The Last Act of the Colorado Rapids 2025 MLS Season

Editor’s Note: This preview was written before the Djordje Mihailovic’s trade news on August 4th. I’ve edited out the Mihailovic parts of the article but will touch on his absence and what it means for the Rapids in the closing re-edited sections. I’ve had to redline a lot of the article already so if it reads a bit more optimistically than where we are at now that’s why. I still didn’t want to delete all of it because I’m proud of this one and it’s not often I get to write at length about the Pids. Consider this my Frankenstein piece.

At the start of the 2025 season, I had quite a lot of questions about this team. Not only were questions asked of the team but so too were “xPectations” set for how the season could look. This Rapids season has been a rollercoaster nestled within a larger spinning roller coaster that is this 2025 MLS Season. The bar for success has long been set by the team; be a perennial playoff team. Given the league has since lowered that bar themselves with the introduction of the Wildcard Playoff format, there are a lot more “honest losses" and results that you could find excusable within any given season. After all, few teams ever get to have an invincible seasons and much less in one with as much parity as MLS1.

For that reason, being the “best team” isn’t always the answer. You quite simply have to be mid (non-derogatory) to succeed in this iteration of MLS and I can’t find a better word to explain the Rapids season this year. The Rapids have both won and lost matches they should and shouldn’t have; they’ve had some strong home showings and some very poor ones; and on the road, they’re a coin flip of either bad or good but never really out.

So, are we in for some more topsy-turvy footy or is there a pathway evident for a strong finish towards the end of the season? What do the advanced stats say about the Rapids this year? How close is this team to an MLS Cup?2

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What were the xPectations?

As I mentioned in the intro, the Rapids bar of success is to be a perennial playoff team. That is the expectation set forth by the powers that be. I personally wouldn’t count making the playoffs this year as the check mark on their perennial playoff team status. I still think they need to string three back-to-back seasons of playoff footy to consider themselves that.

Still, that is the measurement. The Rapids stand at the foot of the mountain that is the MLS Western Conference and remain competitive*.

In setting my “xPectations”, I lined out various “if, then ” statements.

• If Chidozie Awaziem can elevate the backline: the Rapids will be a playoff team.
• If Reggie Cannon can stay in form, his play will offset any drawbacks from the left back.
• If Zack Steffen achieves a positive PSxG+/-, the Rapids will be a strong Western Conference contender.
• If Cole Basset plays out of position, the Rapids will lose their attacking bite.
• If Bassett elevates the defensive aspect of his game, the Rapids will win silverware this season.
• The Rapids attack will remain in tact if they can improve on their npxG from 2024
• If Kevin Cabral overperforms his xG, the Rapids will have found their star winger.
• If the wingers continue to underwhelm, the Rapids will switch to the three back.
• If Navarro’s Receiving G+ improves, the team will score 50+ goals.
• Any chances at silverware diminish if the Rapids sell and/or lose key players*.

Banal Backline

For a team that has shelled out quite a lot of salary on the backline, the Rapids have had a very bad return on the defensive end. I have been a very harsh critic of the backline over the course of the last two years. At the time of writing the xPectations piece, the Rapids had just bolstered their backline with the additions of Chido Awaziem and Ian Murphy. Murphy has largely been serviceable depth while Awaziem never really found form.

Despite being an aerial threat for Cincinnati last season, he provided little to no set piece advantage this year, was at fault for some poor goals conceded this year, and never really showed his passing bag. He was calm on the ball and impressed in his first few starts but fast forward to August and he’s no longer a part of the team. I can’t see this as anything other than a flop.

Awaziem was the 7th highest paid defender in all of MLS. I was wrong to assume he would be a plug-and-play upgrade and for that reason that first statement is way off. Chido didn’t elevate the backline and, yet, the Rapids remain competitive.

So, given that a big CB addition didn’t massively turn around the team, does the inbound Rob Holding really move the needle that much? Holding is “seemingly” what the club needs but so too was Awaziem. What is that to say of Andreas Maxso who will now find himself with a fifth center back partner3 in the last three seasons? Maxso is the 8th highest paid4 defender in the league and shares a lot of the blame for the poor defense as well. Though, it is worth mentioning his play has been better than usual.

The fullbacks remain a large sore spot. Opposing teams would focus play through Colorado’s left back in an effort to pinch Cannon into defending the far post which usually resulted in a swining cross across followed by a high quality chance (which usually went in). If teams can negate having to go through Cannon, they will do so by forcing him into a weaker aspect of his game. It’s made easier for opposing teams when Cannon is utilized further up the field as a wing back. Cannon is at his best when he’s one on one making life hard for the dribbly boys of the league. Whether he’s tactically pinched out of the game or at fault for a costly turnover in the attack, Cannon has not been in form. If he was in form would that be enough to make up for the poor play at LB? Jackson Travis had a string of starts before Sam Vines finally assumed the starter role; neither of whom have particularly impressed this season. Vines has started to see a lot more positive regression having finally played out of a rather poor slump but he’s still not playing at his Vines-back peak. He has started pushing up the field more in an attempt to find that wingback production but with just one assist there’s still a lot to be desired.

Finally, that leaves the goalkeeper position. I was very harsh on the Zack Steffen deal, his play last season, and the entire goalkeeping situation. To quote myself here:

I’m going to chalk his previous season up to the European Footy Hangover of readjusting to life in the United States after leaving a prominent hotbed of the sport. I’m hoping that a much more settled Zack Steffen with USMNT prospects in sight can 180 his form.

And 180 his form he did. Zack Steffen, according to the advanced stats, is the best goalkeeper in MLS. Period. Do you want to know who is really close behind him? Backup goalkeeper Nico Hansen. Hansen’s emergence for the Pids amidst Zack Steffen and Adam Beaudry’s absences was just what the team needed and his play was so remarkable it relegated Beaudry to a third string option. Whether it’s Steffen or Hansen, the one common denominator between the two is simple: they’re being continually left out to dry by the personnel ahead of them.

Steffen can withstand a lot more than Hansen can but even he has suffered bad fates at the hands of the Rapids defense ahead of him. Outside of the one glaring Hansen mistake against SKC, neither keeper has had some questionable goalkeeping moments. Still, why does the defense remain so bad?

The Rapids defense is bad…

Just how bad are they?

The 2025 Colorado Rapids season, after 25 games played:

• Have conceded 39 goals (7th in the Western Conference)

• Are third to last in xGoals Against with 42.9.

  • San Jose Earthquakes (43.7) and Sporting Kansas City (48.3) are the next two worse.

• Are tied for second most away goals conceded in the Western Conference

  • San Jose Earthquakes and FC Dallas are level with 23 goals against. LA Galaxy lead with 30 against.

• Have conceded the third most Goals Added Against (37.96) in the entire league

  • St Louis CITY (38.01) and Sporting Kansas City (40.74) are the next two worse.

• Have conceded the most Dribbling G+ against (3.51)

• Have conceded the fourth most Receiving G+ against (18.58)

  • New York Red Bulls (19.45), St Louis CITY (20.62), and Sporting Kansas City (21.55) are worse.

and finally, the most damning.

• Lead the league in Shooting G+ against. (9.86)

Again, for a team that has invested heavily into the defensive aspect of their game, to continually rank amongst the league’s worst defenses should ring alarm bells. Either the player acquisition model remains flawed or head coach Chris Armas needs a defensive coordinator to help shore up the backline5. It’s far too easy to dribble at this team and teams are now finding more quality shots against the Pids. There’s only so many times the goalkeeping core can bail this team out of their worst defensive moments.

Above Midfield

If there’s anything keeping this team afloat, it’s the midfield. We’ve seen various looks of the midfield and it’s shape. Cole Bassett’s injuries this year have hindered any replication of his 2024 form and it also hasn’t helped that he’s been playing out of position. Still, the team has done well without their best player of the 2024 season and a lot of it is due to the work put in by midfield bull dogs Josh Atencio and Oliver Larraz. The two have done a lot of good work in midfield and remain a strong aspect of the team’s depth, but it should be noted just how much Bassett still elevates this team when he plays ahead of one of the two. To quote the article again…

It’s bizarre how disjointed the team plays when Bassett plays further up the field. When playing further up the field, his errant first touch disrupts the team’s flow in possession. When Bassett carries the ball playing from a deep position, the various players operating around him thrive off the unpredictability of his runs and decision making. His feints and weaves make for excellent ball control, he can ping a nice pass here and there and can also be a massive threat in the box.

Before Bassett’s injury, the homegrown midfielder played as a left winger either in a pressing 4-2-2-2 or in the more balanced 4-2-3-1. Either way, playing further up the field, as he claims, is not his game and since returning from injury has featured more primarily in a holding midfielder spot.

The advanced stats this year have not loved Cole Bassett at the DM position but if you look at the rest of the team, you’ll see a large increase in their production. In the five games before Bassett started playing from deep, Calvin Harris had a G+ rating of -0.56. In the five game after Dungeon Master Bassett’s return to the XI, Harris had turned his G+ production around with 0.46 G+ featuring very strong Shooting G+ (0.14) and Receiving G+ (0.24) to boot. Theodore Ku-DiPietro went from a rather weak 0.08 G+ player to a G+ of 0.38 with strong work off the ball (0.22 Fouling G+). Darren Yapi went from a -0.6 G+ striker to a strong 0.48 G+ benefitting from very strong sub appearances.

Cole Bassett simply helps the attack playing from deep. It remains his best position in Burgundy and one of the key pieces to the entire Rapids setup as it currently stands.

The Robin to Bassett’s Batman, however, is still undecided. Between Oliver Larraz, Josh Atencio, and Connor Ronan, Chris Armas and the Colorado Rapids have a great set of players to choose from here. Atencio’s strong defensive work should make him the de facto favorite here but recently Connor Ronan has had a good spell of form.6

That midfield starting spot next to Bassett remains wide open. I have no reason to believe any would be a bad choice for the remainder of the season, but it’s been nice to know that even with Bassett out, the team still can find ways to win. The team has eased off of their over-reliance for Bassett; for better or for worse.

Where did all the goals go?

Do you remember when the Rapids scored a bunch of penalties last year? Around this time last year, after 26 games played, the team had scored a total of 50 goals. Wow. This year, and a game short, the Rapids have scored just 31 goals on 36.4xG. That is quite the underperformance. The team has recently started to find some attacking form but I had much higher xPectations for this attack.

And yet, I still prefer this attack than last year’s. Here is some good news: Rafa Navarro is doing less on the ball! With steady producing wingers, the attacking lineup behind Navarro is feeding him a lot more. His Receiving G+ has taken a massive step up from last year’s Receiving G+ of -0.9 to a big 1.26 this year. His Dribbling G+ has taken a bit of a nose dive but that was expected if he was going to have a big swing the other way in Receiving.

The Rapids have 9 games left in the season and if they are to reach 50 Goals, they’ll need to average 2.11 goals a game. My own model projections think the Rapids can get quite close to this number with the remaining schedule.7 A strong 1.91 average is almost 2.11 but some limitations to the model persist. For that to happen, they have to start converting chances.

One winger who failed to do so was Kevin Cabral who was formally waived by the team. I had set a lofty xPectation for the French winger, but by no means did I think he’d actually get there.

Cabral has yet to overperform his xG in any of his seasons in MLS. The winger’s biggest downside to his game is his lack of scoring. His shooting G+ is best amongst the rest of the winger core on the team and while it’s not an impressive number, it’s still ranks fairly well amongst other MLS wingers.⁶ Cabral has already proven to get into great spots on the field he just needs luck to go his way and find that form. It could be the difference between the Rapids being a playoff team and being the team we saw to close out the year.

Cabral never found any luck and instead played towards a very anticlimactic departure. His signing still haunts the team in many ways as the club can’t actually free up his DP spot without a team formally picking up his contract. So long as Cabral remains without a team, the Rapids will remain without a DP or U22 spot. Not only did Cabral not find luck, he’s left the team with some bad luck. Play stupid games; win stupid prizes.

The Rapids have yet to play out of a back three. Even with inconsistent wingers, the 4-2-3-1 remains the prevalent formation. Some slight variations include when an additional attacker is added for more pressure in a 4-2-2-2 or when more midfield strength is required we’ll see the triple pivot out of a rigid 4-3-3. Either way, it plays the same way and there doesn’t seem to be a change coming. It’s worth noting that the recent winger core has seen much improvement.

However, I’m refuting my point about the inconsistency because have the wingers really been inconsistent? This year, the production from the wings hasn’t necessarily been night and day but the ceiling and overall potential of KDP and Calvin Harris remains pretty high. This is really just a team that has lost it’s penalty magic. For as much penalty magic as they have lost, the wingers are making up for it in modest production. Still not anywhere near the top caliber sides but steady production from some budget friendly player is way better than a massive contract spend you’re getting exactly nothing out of.

Final* Verdict

Whether the Rapids make the playoffs is ultimately up to you and your general outlook of the team. If you believe this team hasn’t really reached it’s top gear and will play itself into a strong Western Conference showing you’re a glass half full type of person. For all my glass half-empty folks, the biggest blight is the defense. Again, for as much as the team has spent, something many fans begrudge the club for not doing, shoring up the backline and for it to be amongst the worst defenses in the league is the biggest alarm bell I could ever point to. The goals, you’d imagine, will come by. If they do, the defense needs to show some strong improvement. Is that a lot of pressure on new signing Rob Holding? On paper it should be, but there’s plenty of preceding factors that could afford him a long leash.

Asterisk

This would have been a perfect way to segue into the final section of the article where I look at the rest of the season’s matches but there’s a very big omission to the article. News broke on August 4th of Djordje Mihailovic’s trade to Toronto FC.

The move was an absolute shellshock. 24 hours removed from the initial report and it’s still doesn’t feel real. It’s both shocking and exactly what we have come to expect from the club; This is their MO.

The Rapids cycle of acquiring a top caliber star only for them to leave in such an astounding way is exactly the kind of stuff we’ve been used to. Whether it’s as toxic as Stefan Aigner back in 2017, quietly swept away like Kellyn Acosta heading in to 2022, or in the middle of the season as we are seeing now continues to show just how poor the club is at handling top players. For whatever reason.

I made the point as much in that article:

Throughout the last few years we’ve seen the team blow up their core and rebuild. This is year two of this project and if any of the more prominent players get sold it’s hard not to look at Rapids history for what that could mean. In 2022 and subsequently 2023 key players for the Rapids either went down with injury or were sold and the team never recovered.

Year two of the project barely made it to August before it was blown up. To further quote myself here:

There are more factors in the Rapids control that can ruin their chances than bolster them.

This Mihailovic trade hinges on a lot of factors and to disagree with myself above, I don’t think the Rapids were in full control of this one. The player forced the move after Colorado rejected two bids for him.

You can probably point to the lack of ambition as a factor and the most damning of them all. Had the Rapids and Co. been more ambitious and brought in higher caliber stars maybe Djordje sticks around. Mihailovic at one point was underperforming his xAssists by 5. It wasn’t until recently where his hattrick of assists against Vancouver at home helped regress that number positively. Still, the club failed to put players around Mihailovic. Unlike Jokic though, Mihailovic left. And now the Rapids season is in serious jeopardy.

Pictured above is the Rapids last nine matches this season. When referencing the Western Conference Standings above, there are some teams ahead with a game in hand making the task a bit more daunting. I’ve said this year the Rapids have an “okay-to-good” floor in MLS. A lot of that was thanks to the strength of Mihailovic’s game. We’ve seen a lot of the “okay” of this team in the Summer stretch and it would have been fine heading in to the latter part of the season. It would have made for a fun story to see how the Rapids would overcome this mountain ahead of them. Now, without Mihailovic, it’s as if the Rapids threw their already damaged climbing gear away and will settle for whatever progress comes.

This can be prevented, however. To stick to the mountain metaphor, the team needs some new climbing gear. With three weeks left in the window, it’s a tight turnaround to meaningfully bolster the team but they need to act fast. Otherwise, I don’t see how this is anything but a punt for the season; whether by choice or not. If the Rapids fail to replace Mihailovic between now and August 21, you can kiss this season goodbye. With the defensive issues already plaguing the team, you’re going to be hard pressed to find goal contributions without the second best attacking midfielder according to American Soccer Analysis.

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My final questions for the article were: “Where do you see this team finishing? Where did I go wrong here?” but those two questions are no longer coming from a genuine curiosity to see how this team could finish. So, instead, sound off down below and your comments may be featured on next week’s newsletter.