June 16, 2022 – Major League Soccer (MLS) – Colorado Rapids News Release
Welcome back, y’all. After two excruciating, empty weekends without Colorado Rapids soccer, the Burgundy Boys will be back in action this weekend against the defending MLS Cup champs, New York City FC.
This will be the first trip to New York for Colorado. The second will be in early August to face the Red Bulls. But as for the here and now, there’s a lot to know about NYCFC. They’ve seen key members of their trophy-lifting squad unexpectedly depart and also unexpectedly stay (for now) in MLS.
Announced just this week, manager Ronny Deila is out. He’s left on his own to take a job in Belgium with Standard Liege. Just a hair over six months since winning NYCFC’s first trophy back in December, the Norwegian manager is returning to Europe. Before joining NYC, he managed three Norwegian sides and Celtic from Scotland. Now he’s off to Belgium while NYC sit atop the Eastern Conference and bid for back-to-back MLS Cups.
Equally as surprising as Deila’s departure is forward Taty Castellanos’s remaining in MLS. Despite reports of multiple bids for the striker, along with an expectation he’d be moved this past winter, he’s still in the city that never sleeps. And the 2021 Golden Boot winner is still scoring goals, leading the team with seven. Rumors abound he may move during the summer transfer window. Maybe? He was supposed to leave in the winter according to many so who knows what to expect. But what matters for Colorado is he’ll be their opponent on Sunday.
The international break is a good demarcation point for the league. Teams can take a deep breath and evaluate where they sit. What’s working? What isn’t? Where can we improve in a short amount of time before the playoffs begin? For Colorado, they’re mostly doing what they need to do which is win home games. Things will change in the summer when defender Auston Trusty departs for Arsenal. The backline will have to adjust. That will be something to monitor. Even before the summer transfer window opened, the Rapids front office made moves to shore up the attack by adding forward Gyasi Zardes. Time will tell what other moves occur, but there’s no doubt everything is under evaluation.
Perhaps the brightest spot for Colorado this season has been forward Diego Rubio. His seven goals are just two off the league leaders in the Golden Boot race. with seven goals after 14 games, he has a great shot of hitting double digits. 15 is realistic and…
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