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Colorado Rapids: Problem isn’t spending quantity, but spending quality

By Andrew Dowdeswell

COMMERCE CITY, CO - FEBRUARY 20: Colorado Rapids goalkeeper Tim Howard, middle, walks onto the field before the game as temperatures plummet to 3 degrees at the start of the game on February 20, 2018 in Commerce City, Colorado. This is the first round of 16 in the CONCACAF Champions League game at Dick's Sporting Goods Park. The Colorado Rapids take on the defending MLS Cup champs in tonight's game. The coldest game on record is 19 degrees at kickoff. Tonight's game could be much colder. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
COMMERCE CITY, CO - FEBRUARY 20: Colorado Rapids goalkeeper Tim Howard, middle, walks onto the field before the game as temperatures plummet to 3 degrees at the start of the game on February 20, 2018 in Commerce City, Colorado. This is the first round of 16 in the CONCACAF Champions League game at Dick's Sporting Goods Park. The Colorado Rapids take on the defending MLS Cup champs in tonight's game. The coldest game on record is 19 degrees at kickoff. Tonight's game could be much colder. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via Getty Images) /
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The Colorado Rapids are stone-dead last of the MLS standings. They lack ideas, a plan, any semblance of motivation, and have a roster of unused and unwanted, but expensive, players. Their problem? It’s not the quality of their spending, not the quantity.

The Colorado Rapids are in an absolute mess. There is no other way to put it.

Their latest embarrassment came on Saturday as New York City FC carved through them with painful regularity and ease, sauntering to a 4-0 win that could have been a basketball score had Patrick Vieira’s side shown any element of ruthlessness or clinical nature in front of goal. It was a pitiful effort.

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That disastrous display means that the Rapids are enduring a run of five successive defeats, scoring just two goals in those five games and conceding less than two in just one match. It won’t get easier when they face the Portland Timbers next weekend.

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And their woeful run of form, which coincides with a horrific start to last season also, has left them dangling at the bottom of MLS standings. They have eight points from ten games, a points-per-game of 0.8. Only the San Jose Earthquakes, at 0.82 points-per-game, and the Montreal Impact, at 0.75 points-per-game, can come close to that level of ineptitude.

Their inability to even offer a performance of effort and energy and dynamism, which is surely the minimum that any fan can ask of their team, begs the question: How has it gone so wrong? Why are the Rapids so poor? Even with new coaches, new players, new money invested, they seem to be in this same-old, dark hole once again. What’s gone wrong?

I actually think the answer is fairly straightforward. Quite simply, they have spent wisely. Now, before I go on to talk about specific players, when I say that the Rapids have spent wastefully, I am not necessarily saying that the players that they have bought are poor. I am merely saying that they do not fit what Hudson, as head coach, wants, or that their position is of poor value and should not demand such a high investment, or that Hudson himself is misusing the talent, and thereby it is wasted.

Consider the top-five earners, in order, in the Rapids squad: Tim Howard, Shkelzen Gashi, Stefan Aigner, Yannick Boli, Joe Mason. Of those five, Gashi, Aigner and Boli combine for just two MLS starts all season, Mason has scored two goals in 467 minutes of MLS action, while Howard is a goalkeeper, a position that should not demand the most expensive player in the squad. It’s utter madness.

And it’s not like the Rapids have spent lavishly at the top of their roster only to scrimp at the bottom. They have the 10th-highest salary total in the whole of MLS and the ninth-highest average salary. The Rapids have spent good money and invested significantly in their team. But they have done so poorly.

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Who should get the blame for that? It is difficult to say. The front office is certainly culpable, but then does Hudson need to shoulder the responsibility for failing to get the most of talented individuals? In time, the fallout will come and explanations will surface. But, for now, the Rapids are in a whole lot of trouble, and it’s simply because they have no wisdom with their wallet.

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