terms and
length were not revealed but I'm sure we'll find that information out down the road. Freeman
started his career with the Rapids in 2005 before he was traded to NY before the season. Hunter has
some versatility to play in defense or midfield, but he's primarily an outside back.
Today Colorado made it official and hired Oscar Pareja as the team's 7th head coach. The Rapids say
6th but I like to count Roy Wegerle's 1 game as player/manager at the end of the 1996 season. ;)
There's been no details as to the amount or length of his contract other than "long" according to
Tim Hinchey at the press conference.
The big story of the day is of course our new coach, but I wanted to throw some notes about the
schedule out first.
Teams we play at home only:
Columbus (season opener)
Chicago
KC
Montreal
Houston (season finale)
Teams we play on the road only:
Toronto
Philly
DC
NY
New England (no Jameson's night this year)
Teams we play at home twice and on the road once:
Portland
LA
Chivas
San Jose
Teams we play on the road twice and once at home:
Vancouver
Seattle
FSL
Dallas
So FSL has the edge in this year's Rocky Mountain Cup, which will be decided by August, the
earliest ever.
More detail tonight, but two quick notes.
The 2012 schedule was released, see it here.
President Tim Hinchey tweeted that there's a 3pm press conference to unveil Pareja as our coach and
he tweeted a picture of Pareja signing his contract.
Multiple sources are reporting that the Rapids have decided on Oscar Pareja as their new head
coach. Some are saying the announcement could come as early as tomorrow. As mentioned yesterday
Pareja had a long career at FC Dallas and then moved into the coaching ranks there, eventually
being put in charge of Dallas' youth program, considered to be the most successful thus far in MLS
(in admittedly a short 5 years since the youth initiative was announced).
Now that we're through the holidays its time to get back to business. Hopefully KSE will make a
coaching choice this week, as this debacle of an off-season can't go on much longer. More on that
in a moment.
This actually happened before Christmas but I haven't gotten a chance to mention it. Baggio
Husidic, who's rights the Rapids acquired in the Re-Entry Draft, has decided to decline Colorado's
contract offer and instead sign with Hammarby IF in Sweden. Former U.S. Nats player Gregg Berhalter
was recently named manager of the AEG-owned club and this will probably be the first of multiple
signings from MLS for the team.
Busy day in Commerce City as the organization has a new face, a returning face, and a promoted
face.
Let's start with the roster moves. In today's re-entry draft the Rapids selected Chicago midfielder
Baggio Husidic and Houston defender Hunter Freeman. Husidic is a 24 year old former Generation
Adidas player who's been with Chicago since leaving college 3 years ago.
Colorado announced this afternoon that Managing Director Jeff Plush is leaving the club. Depending
on which report or rumor you believe Plush either resigned (ESPN), amicably split (press release),
or was fired (poster's inside sources). Regardless the Rapids will now need to find a new Managing
Director and a new Head Coach.
The Denver Post is reporting that the Rapids have re-signed Brian Mullan to a multi-year deal. No
details on amount or length, but I'm sure those will leak in the coming days. The article also
mentions that they're working on a new contract for Steven Emory, and that they would like to
re-sign Danny Earls and Miguel Comminges, but they're waiting on a new coach before making the
final decision on those two.
Sorry I went AWOL on everyone (which I'm guessing is about 5 readers at this point in the offseason
;)) for a few days, stomach flu sucks. A couple of interesting news items came out this week.
- Colorado declined the options on Miguel Comminges, Danny Earls, Steven Emory, and Michael
Holody.
Holody's 3 years of service means he's eligible to be selected by other MLS teams in next week's
re-entry drafts.
Two small pieces of news before we get on with the Player Of The Year discussion:
*Steve Nicol turned down the Rapids interview request. There was some talk about him being
uncomfortable with the environment here, but all along I thought getting Nicol out of Boston, where
he's been for 13 years, would be a long shot.
In today's expansion draft the Montreal Impact picked Sanna Nyassi from the Rapids. No team could
lose more than one player, so after that selection the rest of the exposed players were safe.
Losing a player is never ideal, but given the possible outcomes this was probably the best result
we could have hoped for.
Colorado just unveiled their protected list for the expansion draft:
Conor CaseyOmar CummingsDanny Earls - InternationalJeff LarentowiczPablo MastroeniDrew MoorBrian
MullanJoseph Nane - InternationalMatt PickensJamie Smith - InternationalMarvell Wynne
You can see that the pictured Kosuke Kimura is not on the protected list.
First of all, Colin Clarke's name has been floated in some circles as a possible candidate, but he
just accepted the Carolina Railhawks job, so we can rule him out.
Today Jeff Plush did an interview with ColoradoRapids.com that lays out what they're looking for in
a coaching search, and a bit about what happened with Gary Smith.
Today the Rapids released information about the expansion draft, namely which players qualify as
internationals. That means its time for my take on who to protect.
Automatically protected under homegrown player rule:Davy ArmstrongJosh
Janniere - I'm not sure how he qualifies as homegrown for the Rapids, but maybe the status
transfers with the player.
Well the first 24 hours after the Smith announcement has brought some interesting fall out.
- Nick Thomas tweeted that Paul Bravo is not a candidate for the job.
- The Rapids asked for, and were denied, permission from the Portland Timbers to speak to John
Spencer about the job.
- ESPN's Jeff Carlisle dug into the story a bit to find out what the real issues were.
Well, that time off was a grand total of 3 days. Within the last hour the Rapids have announced
that Gary Smith will not be returning as head coach in 2011.
Smith was out of contract and it had been reported a month or so ago that Colorado and Gary had
agreed on financial terms for a new contract.
As expected, the Rapids season ended last night. It was always going to be an uphill battle and the
mountain just got too steep.
Colorado started 6 regulars, 2 backups, and 3 reserves and Kansas City took full advantage. On a
free kick in the first half they found the open area that Drew Moor normally fills, and Palguta
failed to fill last night.
That's Jamie Smith dressed up as the Mad Hatter for Halloween yesterday.Another quick turnaround as the Rapids face the end of their season tomorrow in Kansas City. Down 2
goals Colorado mus win by 2 to force overtime and PKs or 3 to win and move on. On top of the other
problems a storm is rolling into KC tomorrow night (probably the front edge of what's rolling into
Denver tonight) which could make the game sloppy.
Last night the soccer gods turned away from the Rapids. I'd say they were too busy with golden boy
Tebow, but he might have had a worse day than the Rapids. As a Seahawks fan I feel no sympathy. :D
A combination of a lack of offense and bad luck really destroyed Colorado's hopes of repeating.
The home side controlled play for most of the first half, but as we've seen in recent games, they
could not convert that into goals.
A quick turnaround for the Rapids as they are back in action tomorrow. The first leg of the
conference semi-finals sees the SporKC's coming back to town. It will be the final home game of the
season, no matter what happens, so let's go out with a bang. The tailgate starts at 2:30 with
kickoff at 5:30.
A cold night in Commerce City worked to the Rapids advantage as they got a first half lead and then
suffocated any chances the Crew might have had to get back into the game. Colorado won 1-0 and
moved on to the Conference Semi-Final round to face Kansas City.
The Rapids took control early as they had the majority of play in the first half.
