In 2017, just after he fired then-Rapids head coach Pablo Mastroeni, the club’s general manager Padraig Smith co-wrote an op-ed in the Denver Post titled “The Rapids Way.” In the essay, which is now mildly infamous in MLS circles, Smith outlined a new vision for Colorado, one in which the club would transform into a bold, attractive, attacking outfit.



In the two years after it was published, the Rapids were anything but. The man Smith hired to implement the plan, head coach Anthony Hudson, now the manager of the U.S. Under-20 national team, was an unmitigated disaster during his brief tenure in the Rockies. In 2018, his first season in charge, the Rapids finished with the third-worst record and fewest goals scored in MLS. At the start of last season, things got worse, with Colorado going winless in its first 11 games of 2019. Hudson was dismissed following the ninth, a 1-0 loss at Atlanta after which he slammed his own team as “fighting at the...