Rapids Journal

“This Year Will Be Different”

The 2020 Colorado Rapids have been assembled with clear purpose. Under the leadership of General Manager Pádraig Smith, the club’s Front Office has quietly built a team with a combination of exciting young prospects, reliable first team contributors entering their prime, and key veteran leaders. The missing pieces? The players that have yet to fill Colorado’s Designated Player roster spots.

This moment is very much intentional.

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Colorado Rapids, Preseason

11 Potential Rapids Designated Player Signings

 

It’s about that time of year again where I look on TransferMarkt, WhoScored, and peruse my copy of Football Manager to search and find players that the Rapids could snap up to fill out their Designated Player slots. There’s nothing quite like seeing the “Available Players” tab on TransferMarkt and thinking “Huh, that guy is available?” and then proceed to watch highlights of said player and think “This is exactly what the Rapids need!” Looking around some databases, I’ve gathered exactly what type of player the Rapids should sign as well as who exactly they should sign.

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Front Office, In-Depth

Revisiting “The Rapids Way”

“Who are we?”

“What do we stand for?”

“What do we want to achieve?”

These three simple questions introduced the famous (infamous?) Colorado Rapids op-ed, a letter to the fans by Padraig Smith and Wayne Brant published in the Denver Post. Titled “The Rapids Way” Smith and Brant outlined just who they wanted to be, what they wanted to stand for, and what they wanted to achieve. It’s now been two years since “The Rapids Way” was published and the Rapids have failed to make the playoffs since. Currently, Colorado are at a <1% chance after a horrendous, record setting, worst start in Major League Soccer. While it is technically and statistically still possible for the Rapids to make the playoffs (miracles do happen sometimes), I don’t think this is what Padraig Smith or any of the Front Office had in mind when outlining the ambitions for this team. Rapids faithful know the term “perennial playoff team” all too well as that is what was promised to us that August.  However, we have yet to see playoff soccer make its return to Commerce City. So, two years to the date, it’s time to revisit “The Rapids Way” op-ed.

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World Cup

Denver 2026: The Mile High City Wants World Cup Soccer

Where will you be seven years from now? Hopefully, by the time July 2026 rolls around, you’ll be in your seat at Broncos Stadium watching intently as two countries play the beautiful game in the world’s most coveted tournament: The World Cup. On July 11th, a coalition came together to reveal the plans for Denver’s bid to host World Cup matches. The coalition features Governor Jared Polis, Mayor Michael Hancock, Colorado Soccer Association President Nate Shotts, Committee co-chair Bob Contiguglia, Executive Director of the Denver Sports Commission Matthew Payne, and the Colorado Rapid’s own Executive Vice President and General Manager Padraig Smith. This coalition will look to make the case to FIFA why their city should host the World Cup.

Canada, Mexico, and the United States joint bid to host the World Cup leaves them with games to divvy up and spread across the continent. Canada and Mexico will have three cities each to host while the United States will have ten for a total of sixteen host cities. Currently, there are seventeen potential host cities but only ten will ultimately make the cut. Denver, among those potential cities, has a pretty strong case already.

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Front Office

Rapids’ Madden speaks to supporters on Reddit

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Colorado Rapids Director of Communications Ryan Madden took to the internet to answer questions from Rapids supporters this week.

“We know that there are frustrations out there at the moment,” Madden stated in his open letter posted to the /r/Rapids subreddit, “you can believe me when I say that no one feels them more than we do.”

Madden expressed a desire to answer “questions about the club’s commitment to transparency” and have a conversation about supporters’ concerns regarding communication.

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