Paul Bravo Levies Criticism on Oscar Pareja

Oscar Pareja had quite a few problems with his tactics last season, ranging from roster selection to strange formations. One of the more overlooked problems he had was his 'win or die' mentality, the one that got the Rapids out to plenty of leads during the season but left them in the loss column more often than not. That was the reason why the Rapids only managed to get four draws all season, the fewest in MLS. (Three teams tied for second fewest with six ties.)

In Chris Bianchi's latest MLSSoccer.com article, Paul Bravo quipped that Pareja's game mentality might have been his biggest flaw last year, and gave a quote on it indicating that at the very least, Oscar is listening to the team on the subject:

Quite frankly, the team got a number of wins that almost matched what Gary Smith picked up during most of his years here — Pareja's Rapids got 11 wins, Smith's got 10, 12 and 12.The difference was in the points picked up from draws, so Pareja can do one of two things. He can turn the team into a 15-17 win team and keep the win or die mentality, or he can improve the win column by one or two while snagging four or five more draws than losses.

Something tells me that the latter is a far more likely option, barring some magnificent signings over the off season.