The Colorado Rapids ended their four-year playoff drought in 2020. The efforts of a young core signaled bright times ahead after a long rebuild.
How will the club continue to build on what they have? The key word for Rapids general manager Padraig Smith is retention.
“We’re delighted with the group we’ve built; the priority is to bring back a vast majority of that group,” Smith told The Denver Post. “We want to continue to build on the depth that we’ve got on the roster at the moment. We want to add some key pieces on both sides of the ball to ensure that we’re a better team next year than we were this year.”
Depth should be a significant factor in Major League Soccer in 2021. Though the season is slated to start on time, there will be a congestion of international tournaments. That includes the U-20 World Cup, Olympics, Gold Cup, World Cup qualifying and an assortment of national team tournaments for CONEMBOL and UEFA.
Just factoring in the Americans on the roster, Cole Bassett, Sam Vines, Jonathan Lewis, Kellyn Acosta and Seb Anderson could be called away. And the team has several other players who will undoubtedly miss games due to call-ups.
“Being two-deep at every position certainly is a goal. That puts us in the best position to weather not only international call-ups but also the inevitable injuries and suspensions that you’re going to have to endure during the season,” Smith said. “We also want to create an environment where our training sessions are of the highest quality. We want people to know they have to keep their standard otherwise there’s somebody right there chomping at the bit to take their spot.”
Already the Rapids may be better than where they finished in the standings — No. 5 in the West. They missed three home games down the stretch during their COVID-induced layoff. They could strengthen the roster by adding a starting quality center back, a versatile forward and midfield depth.
“For us, it’s doubling down on character and mentality. It’s ensuring that we keep those attributes at the forefront of every decision that we make when it comes to player recruitment,” Smith said. “It’s easy to be drawn into the search for talent, but talent needs to be added and allied to those other attributes. We have an incredibly strong group of players, both technically, tactically and from a mentality standpoint. That’s very important.”
One of those key players in 2020 was goalkeeper William Yarbrough. The longtime Liga-MX backstop started 14 games for Colorado and quickly became a leader. Yarbrough’s loan from León has expired. The Rapids’ other keeper, Clint Irwin, also can walk, leading to some questions in net.
“We’d love to bring Will back; there’s no doubt we felt like we had two of the top goalkeepers in the league last year, battling for that spot,” Smith said. “These things are challenging; international transfers are never simple and straightforward, but we’re already working on a solution to try to bring Will back to the club next year.”
The Rapids are also likely to pick up the options on Andre Shinyashiki and Jeremy Kelly. Danny Wilson, Collen Warner and Steven Beitashour all have options that are probably going to be declined, but that won’t stop the club from looking to re-negotiate. Similarly, Drew Moor is a free agent, but it’s hard to imagine the Rapids will let him walk.
“We have some players that are free agents; we’re already in negotiations with all of those in terms of looking to see who we want to bring back and who we can ultimately bring back,” Smith said. “Our intention is certainly to bring back the vast majority of the group.”
Complicating things further are the roster rules of MLS. The Rapids may look to reward Bassett and Vines with bigger, longer-term contracts for their excellent play. If they do so, they’ll have to push them from the club’s supplemental roster to their senior roster.
The Rapids rebuild has netted them a fair amount of quality players. Now the question is, what can they afford to lose, and where can they add? That’s what Smith will be trying to answer this winter.
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