Puzzle Pieces and Free Agents
Tinkering with what roster changes we might see from the Colorado Rapids, including our positions of most need and whether any current MLS free agents might fit. Also I rant about MLS bailing on USOC.
Every year when December rolls around, teams start with subtraction before turning to the free agent and European transfer market in January and February for their additions. It’s a nervy time, because to get the 30 players on the roster you think you need to win, you first start by getting down to maybe 15 or 20 players. The Rapids roster, as of this writing, has 24 players on it – and I think two or three more are due to depart at any moment.
In 2020 and 2021, the Colorado Rapids had constructed a strong enough team in the offseason that those in the know pronounced that we should trust the process – we should ‘let Pádraig cook.’
We’re probably past the stage where anybody trusts the phrase ‘Let Pádraig cook’ anymore. Changes need to be made, and the results the past two seasons have certainly demonstrated that nobody in senior leadership seems adept at making the right changes. Additionally, a significant number of players are locked up for 2024, meaning that there might not be as much capability to shake things up as in past years.
But still. There are changes coming. I’m gonna take a stab at predicting them - or at least, suggesting what I think the team needs to do for 2024.
I know the pieces fit, ‘cause I watched them fall away
Here are the players and positions that, by my best guess, are likely to start in 2024, if they aren’t sold off or traded in the next few weeks. Which is not at all a sure thing.
I used a 4-2-3-1 because, as Seeing Red podcast supporter reporter Mark Fishkin told us on the pod a few weeks back, that’s what Chris Armas does.
Rafael Navarro is the big acquisition from the mid-season transfer window, and he’s barely had time to settle in. What he offers looks promising, although it is anyone’s guess if he’s a 5 goal man or a 15 goal man in 2024. A lot, obviously, depends on his supporting cast. But he’s the no-brainer to write in in ink at the number 9 position.
The midfield gets more hazy. Cole Bassett seems, at age 22, and with his connector-skill-set, a good bet to start at least 2000 minutes next year. The Rapids then have a whole bunch of underperforming, dysfunctional, or downright broken pieces that could get a shot if they impress the new manager out of the box. That’s how I would categorize Kevin Cabral, Ralph Priso, Max Alves, and Sidney Tavares. That’s $1.9 million in salary on four bench midfielders - assuming Max’s legal troubles are adequately resolved to allow him to play again.
Two additional players who I think have more clarity in their pictures are Jonathan Lewis and Sam Nicholson. Lewis, after four years of producing at least 5 goals each year for the Rapids, found the back of the net just once in 2023. Lewis has been connected in the past with moves to England, due to his mother’s UK citizenship, and now seems like a good time to sell him on to a League 1 or League 2 side in need of pace and end-line delivery. Of course, I think I’ve said that before, so we’ll see. Sam Nicholson is a great veteran spark plug to give you 1000 minutes and some clubhouse leadership, but you won’t be winning MLS cup if he’s starting each week.1
Moving deeper in the midfield, Colorado will almost certainly play Connor Ronan as the deep-lying six. Some think he’s more of an eight (a box-to-box balance guy, equal-parts attacker-defender), but I think he’s better if he isn’t asked to get forward and dribble into central midfield to start the attack.
The back line is more settled, and I think more capable of a rebound season after a fairly bad season in which they conceded 54 goals. There were, however, five MLS with 54 or more goals conceded, and the Rapids Expected Goals Against (xGA) was a far less-awful 47.4.2 Rosenberry had some good matches, with a few scattered clunkers. He’s still the most durable and dependable player on the entire roster, and the only heir-apparent at right back is Sebastian Anderson – who is currently out of contract and in discussion with the team. Andreas Maxsø is also a lock to start, and newly acquired LB Miguel Navarro sounds like he’s the expect day one guy at left back.
Marko Ilić is your goalkeeper – as of this writing, he’s the only one of the roster.
That leaves a lot of wholes to fill.
He’s making his list, he’s checking it twice
Pádraig is going shopping as usual this winter. He will likely have his scouting team scrutinizing a few favorite shopping spots that Colorado has frequented in the past: Scandinavian leagues like the Allsvenskan (Johan Blomberg), Tippelligaen (Nana Boateng); the English lower leagues (Tommy Smith, Danny Wilson, Jack Price); and maybe a player or two from South America (Max Alves, Luis Solignac, Lucas Esteves, Juan Ramirez.
The bulk of players, though will come out of MLS itself. That’s because free agency has gotten more robust in the past five years, and in a ‘win now’ scenario, as this front office may be in, waiting a year for a player to get acclimated to the pace, the style, and the travel of MLS may not be an option.
Tom Bogert of The Athletic dropped this fantastic piece the other day highlighting the available players of free agency. To that I added some interesting players from the MLS re-entry list, and the MLS waiver list.3
First off, I think Miles Robinson or Diego Palacios would be great pickups for the Rapids, although they will be sought after here and abroad, so MLS’ worst team in the Western Conference will need to overpay to attain their services. The other problems with the logic of acquiring them is: Colorado’s biggest problems are with a midfield that can’t control a game. Palacios and Robinson are defenders, so they don’t fix your problems with possession and progressing the ball into the final third in dangerous spots. They simply make the Rapids better – something I generally am in favor of.
The midfielders on the tier 1 and 2 lists are: Kellyn Acosta (he’s never coming back here after the way he was treated), Nico Lodiero (he’s 34 and had a massive decline in production last year) and Dax McCarty (he’ll be 37 in 2024 and has played 36,000 minutes). Carlos Vela could be the Rapids right midfielder, but somehow I see him going to a mid-tier Liga MX team like Leon, Pachuca, or Cruz Azul where he would be worshipped like a god and over-paid excessively to juice the turnstiles. We likely can’t afford him, nor would he likely produce adequately for the cost of his salary. None of the players mentioned in this paragraph is a good fit for a team rebuilding with a main focus of being a threat in 2025 or 2026.
The two guys I like the most on this list come after tier 1: Mattias Pellegrini and Omir Fernandez. Just 24 years old, the Argentinian is likely most remembered now for being the casualty for Inter Miami in 2021 when they got dinged by MLS for having four DPs who they pretended were really three. Pellegrini, however, is likely moving back to Argentina to play for Estudiantes. Fernandez is also 24; an attacking mid who was non-tendered by NYRB. He had 6 goals and 3 assists in 2023. A dribbly little 5 foot 7 attacker, he might just be the like-for-like replacement for Diego Rubio the team needs, but younger.
[Note: oh cool 24 hours after I wrote this, Tom Bogert of The Athletic says the Rapids are close to signing Fernandez.]
Even if the Rapids don’t get THESE players, as I say every year, we have identified what KIND of players the team probably wants and needs. By trade, Superdraft, transfer or promotion from Rapids 2, this team needs to bring up a backup GK, a backup striker, two starting midfielders, and a starting center back.4 Let’s see what they cook up.
After Extra Time
MLS Cup was fun. It was nice to see the team I followed the most in the Eastern Standard Timezone - and saw in person with my own eyes, twice - win it all. Seeing Darlington Nagbe hoist it again and Christian Ramirez celebrate with his seven-day old child was precious. Soccer is and will continue to be joyous, even when it isn’t my team doing the winning…
…It is, indeed, a travesty that Major League Soccer has announced it will be pulling their first teams out of the the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup for 2024, replacing them with MLS Next Pro teams. Those teams are on the third tier of the US Soccer pyramid. It is also, frankly, shocking that nobody had a conversation with US Soccer before the announcement. This is the height of arrogance, and frankly, it makes little to no sense other than the simple ‘we don’t profit enough from it, therefore we do not want to support it.’ Which - isn’t strictly true. MLS teams benefit from USOC in multiple ways. They get to play their bench and academy players in a serious competition that means something. They get a chance to scout very talented non-MLS players up close. And - they’re part of the incomparable ‘magic of the cup’ - the ability for a team of amateurs or some struggling low-paid pros to step on the field with some big time footballers. This past year, the Pittsburgh Riverhounds were one win away from playing against Lionel Messi and Inter Miami. Next year, there’s no possibility of that magic happening. It’s diabolical. Criminal. Inexcusable.5
And what does MLS gain from this? Well, they probably will SAY they avoid the wear and tear on their players, but for most MLS teams, they’re only avoiding one or two games. So what they are really avoiding is the humiliation of getting beaten by a lower league team.
The frustrating thing for us soccer purists and football snobs is: the multi-tiered, open ended football tournament goes back to the FA Cup in 1871. Not playing in US Open Cup is akin to … not … playing … football at all. Because the FA Cup IS the most legitimate tournament on earth, and by relation, the US Open Cup.
MLS has decided that it would rather invent cups like the Leagues Cup and the Campeones Cup than honor existing ones like the US Open Cup. It also seems perfectly fine reinventing competition rules whenever and for whatever reason. MLS Cup playoffs have been single elimination knockout. They have been two-leg home and home playoffs. This year, they tried a best two-of-three format, but only for one round. In the past, the league has also sometimes had a wild card play-in round, a bye rounds, a neutral final game venue, and a ‘best eight teams qualify regardless of region, but we’ll put an East Coast team in the West because reasons.’ I’m not even going to mention changing all the start times to 7:30pm local on a Saturday and eliminating Friday games - which isn’t playoff related, but is related to the broader theme of ‘we’re changing everything, again.’
MLS: I am begging you. Stop. Fucking. Around. Stick with something that works. Stop changing everything, every year, in a desperate attempt to find some magic formula. The success of the league has always been predicated on slow, steady growth, and the improvement of the quality of the games and the talent in the league. It has also been based on engaging ALL of your fans: the soccer families, the new-to-soccer all-around sports folks, the Euro-fans, and most of all, your hardcore base. Ditching US Open Cup is a snub to the base.
MLS fans have to put up with a lot of bullshit from the league and Don Garber to simply enjoy high-quality football in the US and Canada. We’re simply asking that you not change one of the best things about soccer in North America – keep our MLS teams in US Open Cup.
Unless he’s starting next to Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah. Then you can probably let Sammy do whatever.
One might ask the complicated question - is the difference between GA and xGA for the Rapids an indication that the defense was bad, or unlucky? This number tends to swing from year to year in ways that indicate variance due to luck - up, down, up, down. Additionally, my eyes tell me the Rapids back line individually are each, and collectively, solid performers, put in a bad spot quite often. They can rebound from 2023, I think.
One correction: I made the list before Jader Obrian was acquired by Austin in Stage 1 of the 2023 Re-entry draft, so he’s off the board. If you understand how the re-entry draft works, then congratulations, you are probably overqualified to be an MLS GM.
It is possible Lalas Abubakar or Aboubacar Keita or Moise Bombito will take that spot - and also possible the team will go with a three CB 5-3-2 lineup. But I think Colorado would be wise to move a centerback and acquire a centerback. Bombito is raw and unready. Lalas is a solid player but still has gaps in his game. If Colorado can get a little better on the backline, they should.
There’s a point at which I might go from ‘expressing my full frustration’ to ‘using a lot of synonyms to flex that I have a good vocabulary.’ I am dangerously close to that point.
Bummed about the open cup too.