RAPIDS TRAINING REPORT: READY TO START THE SEASON
The morning session looked like it consisted mainly of the players making the trip to LA on Friday. The rest of the squad was scheduled to participate in the reserve scrimmage that was canceled due to the weather. There was a ton of media out at training today. The television news crews were out as were several newspaper journalists. Nick Thomas, former writer of the blog WeWantRapidman, was out reporting for his new gig with MLSsoccer.com. Brian Jennings from Soccer365 was also out there getting in some comments from players. So there should be plenty of Rapids stories popping up in the next few days.
Training Observations:
- Jeff Larentowicz trained with the first team in the morning but was scheduled to get a few minutes with the reserves this afternoon. The word is that he is ready to play but it still isn’t clear if he will start.
- Colin Clark should make the trip to LA and play some part in the match.
- Scott Palguta is recovering from his Achilles tendinitis but probably won’t make the trip to LA. He was scheduled to play 60 minutes in the reserve match.
- Jaime Smith and Julien Baudet are shaking off a few knocks they took over the weekend but should be available on Friday.
- A few of the players had already gone back inside by the time they opened up training to the media but this is who I recall being out there : Earls, Moor, Kimura, Balluchy, LaBrocca, Pickens, Pablo, Cummings, Casey, and Larentowicz
Notes:
- The Rapids need to have their roster set by 3pm tomorrow
- Pat Noonan was waived
- MLSsoccer.com is supposed to launch tomorrow afternoon. (Everyone is keeping their fingers crossed)
- The word is that coach Smith is looking at a few players that have or might get waived from their MLS teams in the next couple of days. Busch? Elliot? Van den Bergh? DiRaimondo? Talley?
- The Rapids kick off the season at Chivas USA this Friday, March 26, at the Home Depot Center. Game starts at 8:30pm.
Final Thoughts:
Everyone is excited and anxious to get the season started. Its been a tough preseason and the guys are ready to start playing some games.
March 23rd, 2010 at 8:52 pm
I like the closing thoughts here:
“Everyone is excited and anxious to get the season started. Its been a tough preseason and the guys are ready to start playing some games.”
We all recognize that the team would have liked to get in a strong pre-season result this past Friday night against Seattle in the canceled Charity Shield Match… but, my question is… do you think the team feels cohesive and confident starting the season (with what could be seen as a less than confident pre-season results-wise to build upon)? Could be, not sure though.
March 24th, 2010 at 7:20 am
The feeling i get from the players is that the team is confident but they know they need some games to put it all together. Most of the players that i’ve talked to see preseason as preseason, it doesn’t count. There is a lot of experimenting and fitness issues. Some of the line ups consisted of purely trialists and rookies. So I don’t think the results will get the players down.
The real concern is the lack of playing time in real matches. Guys like Mastroeni, Larentowicz, Clark, and Smith make up the core of the team but haven’t participated in all the friendlies or even all of preseason due to injury. Pablo and Clark might be able to slip right into the lineup, but Larentowicz and Smith will need some time to get adjusted. The Charity Shield match would have been a perfect opportunity to get the starting 11 out there for a good run and make some final adjustments.