Colorado Rapids: 2007 Season Preview

You wore green, once....

Past
MLSnet.com: 2006 Season Wrap
MLSnet.com: Big Questions after '06
My Thoughts on Colorado's '06 (Know my biases)

Present
2006-07 Off-Season Changes
Soccer New England's Ins & Outs for most roster changes

Colorado Rapids roster from their official site (what do they have against foreigners? Just look at it; you’ll see what I mean.)

And now, the Future

Key Men
Greg Vanney - The Rapids also picked up Brandon Prideaux and Ugo Ihemelu in the off-season, but one gets the feeling Clavijo picked up Vanney to lead the defense. With Colorado tying for the league’s worst defensive record last season, he’ll have plenty to do.

Kyle Beckerman - With much respect to Pablo Mastroeni, who does many things, good (tenacious) and bad (cards) for this team, Beckerman is the two-way engine for this team; enforcing is important, but Beckerman can make Colorado a better team if he can build on his impressive '06...and, say, ups his assists.

Terry Cooke - Last year’s chief supply line for the Rapids attack (such as it was). He’s got more to work with this time around personnel-wise, so a repeat for Cooke could spell serious trouble for the rest of the West.

Zach Thornton - So, I hear he’s an asshole with the media. I don’t hold that against him, but there’s no question Thornton is plugging a big, big post-Joe Cannon need for the Rapids (seriously; read the season review and “big questions piece above and see who the reporters talked to the most). On the upside, he’ll have very little patience for questions about how he stacks up against Cannon. And I can hardly blame him for that.

Additional Assets
New Ground in the Thin Air - Courtesy of playing a “mile high,” no team has a home-field advantage like Colorado. Add a new stadium to the mix and they could prove a tougher road game still. The idea of feeling pressure to win may render the home stadium advantage inoperable in the near-term, but they’ll have something special down the road.

Stacked D - I mentioned the importance of Vanney leading the defensive line above and, holy crap, will he have a lot of minions: I’ve already mentioned the new additions, but they join Mike Petke as well as up-and-comers like Dan Gargan, Hunter Freeman, Chris Wingert, and, though I don’t see him on the roster, there’s a guy named Daniel Wasson, who seemed to impress the coaches last year. This is a team deep on defense.

Liabilities
The Past - One of the bigger obstacles Colorado will have to overcome is a weird one. It’s true there are teams who have never reached an MLS Cup, but the Rapids one trip in 1997 doesn’t seem to do anything about what can only be called a kind of inferiority complex. I pick up on this as an observer of the league, which wouldn’t be nearly so valid if Cannon didn’t second that perception in the “big questions” column. Whatever it is, it plays a part when it comes to...

Scoring - I had originally plugged both Clint Mathis and Nicolas Hernandez into the “Key Men” space above, but there’s something about Colorado’s scoring record that compelled me to back away. The fact is, this team has struggled to score for as long as I can remember; personnel doesn’t seem to matter. Mathis’ “issues” are well known (and discussed below) and Hernandez seems to have a knack for clutch goals, though he doesn’t score nearly enough of them. Maybe the addition of Herculez Gomez, a pure scoring threat in a previous career, will give everyone else some space to make Colorado the team they can be. But there’s that past to overcome.

Unknowns
Back Four Conundrum - The MLSnet.com ’06 review quotes assistant coach Steve Trittschuh as bemoaning the Rapid’s lack of consistency. As noted above, the Rapids tied for league-worst on defense, giving up - yikes! - 49 goals on the season; that’s 5 more than FC-freakin’-Dallas. In clarifying the problem, Trittschuh pointed to the instability at fullback, as opposed in the middle, where the Rapids tried a variety of players throughout the season. They’ve certainly got the personnel, but what about the right formula?

Clint Mathis - (DISCLOSURE: I’m something like the last unwavering Mathis fan on the planet.) I’ve got grand theories about art and think those apply to Mathis; he possesses talent no other American player has, but seems hampered by a lack of inspiration...which, of course, only builds on the “artist” theme. If he can find the switch in his head, Colorado becomes something big and scary. But “ifs” don’t come bigger than this.

Exotic Arrivals - Yherland McDonald, Roberto Brown: right now, they’re just names occupying space on the big list of MLS players. But who are these guys? I learned what I could through a Google search on each (McDonald and Brown), but that’s not enough to know how they’ll adapt to the league. Could be good, could be bad.

Prospects - Using Gambling Analogies
I don’t talk about it much, but I love craps. Think about Colorado’s 2007 this way: their point is 8 and I’m feeling sufficiently jiggy about their chances that I’m willing to say they’ll not only make their point, but I’m betting a hard eight to boot. They’ll repeat to the conference finals and, if they don’t make the final, they’ll scare the holy shit out of the team that does. I like nearly all their acquisitions and think Clavijo’s confidence in his squad is justified.

Zach Thornton and Media Relations

On Monday's post about Zach Thornton leaving the Chicago Fire for the Colorado Rapids, I puzzled a bit over the player's silence about the move. Now, I'm not delusion about the reach of this site (hey...I was once big in Poland), but not one, but two answers to my puzzlement appeared in the Chicago media today.

In the farewell to Thornton posted on his blog, Luis Arroyave's laments the player's unwillingness to step up to be the face of the Chicago franchise, which, again, is kind of funny given that I had dubbed in "Mr. Chicago Fire" in my post. If nothing else, I'd say this somewhat confirms Arroyave's theory about Thornton's ability to seize that role.

The article to which Arroyave's post refers (and that Arroyave wrote) dives deeper into Thornton's relationship with the media and it's a curious story:

"[Thornton's demeanor with the media] kept him from being the go-to guy in the locker room for reporters--a fact he was said to take pride in. Player interviews taking place near his locker ran the risk of being interrupted by Thornton--who would scold younger players for their comments and would even sarcastically mimic reporters' questions.

As much as I see Arroyave's point, especially where it comes to, frankly, being a dick about how other players interact with the media, I also have to respect the essential honesty of Thornton's position. The ferreting of post-game quotes is one of the strangest rituals of all sports; it's not just that the answer is obvious - "you lost; how do you feel?" or "you won; how do you feel?" - but that the vast majority of athletes spew nothing but safety-first pabulum in response. I'm content to take Thornton's behavior as an over-bold recognition of this reality. I can't blame anyone for declining to go in for the dog-and-pony show stuff that attends professional athletics. Put another way, if Thornton were more polite - both to reporters who are doing what is expected of them (even if it's silly) and to his teammates - this wouldn't be an issue. And, in fairness to Arroyave, I'd say he doesn't treat it like one.

In any case, looks like we won't get a chance to hear what Thornton thinks about his move any time soon.

(########)

Thornton: "Mr. Chicago" Goes to Colorado

With the ever-thorough Climbing the Ladder posting a list of the Major League Soccer (MLS) players who have played the most games for a single club - he dubs this "The 200 Club" because that seems to thin out the crowd quite a bit - today seems as a good a day as any to mention the trade that sent long-time Chicago Fire goalkeeper Zach Thornton's arrival in Colorado.

Even if I'm relatively neutral to Zach Thornton as a 'keeper - I mean, I like him well enough and think he's good enough - seeing him in a "Rapidsenal" uniform will still take some getting used to. He's just one of those players who comes awfully close to being "Mr. Chicago Fire." And, if you look at a number of names on the list compiled by scaryice, you'll see a lot of names like that: I still think of Jason Kreis as a Dallas Burn player (there's something else I haven't fully adjusted to) and, in my head, Chris Klein has never stopped prowling the right wing for the Kansas City Wizards.

Is it a coincidence both players now suit up for Real Salt Lake? You be the judge...

In any case, another interesting thing about this trade is Thornton's relative silence. One of the first articles I read on this contained this passage:

[Well...never mind. I'm experiencing technical difficulties with the Chicago Sun-Times site. If memory serves, the gist of the comment was that Thornton declined, through the Chicago organization, to speak about the trade with anyone.]

I don't doubt for a second that Thornton's a bit pissed about how things ended with Chicago; I also wouldn't be surprised if he's operating on a "if you can't say something nice" kind of principle. Whatever's happening, I'm two or three articles and a Google search into looking and I still haven't seen a word out of Mr. Thornton regarding his new place of employment.

This will be an interesting adjustment to watch - not least because Colorado could really use some competition at the back.

TEAM-TALK: Serioux Aches, Garlick Fallout

FC Dallas
While word of the knee injury to Adrian Serioux was big enough - nothing like a second baptism of fire for that team's young back-line - it's some comments from FC Dallas head coach Steve Morrow that pique interest:

"Morrow definitely feels that the Hoops got "damaged goods" but was quick not to assign blame to any one party."

"'I think it's something that the league needs to look at,' he said. 'It's their player and we brought him back here and knew nothing about his physical condition. I think the situation must be addressed and needs to get better.'"

The same quotes appear in the Dallas Morning News' report, but they somehow read more ominously over there. Wonder how this shakes our - or even whether we'll see or hear anything if it does.

Garlick and RSL
So, Real Salt Lake's (RSL) Scott Garlick retired from the game on Tuesday this week. Truth be told, I'm sad to see him go; I always liked ol' Scotty "Pepper" (who owns that nickname, by the way? Tino Palace?) and remember him minding nets for one of DC United's championships. Now comes the question of finding a reliable replacement, so as not to throw rookie Chris Seitz directly into the mix. The Deseret News' report (first link) mentions Red Bull New York's Jon Conway as an obvious candidate, as does Ives Galarcep on his blog. But I see that Zach Thornton's currently both training and, um, between projects. Yeah, he's older, but he's also likely to cost less at this point; Conway's cheap for now, but I'd figure he's heading up salary-wise.

Chicago Fire
Speaking of the Fire and Thornton, you can read more about that here, but I'm passing on the link for the comments on rookie Bakary Soumare. Sounds like he's showing well and raw.

Houston Dynamo
I saw that 'keeper Pat Onstad left Houston's CONCACAF Champs' Cup game early with a pulled right calf. Anyone heard anything about the extent of the injury?