God, Country, Soccer

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 ...

I posted the list of players invited to camp yesterday. Here's how I see things shaking out, at the end of training camp. This is a little bit of what I'd like to see, and also what I think will happen mixed together. You get to keep 20 senior team players and 4 developmental contract players, noted with a DV. -------------------------Casey-----------------Cummings--------------------- ----------------------------------Gomez/Ballouchy---------------------------- -------Clark--------------------------------------------------------Cooke------ ----------------------LaBrocca--------------Mastoeni------------------------- --------Harvey------------------Gibbs----------------------Ihemelu---------- -----------------------------------Pickens---------------------------------------- Jordan Seabrook (FWD) DV Kwame Adjeman-Pamboe (FWD) DV *Mehdi Ballouchy (MID) Nico Colaluca (MID) Greg Dalby (MID) John DiRaimondo (MID) Ciaran O’Brien (MID) Jacob Peterson (MID) Ty Harden (DEF) Stephen K...

Is he a Rapid, or isn’t he? Is he a part of the future plans on the field or not? What are Gary Smith’s plans for him? Those are all questions that Rapids fans want answers to. There have been reports of him being traded to New England , Dallas and now DC United , but nothing has surfaced. I talked to him at the end of last season and he said that he’s not happy with not being on the field. If Gary Smith isn’t going to use him, shouldn’t the Rapids try to get some value out of the $400,000 they are spending on him, not to mention the DP slot they used as trade bait? The MLS isn’t a league where you can have dead weight on your roster; especially now with the rosters sizes slimmed down. I’m not saying that I want Christian gone; I think he does have something left, but he has to be in a very specific role. He has to be the playmaker. Is there enough room on the same field for him and Mehdi Ballouchy to be productive? That’s to be seen, but whether he’s going to be a Rapid or...