The Rapids Way: An Evolution

Who are we? What do we stand for? What do we want to achieve? These are perhaps the most important questions that any organization can ask itself, in large part because answering them truthfully requires complete honesty. It also requires committing to a strong set of values, acknowledging shortcomings, and perhaps most importantly, it requires looking ahead to the future.

As interim general manager and chief business officer of the Colorado Rapids Soccer Club, we believe these are questions best answered in the public eye. In part, because sports organizations — soccer clubs especially — must be just as focused on the community they represent as they are on the success they aspire to achieve. When supporters come out for a match, they should look out over the pitch and see something familiar. Something that makes them proud not just of their team, but also the culture that it embodies.

At the Rapids, we’ve long sought to accomplish that. But far too often — at the fault of no one individual in particular — there has at times been a disconnect between the club’s vision and the product on the field. Alongside the rest of our talented front office, our primary goal is to fix that disconnect. To bridge that divide.

We believe that to earn the fans’ trust, we must be transparent about what our vision is and how we plan to get there. We must also be held accountable when things are not going the way they should. In doing so, it allows fans to see us taking the concrete steps needed to turn that vision in to a reality.

Internally, we call our vision The Rapids Way. But as we sit here today, we realize that to be successful, The Rapids Way must evolve.

And to do that, we must first embrace the things that our club has always done well. The things that make us who we are. Then we must be honest with ourselves about what we’re not doing well, and find a way to improve. Finally, we need to be open and forthcoming about where we want to go.

Long before either of us arrived in Commerce City, the Rapids were a club whose success was built on being well-organized, difficult to break down, and good at grinding out results. Some seasons were better than others, of course, but by and large those attributes have been the calling card of this club for much of its 21-year existence.

Yet the last few seasons have shown that those attributes are no longer enough. It’s simple — we have to improve. And in doing so, we need to become a more attack-minded team. We need to invest our time and resources in becoming bolder, and more creative in how we conduct ourselves.

With that in mind, going forward we will look to target players who play with boldness and urgency. We will look for players with high soccer IQ and game intelligence. Explosive players with good mobility. Players whose first instinct is to drive forward, to seek out the line-breaking pass, and to take on his opposite number. Players who, at the end of the day, exhibit the same burning desire to win that we do.

Player acquisition alone will not be enough though. We’re also going to implement a system — or a set of principles — in the coming months that will allow for us to think vertically and allow our attacking players more freedom.

We want to be a high-intensity team that is willing to take calculated risks in the right areas of the field — but all the while maintaining the defensive discipline that is part and parcel to who we are, and always have been.

In short, we’ll hold tight to the things that this club stands for, but we must find evolution in the areas that we aspire to improve.

In a league of extreme parity, we’ll also need to continue to exercise a healthy degree of financial intelligence and make sure we’re getting the best players at the best value. It is because of this approach that we’re confident in our ability to improve our team from a personnel standpoint ahead of the 2018 season and beyond.

Ultimately, though, our goal for this club is to be a perennial playoff team who regularly competes for trophies. At the end of the day, everything we do is about putting ourselves in a position to win an MLS Cup. We want to bring another trophy home to Colorado.

There are, of course, other pieces to the puzzle. Continuing the work being done in our Development Academy, getting the absolute most of our sports science and data analytics teams, and moving away from a player acquisition policy that in the past has been agent-driven, to one that is system- or philosophy-driven.

Above all, though, we want to make our supporters proud. We want them to know that we are evolving and that we stand with them as one club. We want them to know that success is not far away. And that there is a plan in place to achieve it.

Pádraig Smith is the sporting director and interim general manager of the Colorado Rapids. Wayne Brant is the Rapids’ interim chief business officer.