MLS CHAMPS VISIT FOR ICE-COLD MATCH
COMMERCE CITY» A team in transition with a new coach midway through his first preseason with the club, the Rapids will get a challenging progress report Tuesday when they host Toronto FC in a CONCACAF Champions League match.
The visitors won the “treble” last season, claiming the MLS Supporters Shield (best regular-season record), along with the MLS Cup and the championship of Canada.
“Best team in league history, that’s your scouting report,” said Colorado goalkeeper and captain Tim Howard. “Toronto is a finished product. We are growing by leaps and bounds every day. We’re trying to get better, and we have our sights set on some great things this year.”
Head coach Anthony Hudson has been in charge since November, after Pablo Mastroeni was fired last summer in midseason, with Steve Cooke finishing out the regular season as interim coach. Hudson is implementing a new formation (3-5-2) with a healthy dose of new players. Two more signings were announced Monday: striker Joe Mason, currently with Wolverhampton in England, and midfielder Enzo Martinez, from Colorado’s USL affiliate in Charlotte.
“It’s kind of a strange situation in a sense that we’re sort of halfway through the preseason,” Hudson said. “We’ve got 10-plus guys that are new on the team, new coach, new staff. We want a little bit more time, but also, this is a great game for us at this stage of preseason. If we didn’t have this game now, we would want a game like this now.”
Colorado will finish the two-leg series — the team’s first Champions League action since 2011 — next week at Toronto. The MLS opener comes March 10 at New England.
And the predicted temperature for Tuesday’s 8 p.m. kickoff ? Seventeen degrees.
“When a new coach comes in, not many people want to hear, ‘We’re a work in progress,’ and we understand that,” Hudson said. “We are pushing forward every day, almost forcing our way into making sure we speed things up as quickly as possible, but we have players who have only just arrived — key players. It is early days, but for sure our target is the first game of the regular season.”
Hudson isn’t trying to lower expectations for his team this season. Just the opposite.
“This is not just a trial season for us (or) an experimental season,” Hudson said. “We want to be there in the playoffs at the end of the season, challenging. We’re a young team, but for sure at the end of the season, we’ll be there, or thereabouts.”