Author: Chris White

Of those guys, O'Neill was one of the biggest surprises. He was a guy who was expected to be a back-up defensive midfielder on the roster after making a roster change from striker, the position he had played before getting signed to his homegrown deal back in 2012. The US U-20 team was giving him call-ups at center back though, and we were hinted at before the season that CB might be the position of his future, as well.

He still has some work to do, but that just makes it even more exciting to see what is to come.

PLAYER RATING: 7

.GIF TO SUM UP HIS SEASON:

But let's not talk about that. We're all about good vibrations around here at Burgundy Wave, so I figured we should send some good stuff into the atmosphere by simulating the hell out of the draw until we got a few results that we liked. After a bunch of permutations, the best one I was able to come up with was this:

So far, what's the best one of these that you guys have simulated? Post a screencap in the comments below and I'll mail it to Sepp Blatter with some dirty Qatar money. I'm sure he can make it happen.

A second professional soccer team is coming to Colorado, as there is reportedly going to be a USL-PRO team coming to Colorado Springs in 2015.

It was reported by several sources last night, with the Colorado Springs Gazette among them.

The team will be owned by Ragain Sports LLC president Nicholas Ragain, and the plan is to have them play in a multi-use stadium downtown. The team is expected to be formally announced on Thursday in a press conference.

MLS teams have been signing affiliation agreements with USL teams for the past year and the collaboration between the two leagues will likely continue to grow, so getting a natural USL franchise in for the Rapids to affiliate with nearby makes Colorado's future in that regard much clearer. The league will be losing its main draw in 2015 (Orlando City, which was announced as the 21st MLS Franchise a few weeks back) and they will likely be looking to fill the gap with even more team announcements by that point.

Chris Bianchi was the one to break the news to everyone on twitter, and the Rapids confirmed it through Paul Bravo later in the evening.

Last season, we were rather down on Marvell Wynne. He was coming off of a rather bad season that saw him fail to live up to the performances he had under Gary Smith at center back. I asked at the time for him to be moved to right back, and Oscar Pareja did indeed put him back at his original position.

He was better than last year, but he was unfortunately streaky throughout 2013. When he was good, he was good. Unfortunately, for every solid performance he had, he seemed to have a game or two where he would trip up and occasionally give up absolute stinkers.

Get it, cause he sometimes had coverage problems hahahahaugh.

The rest is history. Klute ended up taking the spot over with a vengeance. Not only was he sparkling going forward (his 7 assists led the team) but he also showed a defensive mettle that we aren't used to from such a young guy. He has been getting calls for a USMNT call-up, even perhaps one before the US goes to Brazil, and has been called the best left back in Major League Soccer. High praise. Though he, like everyone else on the team, faltered a bit near the end of the year, he was one of the key cogs in the big mid-season run that shot the Rapids into the playoff spots in the first place.

He'll get a slight knock on his grade because of the slow end to the season that he had, but the overall body of work is undeniable. We're all looking forward to seeing just how much better he can get.

PLAYER RATING: 7

.GIF TO SUM UP HIS SEASON:

#Swag

Lost in the shuffle of the fantastic seasons from the young guys on the Rapids was one rather muted story: Drew Moor had kind of a down year. All things considered, a down year for Drew Moor was still better than most players in a down year. In the final third, he struggled with his distribution, and defensively he had a few more clunkers than we expect from him. (That red card against the Galaxy was a rather black mark on the ol' resume, in particular.)

However, the overall story of the year will be his ascent into the full-time captainship. When Pablo Mastroeni started getting injured seemingly every game, Moor stepped into the captain's role, and it eventually ended in Pablo getting traded to the Galaxy and Moor being given the armband.

In the end, it's hard to be too down on a guy who was able to take the captain's role on a team full of youngsters and lead them to a playoff spot. Assuming he's back to his old self next season, we'll have a chance to see an even better defense overall than we saw this year. Shine on, Cap!

PLAYER RATING: 5.5

.GIF TO SUM UP HIS SEASON:

All right, I'll be honest, I couldn't find a good .gif for Drew, so I just went with something generally awesome. (Iron Man = generally awesome. I guess a Captain America one would make more sense but screw it.)

Kobayashi was not the most productive of players in 2013 in his first year of MLS duty, snagging two goals and four assists in 30 appearances for the 7th place Whitecaps. He was the quietly solid type throughout the year though, and I feel that part of the reason he failed to do more is because he was on a team that was built around getting the ball to Camilo more than anything else.

Kobayashi is experienced, steady, smart with the ball at his feet and I would rather have him as the first attacking option off the bench than any of those other guys at the moment. He can play on the wing or as an attacking central presence, which would guarantee him minutes since he'd be the man called when one of the wing-strikers or Dillon Powers went down. He also won't have to wait until the Re-Entry draft to get picked up, since he doesn't fit the requirements. The Rapids could get him off of waivers if they so desired.

The fact that he used to play for my favorite J-League club is merely icing on the proverbial cake. I think I've used the word 'proverbial' more in this post than I have in the last 1,000 combined on this site.

It's odd how sometimes a career can be made or broken on only a play or two. Steward Ceus' legacy with the Rapids, unless he manages to get the trust of Oscar Pareja back and put himself back in a position to be Colorado's potential goalkeeper of the future, is likely going to be summed up by a single play in his only start of the year. You know the one.

He stomped on our dreams.