News: 2022/2023 Off-Season Catch-All Thread

Isn't that a sad state of affairs....

 

Good for him, but I'll be astonished if he actually sees the pitch for more than token minutes. A guy that wasn't good enough to break into the Rapids midfield when we were starting Acosta, Warner and Max, and suddenly he's a World Cup player? Seems unlikely.

 

He's never been to Colorado. He signed with Rapids 2 in the summer but was immediately loaned back to his Costa Rican team to keep continuing to play at a high level (relatively speaking) to increase his chances of making the WC roster.

I don't think he's expected to be a starter, but he's quite likely to come off the bench as a sub.

 

Yes, it seems as if signing Zardes might be worth signing for a season with an option for another if the Rapids don't have to ship GAM/TAM to Columbus. The caveat of course is the Rapids can transfer in someone else that is likely score more consistently.

 

Hey this is great and not trying to take away from this...

Are we sure this isn't the "Provisional" roster? I don't think any team has named their final WC roster yet. I believe FIFA increase WC roster size from 23 to 26 for this WC.

 

Well today was the two-day trade deadline, and it doesn't seem as if the Rapids made any moves. And we still haven't heard about year-end roster decisions, which I thought the deadline was Monday, but on Reddit or somewhere somebody said it was the 17th.

You'd have thought that would be decided prior to the expansion draft, which is on Friday.

 

Full protected list just dropped:

https://www.coloradorapids.com/news...-12-players-ahead-of-2022-mls-expansion-draft


And the unprotected if you don't want to go to the site:

 

Only one I wonder about is Philip Makaya, just because I thought GA players also got auto protected like HG players.

 

My Prediction on how Smith with try acquire our #9, he will try to trade up and get the top college striker. I think that's what he was trying to do when we neded up with Makaya because they were gone when pick 3 rolled around

 

Same with the year end contract decisions:
https://www.coloradorapids.com/news/colorado-rapids-announce-year-end-roster-updates-x9512

Option exercised: Barrios, Keita, Larraz, Markanich, Rodriguez, Rubio

Option declined: Beitashour, Edwards, Mayaka

Out of Contract: Iriwn, Zardes

Loan Expired: Esteves, Gutiérrez

"Colorado remains in discussions with Zardes, Gutiérrez, Beitashour, and Edwards over a potential return"

It also says that "The league has until December 1 to exercise the buy option on Esteves' loan" which is somewhat vague as to what the Rapids want to do.

The only people who are clearly not in the Rapids' plans moving forward are Irwin and Mayaka.

 

I find the Mayaka news somewhat shocking. The league usually wraps up those GA players for 4 years so the fact that we're declining his option and thus his GA status as a protected player after two really tells me he's shown nothing as a pro. As the so-called "most MLS ready player" in his draft that was a big miss by the scouts, though I know the Rapids did not believe he was MLS ready and he was not their intended target when they moved up in that draft. They expected him to go 1 or 2 and they had him ranked 3 of the top 3 players in that draft.

 

It certainly doesn't help him, but he's been in the States long enough now that if they were really interested in him long-term they could get him through the green card process fairly easily. Which tells me they don't care enough about him to do that, or he's resisting it for some reason.

 

It says they're negotiating with Beitashour, so what this means is that they didn't want to bring him back at the option number for 2023 in his contract. Maybe it had an escalation clause in it if they picked it up.

 

Heard some talk that we almost landed Long in a deal at the trade deadline, so I'm sure they'll be interested. If a deal gets done though...

 

Ya know, you could have a friggin' All-Star team with players that the Rapids almost landed.

 

Report out of the Netherlands backs up what I've been expecting, that the Rapids are going to exercise the termination clause in Cole Bassett's loan to Fortuna Sittard due to his lack of playing time

https://www.taylordailypress.net/feyenoord-return-early-to-us/

 

It makes no sense for Bassett to stay in a situation where he isn't going to play. Especially when he has the opportunity to return to the Rapids where he could be a key player.

My next question is what role with the Rapids is he best suited for should be return to CC this winter?

 

As expected, no Rapids were taken in the expansion draft

 

It fits what I heard before his loan to Feyenoord, that he didn't want to re-sign with the Rapids when his contract was set to end after this past season and he was going to go to Europe. He, obviously, resigned when it included an immediate loan instead of playing out the 2022 season in MLS before he could move.

I just wonder how realistic getting another loan after not playing significantly for a year is, At some point the smart thing is to be wherever you can be playing regularly, even if it is MLS. I'm not sure (depending on the team) playing for a Belgian of 2nd division side in Germany is an improvement over that, other than you're in Europe.

 

We have a jersey sponsor!

LEAK: UC Health will be the new front-of-shirt sponsor for the Colorado Rapids starting next seasons and will run through 2029.

The #Rapids96 haven’t had a main sponsor since the 2020 season. @RapidsBray had it first.
Will be formally announced Monday. https://t.co/3N7CwrQS6C

— Brendan Ploen (@BrendanPloen) November 13, 2022