I feel insulted by the Colorado Rapids’ fan forum

Why am I mad? Because they insulted us with what they said in that fan forum. I was expecting them to come out and dodge questions and spew platitudes about hard work and the like, but I wasn't expecting the bullshit show that we received. Borrowing quotes from JPR's post, here's what made me so angry.

It was full of doublethink

For every single quote about how they are "bitterly disappointed with where we are today", there was another quote about how "the playoffs are still a realistic possibility". First they're "not where they want to be" and then they're frustrated because they're just "so close". So which is it? This team clearly can't say that they're good — any attempt to would be laughed out of the room, and they know that — but they're trying everything in their power to pretend like they are.

I said in my post the other day that this was a team that blatantly refused to talk about the fact that the team was not playing attractive soccer, and was instead playing the opposite. This was met by a response of "we want to play attacking soccer". That's it.

There is a problem with finishing on this team, but to pretend that's the biggest issue with the squad's offense right now is disingenuous at best and completely lacking in brainpower at worst.

There were also mentions of personnel on the team at times.

This is not a personnel problem, this is a tactical problem, and the team will absolutely never admit it, either to us or to themselves.

They don't understand that a lack of experience is hurting them

One section of the meeting featured Pablo talking about how he doesn't 'go rogue' with any of his decisions. Everything was in the open. That's still not a particularly good thing. I think Ben put it best:

Look, Pablo is pretty much the shitty Jurgen Klinsmann. He's a great motivator of men who knows fuck-all about tactics. Unfortunately, while Klinsmann has always had (for better or worse) a tactical maestro of some sort by his side to handle the actual soccery parts of a match, Pablo has no such person. His coaching staff is greener than the spray paint that they use to cover the sawdust that comprises Sporting Park's pitch. And as Kermit once told us, it's (just finish the damn joke yourselves).

They can't just get away with saying that they talk amongst each other regarding tactical and personnel decisions, because there's very little experience in the room when those talks are happening. John Metgod, the experienced voice in the room that they brought in to help Pablo last year, bolted from the scene under mysterious circumstances and still has yet to be replaced. Paul Bravo is not a coach, and neither is Tim Hinchey.

The rest of his coaching staff has little to no top coaching experience, excepting the experienced Steve Cooke. It's still a pretty bare-bones staff as well, with every coach on the team other than Pablo having multiple other duties. Cooke works heavily with the academy. Claudio Lopez isn't even officially listed as a coach, but rather as Director of Soccer. Brian Mullan is a coach and community ambassador. Chris Sharpe is a coach, but works more than anything with the goalkeepers. (And may we say he's doing a wonderful job in that regard!) This is a staff that desperately needs more names. Discussing things internally is great, but if you ask a group of first-year mechanical engineering students to invent things they're not yet taught to understand, it's not going to end well.

This team desperately needs a tactical wizard to come in and participate in these discussions, but the team seems completely oblivious to that fact.

They think we're idiots

Seriously, they would have gotten more respect from me if they had just come out and said "You're a bunch of idiots who don't know what's good for you". They didn't say that out loud at any point, but my goodness were some of those quotes hilariously insulting. Take a look at this quad-quote from Paul Bravo:

Are you fucking kidding me?

The team's best center back is playing at right back. The team's young defensive midfielder with great potential, who just had a monster of a match when finally at defensive midfielder, has spent most of the year playing center back. The team's new DP striker has been playing as an attacking midfielder. The team's best attacking midfielder is playing on the wing. The team's best winger isn't playing at all. What's consistency? What are positions? Why not just go all-out total football and just go out and run the Flying V? Play the reverse of how they did in the fucking 1800's and go with an 8-1-1 formation! You know you want to! Hey, just say that you're working on the attacking soccer but all the pieces just aren't falling the right way for you!

The Serna mention is the most insulting of all. The kid has the best shot conversion ratio among forwards and midfielders on the team with 25% of his shots going in. He has more goals than anyone named Gaby Torres and everyone else with two goals has twice or more minutes as him logged. Bravo's right, Serna is a special talent and one the team should be building around, but clearly is not. This isn't a 'well, maybe' situation. There is no 'well, maybe' involved with his only having four starts in 22 matches and 391 total minutes. They have taken possibly their most potential-ridden player, one that has the USMNT's attention and has since he was a teenager, and left him to rot on the bench. But hey, the spirit of the team just can't be beat!

This is insulting, and I can't possibly see things getting any better with time.

I'm going to go take 26 Bupropion and have a seizure now. Christ.