Rapids Class VI

Class VI Player of the Year Award

While the Colorado Rapids handed out their team MVP award to Pablo Mastroeni who signed a new four year deal which will keep him a Colorado Rapids player to finish out his career, Class VI members voted to give their Player of the Year Award to Conor Casey.

Casey won the award with 42% of the vote with a tie between Nick LaBrocca and Pablo Mastroeni each getting 12% of the vote.

After the game, Casey came over to section 108 to receive the award - but was understandable not much in the mood to celebrate his personal victory while the team had just bombed out of the playoff picture to Rapids arch-rival Fake Salt Lake.

Conor is pictured here in front of the Rapids trophy cabinet holding the Class VI award. He is the second winner of the annual supporters award with Bouna Coundoul winning the fist such award.

Congratulations Conor - and here's hoping that 2009 sees you hitting the back of the net twice as often and leading us to MLS Cup under new coach Gary Smith.

Something to do until 2009 starts

Soccer In A Football World, The Story of Americas Forgotten Game, by David Wangerin

Reviewed by Joe Higgins

Class Sixers, the dark months here. I know lots of you are still in pain and shock from the way the season ended.

Sixers, I'm here to help. Why not while away the long months between Conor Casey hamstring pulls with a good book? It's an option Fake Salt Lake fans don't have, since most can't read, but CVIers with their distinguished cast of bloggers, educators and all around wits are known for erudite observations and bon mots, some of which don't even start with the letter 'F'.

So I'll start with a relatively recent addition to my soccer library, and one I think that most can enjoy, Soccer In A Football World, The Story of America's Forgotten Game, by David Wangerin. Here, in a nice little 338-page package, is a wealth of diligently researched info about America's version of the World's game, from its 'Tangled Roots", a full chapter on the first pro league, which gave the fledgling NFL a run for its money and probably contributed to a loosening of the purse strings in England's Football League; to the "Revenge of the Commie Pansies", a chapter on the 1994 World Cup; and all the way up to "Take Me Out to the Soccer -specific Facility" a look at what the Altitude announcers insist on calling "the" MLS.

Along the way, we get a fairly balanced look at American soccer's flops and golazos, its champions and bashers, and the snarling, xenophobic ignorance that in concert with internal greed and backbiting have kept it in the shadows of the nation's cultural arena. For every hater like Dick Young- the originator of the infamous "commies and pansies' quote- there is a US Soccer Association, whose institutional small mindedness helped to kill the American Soccer League of the 1920's, and probably doomed the US Open Cup to decades of irrelevance. Not a pretty picture, but I guess we all knew that. The difference is that Wangerin names names, gives scores and attendances, and transports us to the mill towns and ethnic enclaves that rose to prominence in soccer's early years, only to fade into obscurity. It is fascinating stuff.

This is certainly a book that fills a huge gap, but there are some disappointments.
"Charting the peculiar course of Soccer in America will require more than a passing reference to its distant and violent cousin", Wangerin tells us, and there is a detailed recounting of the transformation of college football from soccer rules to rugby rules, but quickly thereafter he "loses the plot". This may be excusable. Certainly, soccer becomes little more than an afterthought to cultural and sports historians after 1930. But I would have loved a more in-depth examination of Red-State America's Gridiron and Blue-State Soccer's clashes on front lines in the culture wars. Perhaps that's a different book.

Less forgivable is his insistence on peppering his book with Britishisms. I'm not one to carp too much about the barroom anglophiles who drop references to "nil-nil" score lines or "cheeky" passes. But Wangerin, an American expatriate whose book is published here by Temple University Press (Philadelphia), and who is clearly targeting an American audience (who else would care?), gives in to this self indulgence far too much. For example, he give player weights in "stone". This is either bad editing or lazy writing and is about as irritating as that Altitude announcer referring to our D-Mid as Pablo "Mass-tree-oney".

These flaws are not enough to damn a needed book, however. Before we can understand fully what is needed to make MLS succeed, I believe we need to be aware of how and why soccer has consistently failed here, and at the same time the rich history that makes it a TRULY American game in the best sense of the word.

This book is a great place to start. It's only about $15 and I recommend you slide it into some deserving fan's X-mas stocking. Because if we leave Soccer's tale to the Altitude announcers, I shudder to think think how it will be told.

The Rapids Coaching Search...Done?

Hey folks, Bonji posting here under Mark's login because mine seems to have disappeared, or at least I forgot it. The Rapids coaching search has been on my mind a lot recently and I've been emailing with some friends in the soccer world about it. Where are the Rapids going to go with this search? Spencer, Mariner, Fraser or Smith? The slate is clean. Surely they're going to take prudent time and talk to some folks once playoff obligations are finished. Surely...

Thanks to Class VI member JasonMa's discovery there is news on the coaching front that has me nervous. It is interesting in that it neither comes from the Rapids nor does it pertain to the head coaching position...directly.

The Rochester Raging Rhinos have released a statement saying player/assistant coach, Stephen Guppy, will be joining the Rapids come the new year as an assistant coach. What?

If it is true that Stephen Guppy has been hired by the Rapids as an assistant coach it certainly implies that the head coach matter is resolved. It implies that Gary Smith is the man for the Rapids in 2009 and beyond. I mean, a properly functioning sporting organization wouldn't hire an assistant without the input of the head coach...right?

Let's assume the previous statement is in fact true; the Rapids are a properly functioning sporting organization. In that case we need to figure out if this hiring is true or not. One unnamed, high level source inside the Rapids says it isn't. That "someone has incorrect information at the moment..." That statement has all sorts of innuendo as well. For the moment... What the heck does that mean? In a moment it will be correct?

Calls to the Rochester Rhinos found their office closed. I attempted to use their website to submit a question to Guppy himself and the form didn't seem to want to work. I called and emailed the Rapids press officer, assuming that is the right person to contact, and he wasn't at his desk. I've emailed a question to Jeff Plush and haven't received a response. Gary Smith's voice mail doesn't even have a greeting or his name on it. All lines appear to be busy right now...and I'm not a real journalist so that is as far as I'm taking it.

I was able to learn that a local media member who covers the Rapids spotted Stephen Guppy at training over the last couple weeks of the season. That person said, "everybody saw him out there." It doesn't seem like Guppy joining the Rapids is that out of the question if he's been hanging around training.

So the Rapids haven't confirmed the news and there is evidence supporting it is possible, but someone in the organization says it isn't true...right now. Clear as mud. Another stunning media relations job by the Rapids. They never seem to be able to handle this stuff as professionals. I don't get it. How hard is it to tell the Rhinos and Guppy to keep a lid on it? Summary, it could be true and as JasonMa pointed out, it clearly implies that the Rapids have made a choice on their head coach.

Let's get back to an earlier question. Are the Rapids a properly functioning sporting organization? When goal keeper coach Leo Percovich was fired earlier this season, then head coach Fernando Clavijo seemed to be left out of the equation. The Rapids said publicly it was Clavijo's decision but he told people in person otherwise. That doesn't seem like a healthy working relationship.

It is no secret that there was tension between Clavijo and the front office. If you ever ran into Clavijo in the Miami airport before a flight back to Denver he would tell you how dysfunctional the club is. Trust me. My personal hope was that with Clavijo's departure that kind of meddling and dysfunction in the front office would be done with. The assistant coaches would be the domain of the head coach...as it should be. But is it?

This situation will be a good measuring stick for that issue. Should Guppy be appointed assistant coach in January with Gary Smith at the helm then it seems all is in order, Smith got the job and brought in an assistant. The Rhinos just leaked the info too soon. However, should Smith be gone after MLS Cup and there is another head man, and Guppy still gets the job, then one has to ask who is calling the shots and why? Why can't the Rapids function as a proper sporting organization?

Will the Rapids be able to win so long as these kinds of issues persist? Sometimes I doubt it.