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| That's what Dawson's Creek was about, yeah? |
[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]
Thumbnail History
What’s the most surprising thing I can say about MLS’s most surprising team, the Colorado Rapids? Is it the fact they hoisted an MLS Cup in 2010, that they played one of those great, early and unstoppable DC United teams to a valiant loss in MLS Cup 1997, or that they “won” MLS’s first-ever Wooden Spoon in the inaugural season? Never mind…that last one is probably less surprising than the fact they haven’t got slapped by the Wooden Spoon since.
I haven’t conducted the survey to back this up, but I’m guessing the Rapids top the list of teams most often forgotten by fans of other teams not named Real Salt Lake; even if they don’t top it, I’d still wager they hover near the top. (This doesn’t happen for me, as I’m mildly obsessed with Colorado in a pretty-girl-you-left-behind-in-your-small-hometown kind of way.) Colorado misses the MLS playoffs nearly as often as they make them – 13 times versus 15, respectively – and they have a wholly-earned their reputation as one of the most miserly teams in the league (listen carefully and you can hear the screams of pennies echoing over the Rockies…or is that just their fans?). For reference, the $3 million transfer they paid for Djordje Mihailovic this off-season made him Colorado’s record signing. As an organization, they find talent the same way bargain shoppers find steals (or hope to) in the bins at the local Goodwill – e.g., lots of internal transfers, some of them manifestly non-sensical (see, Cabral, Kevin) – and yet going all in on the Moneyball method has seen them finish second overall twice in the past decade (2016 and 2021)…they’ve also missed the playoffs (checks notes) seven times across the same decade, so there’s that…
Best Season(s)
It’s gotta be the 2010 MLS Cup-winning season, there’s something about that second-place finish in 2021 that makes a body believe in the miracle of Moneyball. To plumb one more alternative, I ruled out the 1997 MLS Cup runner-up run because it looks like, and almost certainly was, a crap-shoot – i.e., a testament to the limits of available talent, an odd, yet still logical result of competing in a 10-team league in just its second season, etc.. It was still pretty damn outlandish seeing Colorado’s “Marquee Players,” Paul Bravo and Marcelo Balboa, square off against DC/MLS legends like Marco Etcheverry and Jaime Moreno. The point is, when you look at the Rapids’ roster for MLS Cup 2010, you can see that team reaching/winning a final. The 1997 team, not so much.
Long-Term Tendencies
Hope you’re sitting down for this, but the Rapids have a history of fielding subpar-to-crappy attacks. They have either matched the average for goals scored (8 times) or fell below it (4 times) – sometimes well below (8 times) – in 20 of 28 regular seasons (i.e., what in the name of Kevin Cabral is going on here?). On the rare occasions they have topped the goals-for average, they haven’t got over by much. A great defense could have rescued more Colorado seasons – as it did in 2016, when a stellar defense threw a crappy attack on its back and carried it to second place – but Colorado fields average (2 times) or worse (14 times) overall defenses more often than not. In fewer words, the Rapids have a history of fielding crappy teams. And yet there’s that knack for finding a pony in a pile of shit every four to five years...
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| Here pony, pony, pony... |
Identity: MLS’s bargain-hunting wild card.
Joy Points: 4, i.e., the fruits of winning exactly one MLS Cup, making the playoffs just often enough, dodging the Wooden Spoon, and being in the league since Year One. 17th overall.
10 Names to Know (All-time roster for reference; fair warning, the format is hella clunky)
Marcelo Balboa (1996-2001)
The first great player in Rapids history, a central defender who counted as cultured for his time and place, Balboa played just five seasons in Colorado but still has a face-of-the-franchise reputation. To carry forward a detail from above, just two of the defenses he led kept their goals allowed under the league average. In a pair of dueling twists, one of their best defensive seasons was the 1996 Wooden Spoon season and one their worst the team that traveled to MLS Cup 1997.
Pablo Mastroeni (2002-2013)
A two-way midfield beast and a man who seemingly runs on the doubt of others, Mastroeni anchored the Rapids midfield for just over a decade and played an even 225 games for them. He holds “grizzled veteran” honors for captaining the 2010 team that won MLS Cup – and he survived a baptism by fire eight years before in the 2002 World Cup. The man preaches belief for a reason.
Conor Casey/Omar Cummings (both 2007-2012)
They came and went at the same time, forming the most famous and successful attacking partnership in Rapids history. They paired nicely too, with Casey as the wrecking ball and Cummings as the fleet-of-foot foil running off him. Both players had other strong seasons for Colorado, if Casey more than Cummings (though 2009 saw Cummings pile up the assists), but, in fine Rapids’ tradition, they both had just one great season at the same time, the 2010 Cup run (duh).
Drew Moor (2009-2015, 2020-2022)
Another fun story: Dallas traded Moor to Colorado in 2009, i.e., the season before he helped the Rapids beat them in MLS 2010. Easily one of the smartest and steadiest American central defenders in MLS history and blessed with health and longevity (therefore availability!), it’s no accident Moor started in three MLS Cups (one for Colorado, two for Toronto FC).
Marvell Wynne (2010-2014)
I’m using Wynne as a stand-in for the way the Rapids salvage discarded parts from around the league and make them useful. No one would ever mistake Marvell Wynne for the best defender in MLS, but the man was fast, fast enough to erase 90% of any mistakes he made. He defends what appears to be the grand theory behind the Rapids roster builds – i.e., an answer can go a long way.
Dillon Powers (2013-2017)
When they weren’t digging for diamonds in the bargain bins, the Rapids traced other unlikely paths to success – e.g., the SuperDraft. You could see Powers potential – particularly after a reasonably successful rookie season (he was in Rookie of the Year convos) – and it wasn’t crazy to believe he’d improve year-on-year. Instead, he plateaued. Powers wasn’t a bad player, but he never so much as flirted with becoming the (franchise?) player the Rapids hoped he’d become. (Dillon Serna, a similar player on many of the same starting XIs, fell into the same bag.)
Tim Howard (2016-2019)
The inspiration for one of the great all-time memes, but also a goalkeeper that made two MLS teams (Red Bull New York, then Colorado), not to mention the U.S. Men’s National Team, better and more secure, and who ultimately proved to be EPL-starter good. I’ve never heard the story of how he wound up in Colorado and mostly hope it didn’t involve hostage-taking.
Shkelzen Gashi (2016-2019)
Gashi, meanwhile, provides a good example of how the Rapids fare when they get fancy in the transfer market. His transfer couldn’t have been that high (see above), but he arrived as a designated player and in the vein of people calling a player “the [______] Maradona/Messi” (depends on one’s age), I’m pretty sure people called Gashi the Albanian Messi. While he did deliver some big moments, he couldn’t deliver enough of them to stick around longer than he did.
Jack Price (2018-2023)
Arguably the last real game-changer in recent Rapids’ history, Price was less about producing eye-popping numbers (though that’s a good haul for assists) than making an impressive number of the other players around him better. If there’s a high-upside player in soccer that doesn’t get half the respect it deserves, it’s the deep-lying playmaker, aka, the guy who feeds the guy who assists on the goal. Price provided that until the injuries hobbled him.
Where They Finished in 2023 & What the Past Says About That, If Anything
In the middle of a shit-show, basically. Their play and quality would have delivered a spicy thwack from the Wooden Spoon, but for-Toronto’s atrocity of a season. Based on everything I gleaned from the indirect inputs, the Rapids banked on Price to carry them through, only he couldn’t carry himself to a fucking Costco, etc. The attack essentially failed – there’s no other word for falling 20 goals short of the league average – and the best thing one can say about the defense is that it failed less. In sum, the Rapids finished dead last in the West, a mile below the playoff line, and with the handful of Rapids fans I used to follow on twitter (before I checked out) in full, if online, revolt. And yet, if a bad season was a rodeo for those fans, this was hardly their first.
Notes/Impressions on the Current Roster/State of Ambition
My sense of the Rapids’ front office’s ambition was covered amply above – and, if you really think about it, what was Mihailovic’s transfer but an expensive spin on more of the same? – but a lack of ambition doesn’t always translate to a lack of activity. Colorado have shed players like dead skin (ew) in the 2023-24 off-season and called in new, dynamic and, notably, young-to-prime players like Mihailovic and, from Red Bull New York, a spring-chicken of a free agent in Omir Fernandez. Those two will join players like Cole Bassett, Connor Ronan, and…Braian Galvan(?) and Ralph Priso(?) in midfield giving the team a lot of activity in the middle third; the jury’s still out on the question of refinement. To be clear, I like several of those players – e.g., Ronan does enough of what Price used to and Mihailovic may unlock some things - but none of those players track as ringers for me. A strong forward corps could value-add some coherence to that (expected) swirl of activity, but, for all the impressive snippets I saw from Darren Yapi and despite Rafael Navarro’s DP designation, neither has that “strong” reputation that makes other teams nervous. On the plus side, Colorado signed a “real” goalkeeper in Zac Steffen, who will very much need to be present given how torridly Lalas Abubakar has regressed in recent seasons. With Andreas Maxso and Keegan Rosenberry in the starting mix, the defense looks basically competent, but the team’s history suggests a need for something more. Toss in a coach I don’t trust, aka, Chris Armas, and you wind up wondering how much the Rapids will improve will believing that, surely, they must (right?).
* Joy Point Index
Winning the CONCACAF Champions’ League: 5 points
Claiming Supporters’ Shield : 4 points
Winning MLS Cup: 3 points
MLS Cup Runner-Up: 2 points
Winning the U.S. Open Cup: 2 points
Winning CONCACAF Champions Cup: 2 points
MLS Is Back Cup: 2 points (yeah, yeah, I’m a Timbers fan; still, that was a tough one)
CONCACAF Champions League Semifinalist: 1 point
Making the Playoffs: 1 point
Missing the Playoffs: -1 point
Missing Playoffs in 1996-97, 2002-2004 (when 80% of the league qualified): - 2 points
Wooden Spoon: -3 points
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