“Going to Give 100% Every Single Day”: Chris Armas Is Ready to Deliver for the Rapids

November 30, 2023 – Major League Soccer (MLS) – Colorado Rapids News Release

Pádraig Smith sat in the car in his driveway, dialing his Sporting Director, Fran Taylor, about news he’d just heard on the drive home. Chris Armas had just been let go from the technical staff at New York Red Bulls, and Smith wanted him on Colorado’s sideline.

“‘We should do anything and everything we can to get Chris Armas as an assistant coach right now’,” he told him.

Amongst the tribulations and triumphs of the Rapids’ 2020 season, Smith knew the team was still lacking something important, something he believed Armas could provide: a clear sense of how to create chances from the press, and in coordination, taking advantage of the altitude the Rapids played at nearly every day in Colorado.

Armas’ high-press, high-energy philosophy inherited from Jesse Marsch at Red Bulls was something the Rapids’ president believed could integrate with the Rapids’ philosophy, and one fellow midfielder Sacha Kljestan remembers having conversations with Armas about in his days at Red Bull Arena.

“The conversations I always had with him when he was the assistant coach…we all wish that there was a little bit more focus on when a team sat back and you had to have possession, trying to find more soccer ideas to try to break down the opponents, and I think that’s where Chris, given the opportunity, can have this cohesion between a high press, win the ball back and attack as fast as possible, but in different moments of the game, manage the game as well through possession,” the former midfielder said. “Chris was a very good possession player as well, and he was a thinker.”

There’s a reason DICK’S Sporting Goods Park is one of opponents’ least favorite stadiums to play in: the altitude at which it stands. At a mile above sea level, the atmosphere sucks the air from the lungs, leaving players doubled over, searching for oxygen. Combining a top level of fitness from a Colorado-based side with a high-pressing attack and it’s quick to see how opponents become breathless before the whistle blows for halftime.

The ability to wear visiting teams down with a high-press style accentuated by the effects of altitude, force turnovers and then hold possession to drive toward goal is the vision Smith and Armas have for 2024 and beyond.

This style of play is one not every player is accustomed to, including first-year center back Moïse Bombito. While the young Canadian international admitted to not having a past…