Frustration still simmers for Rapids
Missing MLS Cup Playoffs has Colorado searching for answers in offseason
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As the squad ran an extra end-of-practice lap around a pair of adjacent fields, Conor Casey, arguably the Rapids' most valuable player this season, stormed off the field, hurling expletives at head coach Gary Smith and assistant coach Steve Guppy, telling them they didn't know how to deal with people and saying, "I'm done. Trade me!"
While Guppy tried to rally the players to take responsibility for cutting a corner on their lap, setting up the extra running, he was met with what he called "mass refusal," and while Pat Noonan exchanged some heated words with his coach about the meaningless "punishment" in the midst of November training sessions that are hard enough to swallow after losing out on a third consecutive postseason, Smith replied that "too many corners were cut" throughout the season.
After an hour and a half of team meetings and one-on-ones with his players, Smith downplayed the seriousness of the incident without dismissing the sentiment behind the outburst and the tension he needs to defuse before sending his side to the offseason.
"We're all on tenderhooks and treading on egg shells, because there's a lot of underlying frustration in the group," Smith said after Thursday's training session. "How do we get that right? Only by making the postseason next year."
Obviously the Rapids will need to get things right long before the 2010 campaign. They ended their training session the way they ended their season in Salt Lake, full of frustration from spinning their wheels and exhausted from working all year for a goal they couldn't grasp.
Though Casey left the complex without elaborating on his stormy departure, Smith defended his star striker, confident Casey had not walked off the Rapids training field for the final time.
"Listen, if he wasn't emotional about this game and about the fact that he's the second highest goal-scorer in the league and we haven't made the postseason, I'd be bitterly disappointed," Smith said. "My job is to make sure I manage that to the right degree in making sure that we come back in the right fashion and he's in the right frame of mind.
"The one thing that I hope in all of the heated discussion, arguments, or problems that occur within the changing room is I've always told them how I feel, they've always told me how they feel, and I have never born a grudge against anyone," Smith continued. "The time somebody cannot walk in here and tell me how they feel and we can't have it out will be a problem, and vice versa."
While their Rocky Mountain rivals, Real Salt Lake, move on to a conference championship, fueled with the momentum of defeating the Rapids on the final day of the season, the Rapids find themselves enduring further training on a back field in Commerce City, running in circles as the frustration mounts from three consecutive seasons left out of the playoff picture.
A year ago, the Rapids left their November session with rejuvenated hope, their spirits lifted by the impact Smith made in his first 11 games as interim coach, establishing a 5-4-2 record for his share of an 11-14-5 season. After a full year as head coach, Smith's squad were in the playoff mix through most of the season, but finished with a seven-match winless streak, leaving them 10-10-10, a model for mediocrity.
"I still honestly felt leading in even to the last game that maybe our form leading up to that had given us enough, we'd built up enough points and enough strength and enough understanding in the group just to edge us through to the postseason," Smith said. "Sadly it didn't. But I did honestly think we had the right bodies just to get us through. Make no mistake, we were beaten by two better teams at the end of the season. That we'll hold our hand up to. But there's been an undertone outside the club that maybe the group weren't trying hard enough, or I didn't think they were good enough. That is a total misconception. I believed every step of the way that we would get in."
The perception of Smith's take on his team came from his own comments following the emotional loss in Salt Lake City.
"We need better players," Smith said in Salt Lake after the season-ending 3-0 loss. "What was very clear tonight was that some of the guys in that changing room are not good enough."
The comments are in keeping with Smith's refreshingly blunt assessments throughout the season, when he never shied away from challenging his players, whether in person or in the media, to bring their game up a notch to achieve the kind of results they'd set their sights on. Smith was effective in pushing his players to often overachieve over the first two-thirds of the season, working them hard and constantly challenging them to outplay teams who might have boasted more raw talent on the pitch.
But following a season-ending defeat after a two-month skid, the Rapids were left with no way to meet their coach's challenge as their playoff hopes sunk into the ultimate doldrums of three weeks of postseason training. Finally, the "undertone" Smith sensed from outside the club rose to the surface among the players themselves.
"I don't think my comments would have been any different to any head coach or manager around the world who was disappointed and who had missed out and who, by the way, was frustrated because I did feel that the group was good enough to get in," Smith said Thursday. "Do we need to strengthen and improve? Of course we do. But we're no different to any other group. I do think we've made good strides. The group has developed in a terrific way."
Smith has clearly made the team his own over his first full season as head coach, refusing to accept Colorado's recent seasons of shortcomings, making personnel changes that have reshaped the team's foundation and instilling a new culture in the changing room. But the Rapids' limp to the finish line in September and October forces an honest evaluation of the factors keeping the Rapids from ultimately competing among the top eight teams in a 15-team league.
"I don't have the complete answer," Smith said in looking for what keeps the Rapids distinguished from consistently successful MLS teams. "What I know is this group has worked as hard as I could possibly have expected a group of players to have worked day in, day out, to get into the postseason. Did we work too hard? Maybe that's a question that only I can answer and evaluate through the offseason. Maybe the fact that the guys are a little bit jaded has played into the fact that our form's dipped."
The Rapids played their season without apology, never looking for excuses when things didn't go their way and rarely relenting from offering the full effort necessary to keep them in contention to the season's final day. If nothing else, Casey's stormy departure from an otherwise inconsequential training session should spark the club to address the lingering issues keeping the Rapids out of the league's elite eight.
"I don't have the answer as to why we didn't make the postseason," Smith summed up. "It's hugely disappointing that we haven't made it. There's been a lot of soul-searching - me, the players, as you see this morning. There's a lot of friction as well. But that is all borne out of the disappointment of not making the playoffs. Will we leave here in three weeks' time and be mentally and physically prepared to come back during the close season? I have no doubt."
Owen Perkins is a contributor to MLSnet.com
