God, Country, Soccer

Welcome to 2013. The shirts are (mostly) the same, the team name is the same, but there are quite a few changes we're in for this season. Oscar Pareja begins his second season as manager and along with Paul Bravo has put a youthful crew together for this voyage. Where this boat sails, we'll have months to figure out together. We got our first glimpse of what that could look like as the Rapids faced Portland in Tuscon, AZ in the opening game of this season's Dessert Friendlies. In the first half we got to see a line up that most likely will be rather similar to what we'll see opening day. Brian Mullan made a first half appearance at right back and played pretty well in the limited minutes. I look forward to seeing Mullan on the field wherever he is. He is a true professional. The only slightly depressing thing to come out of the first half was that the key to this whole season, to the offense, the engine that makes this offense run, Martin Rivero left with an apparen...

By: Kevberto ( @Kevberto ) (Original Photo via Philadelphia Union Facebook Page) Quiero empezar por ofrecer una disculpa, no escusa, pedir comprension y no juicio por lo siguiente (lenguaje y analogias que necesito usar para que me puedas comprender) Este fin de semana vi un juego de futbol que describe y me hizo enamorar mas del juego. El futbol para mi es tactica, mentalidad, fisica, picardia, pensamientos fuera de lo comun, lucha, pasion, orgullo, sudor, dolor, lagrimas, risa, celebración, emocion, coraje, enojo, valentia todo por gloria, el amor a un equipo e hinchas del equipo. Esto solo es una forma simple de intentar describir el amor que siento por el deporte. Los Rapids de Colorado jugaron en contra de el Union de Filadelfia este fin de semana donde se vio cada una de estas palabras usadas como descripción. En este cotejo, los Rapids empezaron con desorganización, confundidos, flojos, la verdad sorprendidos (los fanaticos tambien) por la forma en que se esperaba el juego del U...

What does it mean to be an American soccer fan? Where are your loyalties? Who do you root for? I have all these questions in my head and most lay dormant while I watch and cheer for my Rapids, USA men’s national team, and many “Yanks Abroad.” But when CONCACAF Champions League happens, all those thoughts and questions come flooding back to the front of my mind. Most recently, while watching Seattle vs. Santos Laguna one question kept coming to my head; who are the #MLS4RSL folks rooting for in this game. (You know who those people are, the type that only gets their info from MLSsoccer.com, defender of all things Don Garber, the one who boastfully brags at the MLS All-Start team’s “success”, the one…etc.) It seems quite simple at first glance, “duh, Seattle is in MLS, and therefore, American.” But is it that simple? Seattle had only 3 starters that are American. Santos had 1 (Herculez Gomez). Is it worth putting your club allegiance on hold to root for another MLS club to do well when ...

By Kevberto ( @kevberto ) Muchos sabemos que sin un lider o direccion, nada funciona con exito. Es este el caso de los Rapids de Colorado? Que no este fue el Campeon de la Copa MLS 2010? Porque questionar un equipo que ya logro exito en esta liga? Kroenke Sports Enterprises cuyo dueño es Stanley Kronke, es el propietario de este equipo ya campeon. Pero como que no tiene un lider o direccion el Rapids de Colorado, si tiene un dueño multi-millonario? tiene que tener una buena directiva al frente de este equipo no? Como testigo de lo sucedido en este equipo y en la misma pagina (se puede decir) con los aficionados se dice que es el equipo peor dirigido, menos importante, con rumbo a nada, y desesperante para los fanaticos. A finales de el año 2011 se despidio a el Entrenador Gary Smith quien habia llevado a el equipo a su primer campeonato en los 15 años de existencia por problemas con el Director Tecnico (en este caso, no el entrenador) Paul Bravo. Unas semanas despues se despidio a el p...

This Rapids season feels just like the past few Rapids seasons. Off to a great start and then crawl to the finish. If you break it down into 3 ten game segments, the Rapids started off great with a 6-3-1 (W-L-T) record and 19 points. If you look at the second 10 game segment, it hasn't been very good. The Rapids were 1-3-6 (W-L-T) with 9 points in the last ten games they've played, including the 3-1 loss in Columbus over the weekend. Let's take a look at who's been on the field and how I grade them. (In order of minutes played) G - Matt Pickens (1800 mins) B+ He's been pretty good in goal, he's started every game thus far. He and the defense have had good communication. I would say has been one of the top keepers in MLS this year. D - Drew Moor (1800 mins) B+ I don't think that Rapids fans, myself included, knew just how good this guy was when the Rapids traded for him. He's been a rock in the back line, whether it be in central defense or on the wing,...

Brwosing around the internet, looking at forums and the like, I came across a site that lets you make your own formation graphics. It's pretty cool, I spent way to much time messing with it. Well this is what I came up with. My desired formation and personnel for the Rapids. I know the biggest thing off the bat is that Pablo Mastroeni is not out there. I just don't see the need for 2 destroyer type midfielders on the pitch at the same time. At this point in their respective careers, Jeff Larentowitz is better at that position than Pablo is. Another thing is that Mehdi Ballouchy isn't in the middle, he's replaced by Claudio Lopez. This seems like it should be an automatic, but for some reason, Gary Smith likes Mehdi more than Lopez. In this formation Omar Cummings moves back up top to partner with Conor Casey. Putting them on the wing as they have this year just isn't working. He's scored 2 stunning goals, but the rest of the time hasn't performed up to par ...

It's been a busy week for me, check out some of my latest appearances. VI Questions with Class VI - 07/20/10 Claudio Lopez Bleeding Burgundy Podcast - 07/15/10 from Class VI Around the League - 07/21/10 from CSRN If you want to contact me about being on your show/podcast, feel free to me an email to GodCountrySoccer[at]gmail[dot]com

Red Bull New York have officially announced the signing of French Star Thierry Henry. This move comes as no surprise, it had been rumored for over a year. Being a Rapids fan, you would think that I would be upset, or anxious that this hurts the Rapids chances of a title. That is not my emotion this morning. I think this is a great move. Much better than that of David Beckham. I really hope this works. I hope that it pays off for them in the form of multiple championships...even at the expense of our Rapids. Am I off my rocker? Yes, but still, this move can mean so much to the future of soccer here in the USA. Say RBNY wins 2 maybe 3 championships with Henry and Juan Pablo Angel, and another DP whom they're rumored to be bringing in this summer. How is that good? Well, my hope is that it will create an elite in the league and other owners will have to be more proactive about their clubs in order to survive. Competitive balance sounds great, but really it creates reason for manageme...

The Rapids in recent days have been busy. They have announced the signings of Colombian defender Oscar Murillo and Irish defender/midfielder Danny Earls from Rochester Rhinos. Also it seems they are on the verge of signing two other players. Jamaican striker Devon Hodges, which has been in the news for a little while now , and more recently Eire, PA native Andy Lorei from Rochester Rhinos. Lorei seems to fit a need for flanker depth with the injuries to Jamie Smith and Colin Clark last year and the loss of Jacob Peterson to Toronto FC earlier in the off season. All 4 of these recent additions look pretty good, especially Devon Hodges who once scored 10 goals in a professional game. It also seems that the most important signing that Gary Smith has ever made was to bring in Steve Guppy. In Guppy's short tenure with the Rapids so far he's had influence in bringing at least 3 players to the fold, Scott Palguta, Danny Earls and Andy Lorei. All spent time with Guppy during th...

Major League Soccer has unveiled it's 2010 schedule today. Looking deeper at the Rapids' portion of that schedule, there are some interesting notes. - Finally a schedule that looks like an actual soccer schedule. Philadelphia joins MLS this year and makes the total number of teams 16, which means if you play everyone twice, home and away, you end up with 30 games total. Perfection! - With it being a World Cup year the schedule got crunched up a little bit with 6 games scheduled in July, including trips to opposite ends of the landscape, one to Seattle and one to Toronto. - David Beckham won't be making an appearance at DSGP this year, he will still be with AC Milan when the Galaxy come to Denver on 5 de Mayo. - The two games against rival Real Salt Lake are spaced a month a part at the end of the season, with the final game of the season being at home against them. - The Rapids first look at the 2 new stadiums entering the league this year are 8/14 in Philly and 9/1...

Defender Rob Valentino who has yet to see the field for the Rapids in an MLS game is being loaned out to Løv-Ham of the Norwegian First Division (Second Level). Norway's domestic league is a summer league so he could be gone all season. If he wasn't going to play for the Rapids, loaning him out isn't a bad deal for him or the team. Let's hope he gets playing time over there to make it worth it. The only caution is that with this move the Rapids have sent away 3 defenders (Cory Gibbs, Jordan Harvey, Rob Valentino) this off season without replacing any. Depth going forward on the back line could be an issue.

Is it time the Rapids got rid of Pablo? I know this may come off as heresy or disloyalty to some, and others may be thinking "it's about time someone else has said it!", but is it time for the Rapids to move on without Pablo Mastroeni? With the recent trades the Rapids made it looks like the Rapids may be thinking that too. Bringing Jeff Larentowitz in to the fold along with the emergence of LaBrocca as a consistent contributor to the defensive midfield has left the fans with the question, what do we do with Pablo? At this point in their careers Larentowitz, 26,is a better player at the position that Pablo, 33, currently occupies. Pablo has always been a tweener type of player, not really big enough to play defense, not really much of a passer to link with the attack when playing d-mid. That's not to say he hasn't played both of those positions, and played them well, he very much has. Not only that, but he has also become an icon for this club, and it wouldn...

Last week the Rapids confirmed the long rumored trade of Preston Burpo and Cory Gibbs to New England for Jeff Larentowitz and Wells Thompson. I don't really have a problem with the trade, both Burpo and Larentowitz are out of contract. If Larentowitz doesn't resign with MLS then the trade becomes lopsided. All signs point to him coming back however. With that trade happening, let's take a look what a potential line up on opening day might look like for the Rapids. ----Cummings--------Casey-------- Clark-------LaBrocca--------Smith ----Larentowitz-----Mastroeni---- Kimura----Baudet----Palguta---Moor Right now there isn't any real left back on the team. You might be able to put Harden over there, but his pace would hurt you. Kimura has shown flexibility in his play and I think could transition to a speedy left flank that would make overlapping runs with Colin Clark. The other option would be to put Pablo in the defensive line and move LaBrocca to D-Mid and Ballouch...

It had been speculated over the past few days that Peterson had been traded, but getting any information out of the Rapids about player movement is always a dead end. So, today we get conformation via Toronto FC's website. So who gets the best of this trade? Well it's easy to say that TFC does because they get a player and the Rapids just get allocation money out of the deal. However, Jacob Peterson has never turned the corner and turned his potential into results. If it was up to me I wouldn't necessarily have given up on him, I still think he can be an effective player. But considering he shredded his knee towards the end of the season last year, and his game is mostly based upon speed, I can see why Colorado did what they did. I've interviewed/talked to Jacob a few times and he's always been nice and accommodating, and seems to be a nice guy, so I wish him luck and success in Canadia. UPDATE: The Rapids have released a video explaining the trade and why ...

The Rapids went into the SuperDraft 2010 without a first round pick but came out with first round talent. The man pictured above is Andre Akpan. He is a forward from Harvard University. He was a finalist for the Hermann Trophy (College Soccer's Best Player). He scored 47 goals and 33 assists in college. He was projected as a first round pick. He had a poor combine. He fell to 6th pick of the second round (22nd overall) to the Rapids. He's no young project. He's 23 years old and ready to play. If and when Conor Casey gets called to the World Cup, Akpan could be ready to step in and play. I mean he couldn't be any worse than Pat Noonan right? Oh yeah, if you were wondering why the Rapids didn't have a first round pick, in a draft that was supposedly the deepest talent pool MLS has ever seen, it's because of the Pat Noonan trade. Here are the rest of the Rapids picks.

Conor Casey shoot for the record book tonight as Colorado takes on San Jose tonight (Altitude 7:30pm). He is tied for goals scored in a season with John Spencer at 14. With the Earthquakes coming to town it looks promising that Casey score that 15th goal this evening. Check out The Undercurrent for more details.

I did an interview for Class VI with Coach Gary Smith. Check it out!

Colorado has waived Stephen Keel. With the rosters being downsized this year, poor Keel got caught in a numbers game. The Rapids signed their draft pick Ross Schunk and are seemingly making way for Scott Palguta.

It's that time again, time to play Arm Chair GM. The MLS Players Union has realeased the player's salaries for 2009. If you care, the Rapids salaries are listed below. Team / Name / Position / Base Salary / Guaranteed Salary COL Ballouchy Mehdi M $ 100,000.00 $ 118,000.00 COL Burpo Preston GK $ 57,871.99 $ 57,871.99 COL Casey Conor F $ 200,000.00 $ 200,000.00 COL Ceus Steward GK $ 20,100.00 $ 20,100.00 COL Clark Colin M $ 85,000.00 $ 90,000.00 COL Colaluca Nico M $ 75,000.00 $ 108,000.00 COL Cooke Terry M $ 187,500.00 $ 192,500.00 COL Cummings Omar F $ 65,000.00 $ 73,750.00 COL Dalby Greg M $ 34,650.00 $ 34,650.00 COL DiRaimondo John M $ 20,100.00 $ 20,100.00 COL Gibbs Cory D $ 110,000.00 $ 117,142.86 COL Guerrero Ivan M $ 154,000.00 $ 161,000.00 COL Harden Ty D $ 34,008.00 $ 34,008.00 COL Harvey Jordan D $ 50,000.00 $ 51,250.00 COL Ihemelu Ugo D $ 140,000.00 $ 140,000.00 COL Keel Stephen D $ 34,000.00 $ 34,000.00 COL Kimura Kosuke D $ 52,500.00 $ 52,500.00 COL LaBrocca Nick...

The Rapids unveiled their jerseys for 2009. Something is missing...hmmm...it's really subtle. The "Colorado" and "Rapids" wordmarks have been removed for this year. We saw this last year when D.C. United started the year with a blank jersey, only to have a sponsor added later in the year. Could something be in the works for Colorado? Could Wal-Mart be the next thing added to the jerseys? Or is not printing the letters on the jersey just a cost cutting measure?