A year ago, the Rapids were a rudderless, directionless bunch who did not inspire much optimism among fans or onlookers. I think if you’d asked 30 people, at this time in 2023, which club had the bleakest short-term future, Colorado might’ve won a plurality of votes.
Twelve months on and things look much, much different. It was an undeniably successful 2024, even with a bitter ending.
Let’s take a look:
I’m going to get into the way the roster was rebuilt in 2024, but I think the biggest swing club president Padraig Smith and the front office took was on hiring Chris Armas as the head coach. Armas’s previous two stints in the big chair – first with the New York Red Bulls, then very briefly with Toronto FC – hadn’t inspired much confidence, and I think in most people’s eyes (including mine) he was sort of permanently embedded as maybe the definitive “great assistant, probably not cut out to be the big boss” guy.
Well, it’s time to reassess those priors, because in Year 1 in Denver, Armas checked the three most important boxes an MLS coach can check:
- Installed a clear and understandable system that maximized his best players.
- Developed young players and put them into position to succeed (and be sold).
- Won a bunch of games.
Building on that for Year 2 and beyond is not a given – stonks sometimes go down. But the Rapids were both fun and good, and both the players and the fanbase looked completely bought in.
The notoriously frugal Rapids finally did more than just dip their toe into the global transfer market, spending $3 million to bring Djordje Mihailovic back to MLS from AZ Alkmaar, then spending an undisclosed sum to bring their own former homegrown, Sam Vines, back from Royal Antwerp.
Djordje was excellent. Vines, who had an injury-plagued season, was more hit-and-miss, but 1) still more good than bad, and 2) very obviously the type of player you acquire when you have the chance to do so.
By the middle of the year, they’d also exercised the $4.5 million purchase option on DP No. 9 Rafael Navarro, who is basically the ideal fit at the top of Armas’s 4-2-3-1. And they kept the momentum going later in the year by bringing former FC Dallas (and USMNT) right back Reggie Cannon home from a difficult few years in Europe.
All of those guys fit well with holdovers like Cole Bassett (who’d done the Rapids-to-Europe-back-to-the-Rapids journey himself in 2022-23), and suddenly you don’t even have to squint to see a team with a core of high-level, prime-aged players with experience in multiple leagues.
Makes it feel like this year – 50 points, a third-place finish in Leagues Cup and a berth in the 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup – was just the start.
As positive as this season was for the Rapids, there were times when the gap between themselves and the top teams in the Western Conference was apparent. And those times were, generally, “any time they actually played those two teams at the top of the West, or any time they played without Bassett.”
The Rapids developed and sold Moïse Bombito for a record outbound fee (both for Colorado and an MLS outbound center back) and still survived. They sent Mihailovic to the Olympics and cobbled together some huge results without him.
But as soon as Bassett got hurt in late September, they went straight into the toilet, dropping their final four regular-season contests before getting absolutely destroyed – 9-1 across two games – by the Galaxy in Round One of the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs. And look, that 9-1 wasn’t particularly out of line for what the Galaxy did to the Rapids even when Bassett was on the field.
That’s the level Colorado’s got to get to.
- Djordje Mihailovic (AM/W): I still suspect their best lineup will be with Djordje as a playmaking winger and Bassett as a pressing 10. But Djordje at the 10 clearly works really well, too!
- Cole Bassett (CM/DM/AM): Can drop him anywhere in any midfield and he adds a ton of value both with and without the ball. Elite player in this league.
- Rafael Navarro (FW): His npxG numbers worry me a bit – I’d like to see him find more tap-ins – but the dude does everything else you could ask for from a No. 9.
- Sam Vines (LB): Conservatively, he’s a top-10 left back in the league for the next half-decade.
- Reggie Cannon (RB): Conservatively, he’s a top-10 right back in the league for the next half-decade.
I’d expect most of the focus this offseason to be on two spots: central defense and the wings. The central defense issue is obvious – Armas wants to play an aggressive, high line, and that was easier to do when he had an all-world athlete like Bombito back there. It became much more difficult when the pairing was of veterans Lalas Abubakar and Andreas Maxsø, neither of whom is great at defending in the open field.
So the question becomes, do they go out and address that need in the transfer market? Or do they think one of the developmental projects on the roster (Nate Jones, Michael Edwards, Daniel Chacón) can be the next Bombito?
The need on the wings is just as obvious, and is where the offseason’s biggest question for this team is: Do they have the funds to facilitate a parting of the ways with DP Kévin Cabral? He’s under contract for one more season at nearly $2 million, and while he has his uses, 1) he’s clearly not DP-caliber, and 2) his profligacy in front of the net means he’s definitely not the right fit next to a No. 9 like Navarro, who’s better at creating chances than finishing them.
They need a winger who can find and finish chances on the regular. Cabral has never been that guy. I’m sad to report that Jonathan Lewis hasn’t developed into that guy, either, and neither has Calvin Harris.
One other player note: I don’t think Zack Steffen had a good year, even before his disaster against the Galaxy. But I haven’t gotten the impression that the Rapids' braintrust feels that way, so as of now, goalkeeper is not a spot I’d expect them to address.
