That night I saw the lineup I leaned over to my wife and said "I guess the club still has PTSD from Anthony Hudson days...." I don't think I'll ever wrap my head around that one. I mean, unless Beitashour was injured that night, it doesn't make any sense to line the team up like that....however, Beitashour was on the bench sooooo....
New jersey numbers: The numbers are in. 👀— Colorado Rapids (@ColoradoRapids) March 2, 2021 Notable Changes: Nicolas Benezet now wears #10 Kellyn Acosta now wears #23 Other Changes: Yarbrough swapped to #22 Sebastian Anderson to #27 Abraham Rodriguez to #28 New players: Michael Barrios wears #12 Philip Mayaka wears #14
Will Vint is not on the #Rapids96 preseason roster. Per a club spokesman, he will not be attending preseason due to personal reasons. #MLS https://t.co/f4fzgcLF9G— Matt Pollard (@LWOSMattPollard) March 2, 2021
Atlanta spokesman says Robinson, Bello and Lennon will not be involved in camp because of conflicts with Concacaf Champions League schedule.— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) March 1, 2021 Trusty's Olympic Team chances just went up, Atlanta is keeping their 3 players from camp (Miles Robinson was a head of him in Depth for sure).
Good to see Sebastian Anderson running full speed - The boys are hustlin' pic.twitter.com/vCmiS5kICC— Colorado Rapids (@ColoradoRapids) March 2, 2021
Oliver Larraz signed to a 2 year HG deal (with 2 additional option years). https://www.coloradorapids.com/post...elder-oliver-larraz-homegrown-player-contract Preseason schedule: https://www.coloradorapids.com/post/2021/03/03/colorado-rapids-announce-2021-preseason-game-schedule 3/16 Portland Timbers Time TBD 3/16 Phoenix Rising FC Time TBD 3/20 Sporting KC Time TBD 3/27 New Mexico United Time TBD 4/3 Real Salt Lake 5:00 PM MT 4/7 LA Galaxy 2:00 PM MT 4/10 Phoenix Rising FC 6:30 PM MT
Oliver Larraz (age 19): We got ourselves a new 𝕳𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖌𝖗𝖔𝖜𝖓!Welcome to @MLS, Ollie ✍️— Colorado Rapids (@ColoradoRapids) March 3, 2021 and Darren Yapi (age 16): It's official!We've signed Darren Yapi as a 𝕳𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖌𝖗𝖔𝖜𝖓.— Colorado Rapids (@ColoradoRapids) March 3, 2021 Both signed to Homegrown deals. Larraz (5-10, 140lb) is listed as a forward on the website, but in the article they list describe him as a midfielder Darren Yapi (6-1, 175) also becomes the youngest signing ever for the Rapids at 16 years 104 days Larraz is listed as #30, and Yapi as #77. Welcome to the club guys!
Cool story about Larraz and his 10 years in the Rapids Academy: https://www.coloradorapids.com/post/2021/03/03/oliver-larraz-homegrown-signing-ten-years-making
Oliver Larraz! Holy Moly...... we haven't had this much redness since Jeff Larentowicz. If he can carve out 450+ games as a professional like JL..... he'll be the best redhead in MLS history
Michael Edwards deal is done, he signs as a HG. 75k to DC. https://www.coloradorapids.com/post...nternational-michael-edwards-homegrown-player
Holy homegrown signings Batman! https://www.coloradorapids.com/post...7-winger-yaya-toure-homegrown-player-contract Toure makes this our fourth homegrown signing in the last two days. We acquired his rights from NYRB for $50k
Didn't we set at least a club record for youngest avg team age, looks like it's going down more even with retaining Moor and Wilson.
Might be because simply keeping him, as opposed to finding another option, was perceived as less risky. I think its fairly obvious the club's MO this offseason is to just make fairly "safe" moves and not rock the boat much. That rationale is also about the only way I can even fathom how they thought Danny Wilson was worthy of a new contract. That's not to say the club would turn down a possible opportunity if one popped up (which may be what Castillo is). That instance, along with the Orlando tournament, and getting BTFO 4-1 at home by Salt Lake are why I'm still pretty skeptical of Fraser's coaching abilities. He still has a lot to prove.
"pretty skeptical" implies you don't think he is good. Which surprises me, sees like the team is generally playing better and achieving more than we have under other coaches. I would be more on the "above average and shows promise" side of things. Frankly, I don't slap my forehead nearly as much as with past coaches.....
I honestly can't say he's proven it. He's only been head coach for what... 29 competitive fixtures IIRC? Thats not even a full regular season under normal circumstances. The body of work isn't there yet and in spite of getting some legitimately good results, he's also had some real stinkers as well. I think hes proven that he is better than than several of the past coaches, and certainly miles better than Hudson, but thats an extremely low bar to clear.
While you are correct in stating that Hudson is an extremely low bar to clear, Fraser has pretty much cleared every other coaching bar in our history. Interestingly enough, Fraser and Gary Smith are the only two Rapids coaches with more wins than losses. Sure it's a small sample so far, but if you want to win more games than you lose, Fraser's done a really great job. With that in mind, it's a slow day at the office today, so I ran some numbers. @JasonMa has already done a great job of PPG over in the coach tracking thread, etc....so I took all of the rapids' coach history, looked at their records of W-D-L, and calculated the average percentage of whether that coach got us a positive result (win or draw). In terms of positive results (what percentage of games we won or drew), our coach history looks like as follows. Gary Smith (94 games) - 71% Robin Fraser (25 games) - 68% Conor Casey (Interim for 18 games) - 61% Tim Hankinson (114 games) - 61% Pablo Mastroeni (123 games) - 59% Glenn (Mooch) Myernick (128 games) - 59% Fernando Clavijo (124 games) - 57% Oscar Pareja (68 games) - 56% Bob Houghton (31 games) - 48% Steve Cooke (interim for 12 games) - 42% Anthony Hudson (43 games) - 40% Roy Wegerle (interim for 1 game) - 0% If you look at just wins alone (so, what percentage of games coached were a win), then the history looks like: Fraser - 52% Myernick - 41% Casey - 39% Pareja - 37% Smith - 36% Clavijo - 36% Hankinson - 34% Mastroeni - 31% Houghton - 29% Cooke - 25% Hudson - 19% Wegerle - 0% So, statistically, even though it's a smaller sample size, Fraser has done extraordinarily well considering all other coaches in Rapids history. Fraser is currently: 1st all time overall PPG (credit to Jason in Coach Tracking Thread) 1st in percentage of games with a win 2nd for best season PPG (credit to Jason in Coach Tracking Thread) 2nd in percentage of games with a positive result All of this, and everything else that has ever been said about Fraser on these boards....I am firmly in the excited for what he'll do next with the team. Sure there's headscratchers here and there. But every, single, coach, ever....has had head scratchers now and again.
A source confirms #Rapids96 and Sam Vines have agreed to a four-year extension. https://t.co/1tZyuln3s0— Chase Howell (@chasehowell__) March 4, 2021
Sounds more like not losing Vines to a free transfer to a European team. Long-term guarantees we will receive a transfer fee. Smart move by all parties.
A few more things from Stejskal and Rueter from a piece in The Athletic: MLS schedule won’t be out for two or more weeks. Lots of things to contend with including differing COVID restrictions international breaks, etc. Also, no mention yet of the number of teams that will qualify for the playoffs. Rapids have qualified for the Leagues Cup and it’s expected to be played at some point this season.
And confirmed by the club this morning: Sammy Vines is here to stay!✍️ signed through 2025.— Colorado Rapids (@ColoradoRapids) March 5, 2021 Vines signed through the 2025 season! Should we start calling him Mr. Consistency?