Backpass: Moïse makes his Exodus
... and other various topics, including the Rapids amazing run in Leagues Cup, and also the fact that Leagues Cup still doesn't totally make sense.
Boy what a year the Rapids had last week. Stan Kroenke’s1 finest experienced the following:
defeated Toluca on August 13
defeated Club América on August 17
sold Moïse Bombito to OCG Nice for $7.75 million plus incentives and a sell-on on August 19.
Were defeated 4-0 by perennial MLS powerhouse LAFC to end their cup run.
There have been some momentous weeks for this team in the past: signing Tim Howard; firing Pablo Mastroeni; winning the Western Conference and celebrating a Pids-giving playoff match. But these last eight days have been supercharged magic.
Defending América
Colorado did something I haven’t seen them do since the Mastroeni days: go into a match in a defensive posture and grind out a close win. In the old days of the so-called ‘Mastronaccio’, Colorado would drop into a 4-2-3-1 where nine players defended and then bombed a hopeful pass to Kevin Doyle, and sometimes it worked. But this Rapids team was not forged in the fires of the Mastronaccio. True, they defend well, and with flair. They high-press well when they want to, although they mostly reserved the press against Club América.
Instead, they bunkered deep into a 5-4-1 in defense for long stretches of the match. They defended short crosses with ferocity; they made it hard to play through the middle. And of course, there was Zack Steffen.
Steffen, who I have maligned a great deal this season was superb on Saturday night, with 4 saves in regulation, plus a big save in the penalty shootout against América’s Igor Lichnovsky on the fifth PK series. Steffen’s save took the shootout into what I would call ‘PK overtime’ - the stretch after the first five shooters. On the 10th series in the shootout, Steffen made his shot. His opposite number, Luis Malagón, missed, and the Rapids were through to the semifinal.
Whatever happens the rest of the season, Colorado has officially come good in 2024. The player additions, the lineup decisions, the tactical approach, and the the player-relations between Chris Armas and the team have worked. This team is a rousing success. Shout it from the mountaintops.
Moïse’s Exodus
Selling Moïse Bombito to OGC Nice was an obvious move, and will be huge financial boon to the team. Here is a player that was drafted in the MLS Superdraft – the Rapids had no involvement in developing him and paid nothing for him other than his first year salary of $85,572 and these first eight months of his year-two salary. And we flip it into nearly $8 million, plus incentives, plus a sell-on. This is the winning lottery ticket of all winning lottery tickets. The Rapids scouting department all deserve raises. Or new Cadillac Escalades. Or a vacation to Tahiti. Really, all three. It’s bonkers that they looked at a kid who played two years of soccer at a community college and a year at the University of New Hampshire, where he never really faced any top-flight opponents, and said ‘this could be the guy.’ And then they drafted him 3rd overall, which seemed ambitious. And he turned out to be one of the best MLS draft picks in a decade: as good as Cyle Laren in 2015 or Tajon Buchanon in 2019 or Jack Harrison in 2016.
I feel the irrational desire to do math. Spending $85K for the year to get almost $8 million is a 90x return on investment. This is like investing $100 in Apple and coming away with $9,000. Which is a thing that you could have done, if you had invested in Apple in 2004 and cashed out yesterday. The Rapids didn’t have to wait 18 years: they made all that money in under 24 months. It boggles the mind.
Now, of course, the problem with replacing a generational talent at center back is … you have to replace them. Colorado has Lalas Abubakar, a perfectly solid centerback who we know very well. He’s fast enough, but he’s a few months away from turning 30, and so he’s going to start losing foot speed soon. Also, he’s wonderful on headed clearances, his experience is an asset, and his long passing is quite good. But he blows the occasional defensive assignment and he’ll mis-time a tackle every fourth or fifth game or so, resulting in a free kick, a PK, or a goal. Our alternatives in-house are Michael Edwards and Nate Jones, both of whom are mostly untested outside of Rapids 2 matches in MLS Next Pro. An additional idea that I like would be to move Keegan Rosenberry inside and let Sebastian Anderson become our starting right back.
With the transfer window closed, Colorado has no other options this season to replace Moïse. They will get to experiment with this position, though, to see if the solution is already present in Commerce City. If it isn’t, well, the Rapids will be spending a big chunk of that transfer fee the front office has collected next year to get someone who can help this club to play at the top tier of MLS. Maybe Djordje Mihailovic and Zach Steffen can reach out to fellow USMNT teammate Cameron Carter-Vickers about all the benefits of living on the Front Range.
OK, but also, what do we make of Leagues Cup?
Leagues Cup is trying to be three things at once: it is 1) an opportunity for fans of Liga MX fans to see their teams up close and in person here in the United States [AKA, it’s a cash grab]. It is also 2) a chance to get those very same Liga MX fans, as well as the ones watching the games at home in Monterrey and Guadalajara and Tijuana and Ciudad de Mexico [the ‘De Effe’ to the cool kids] to become exposed to MLS and perhaps consider adding it to their sports-viewing calendar. And 3) it is a proper cup competition.
Does this work? I don’t really think so.
It certainly works for the cities that got to play host to the biggest Liga MX teams. Club América drew 21,311 in San Diego for their first match in the tournament, and played before 22,462 in Carson, CA. Houston’s NRG Stadium was the venue for UNAL Tigrés match against Inter Miami in front of 46,080 fans. Pachuca and Toronto drew 24,202. The biggest match of the tourney was Chivas Guadalajara vs San Jose on July 27 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA, which drew 50,675.2 Those are all pretty big numbers, and the league definite achieved its goals of making money and getting eyeballs in those matches.
Against those matches were some horrendously bad nights at the gate in many other markets. Pachuca-NYRB drew only 11,464 to a midweek game in Harrison, NJ. Charlotte FC, who averaged 35,544 in 2023, had only 13,367 in attendance against Cruz Azul, one of Mexico’s best teams. Only 15K came to see Orlando vs Atlético San Luis. Tigrés vs Pachuca in Austin in the knockout round drew just 5,520. DC-Mazatlán, NE Revs-NYCFC, and Philly Union vs Montreal all saw fewer than 9,000 fans in each match. Those numbers are better than US Open Cup, but worse than a regular MLS league match in terms of attendance. And the worst story of the cup was DC United’s required relocation for their knockout game against Santos Laguna to Philadelphia. A rugby tournament a few weeks before the tournament trashed the field, and MLS moved the game to Chester, where only 1,070 showed up to watch.
The problem with a bracketed tournament that starts with a mix of MLS and Liga MX teams is twofold. First, inevitably, you’re going to end up with some - MLSvMLS or MEXvMEX matchups, which most folks aren’t interested in paying to see, since it’s not unique or special. And secondly, league soccer matches can be help overwhelmingly on Saturdays and Sundays, when sports fans can make the time to drive to the stadium. A condensed tournament means a lot of games on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Fans can’t necessarily get out of work to fight traffic and go; or they don’t want to. If I’m an American casual fan, or a Mexican-born fan of Chivas, I don’t really want to take the trip out to San Jose to see SJ v Necaxa.
The league probably knows it’s not quite working the way they thought – but I can’t fault them for trying. It’s good to take risks in order to innovate and grow the league, and as much as most MLS fans dislike Don Garber for some of the decisions he’s make, for me, this choice was a reasonable one.
But overall, I don’t think the Leagues Cup works, for the reasons mentioned above. Simply put, it’s a big chunk out of the middle of the season for a lot of games that actually most people aren’t interested in. There are Liga MX teams that fans want to see: Chivas, Club América, UNAL Pumas, UNAM Tigrés, and Monterrey. And generally, the fans that want to see them are in the big Latine3 markets in the US like LA, New York, Chicago, and Miami.
So my humble suggestion would be: just let it be a cash grab without the pretense of a tournament. Take a midsummer break in late July for two Saturdays and schedule exhibitions for all MLS teams with big foreign clubs in England, France, Spain, Mexico, Germany, Italy. Let MLS teams schedule their big exhibition opponents. I saw Liverpool vs Real Betís here in Pittsburgh. It was fun. There was a big crowd. Folks saw their favorite team and some of their favorite players. Nobody cared if there was a trophy at the end.
I get that Leagues Cup was invented because Concacaf Champions League doesn’t get to every MLS city, and when it does come to your town, your odds of drawing an obscure Haitian or Jamaican team are equal to the odds that you draw a big Mexican club. But ultimately, I don’t think Leagues Cup is a net gain for the league, long term. Some teams profit, but some probably lose money over what they would make hosting an exhibition or simply playing the MLS league schedule.
It’s not a failure. I think Leagues Cup is OK. But it’s trying to achieve multiple, possibly contradictory, goals, which mostly are already achieved by exhibitions and Concacaf Champions League. The league will probably press ahead with this competition in this format for 2025. But getting out my crystal ball, I have to be honest in saying that I don’t think Leagues Cup will be around in another decade, or maybe even after 2026.
According to official records, Josh Kroenke is the controlling partner at KSE charged with the Rapids. But do Josh and Stan have equal co-shares in KSE? Is KSE simply Stan’s company and Josh works there? If I can prove I am a distant fourth-cousin to the Kroenke clan, can I have a job in Commerce City?
The Galaxy hosted Chivas a few days later on August 4 at Dignity Health Park and had a sellout crowd.
Latine is an emerging term, replacing Latino, Latina, or Latinx, as the non-gendered term for folks of Latin American background. Now you know.
Nice Rapids and MLS business summary. I didn’t even pay attention to the tournament at all. (Skip the footnote 3 lunacy).