COMMERCE CITY — When Colombian Oscar Pareja played in Major League Soccer for New England and Dallas, he became accustomed to the pesky attention of opposing midfielder Pablo Mastroeni.

“With him, it was war,” Pareja recalled with a smile Monday on the practice field adjacent to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. “We shared a couple of good and bad words in Spanish and English.”

The relationship apparently was competitive, not toxic.

Pareja, the Rapids’ new coach, told his players on Monday’s first day of training camp that Mastroeni would remain the team’s captain. The 35-year-old Mastroeni, born in Argentina but raised in the Phoenix area and a graduate of North Carolina State, has been with the Rapids since 2002 and the team captain since 2004.

“I don’t have any doubt with Pablo,” Pareja said. “I sense it. I feel it. I think he’s a player that gains all the respect from the group.”

Pareja was animated in his first official on-field practice Monday. As the Rapids continued to negotiate with Colombian midfielder Jaime Castrillón, whose signing seems imminent, and as Colorado began preparing for its March 10 MLS opener at home against Columbus, it appeared that the heightened emphasis on attacking and entertainment was more than talk.

“I’m looking forward to an exciting year,” Mastroeni said. “Change is always hard for everyone, but I think it’s the only way to progress.”

He said of his reappointment to the captain’s role: “It says a lot about the confidence the coach has in me as a player and as a person as well. For me, the older you get in this game, the more it is about who you are as a person than who you are as a player. That’s very special. You don’t know where you stand with change.

“I’ve played against Oscar for many years, and I remember him being the kind of player you didn’t want to play against because you knew on both sides of the ball he was going to give you trouble. The respect is mutual, both for him as a player and the way he’s presented himself as a coach. It looks like he’s been coaching first-team soccer for many, many years. After any kind of talk, there’s a fire in your belly to want to get out there and work for Oscar.”

The strange part of all of this turmoil is that only a little more than a year ago, the Rapids were celebrating an MLS Cup championship. They even had a decent 2011, especially considering a bizarre run of injuries, advancing to the Eastern Conference semifinals before losing to Kansas City.

During the season, though, coach Gary Smith didn’t hide his differences of opinion with the front office, wasn’t signed to a contract extension and was fired after the playoff ouster. Less than a month later, general manager Jeff Plush followed Smith out the door. Pareja, a longtime Dallas assistant coach following his 2005 retirement as a player, was named to succeed Smith on Jan. 5.

Mastroeni said of the in-house tumult, both during last season and after: “It was hard because, like any story, you know you don’t know both sides. I wasn’t privy to a lot of the stuff that was going on. And what was important to me, and I think to all the players, was that you come out here every day last year and work as hard as you could. At the end of the day, it’s about progressing as a player. You can’t worry about the stuff that’s beyond you, in the front office and the stuff we have no contact with. It’s more important for us older guys to lead by example and come out here and lead every day.”

Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com

