As the Colorado Rapids prepare to play their final home game of the 2014 season - against FC Dallas this Saturday (TICKETS) - play-by-play announcer Richard Fleming sat down with club president Tim Hinchey to discuss the 12-game winless streak, his meetings with Arsenal during a recent trip to England, and what fans can look forward to in 2015.

Richard Fleming: You’re just back from a trip to England, which we gleaned from an interview with Paul Bravo. It was mentioned in that article that you would be holding talks with Arsenal. How did they go?

Tim Hinchey: It was a great trip. First and foremost, I go out to ‘Leaders in Sport’, which is a major football conference every year at Chelsea, and I have (been attending) for six years. This is a planned thing that I do every year, so being in London we had talked in advance about getting together, as we work hard to create a closer collaboration with Arsenal. Certainly, I think, as the league continues to rise, it’s helpful to them to see what’s happening in Major League Soccer and, without question, with Man City’s recent investment in New York City that’s certainly urged Arsenal to continue to see how perhaps – within the family – we could work together. They took us up to their training ground at Colney, where we got to take in the Under-18s Academy match against Southampton. They then hosted us the next day for the Chelsea and Arsenal match, and then on Monday, Paul (Bravo) and I got an invitation from Ivan Gazidis (Arsenal CEO) to sit with him to set up what was going to be a more important meeting later in the week – on the Friday – with Dick Law, who oversees their player personnel. We just talked about where the two clubs are and what might be some ways in which we can start to partner, and what Ivan suggested as a real starting point was from a scouting perspective. They have a lot of resources and infrastructure that they’ve invested into their scouting, and he’s offered to share that with us, for the first time, so I think that will certainly be a fantastic boost as we continue to know what we need to compete. The league’s growing fast and we need to keep up, and to be able to tap into one of the world’s greatest club’s scouting networks would be something we’re keen to do and we certainly welcome that offer. We talked a little about player development. We talked specifically about South America and Central America, and that led to us getting back together on Friday and we talked about opportunities for key players that may or may not be in the long-term view for Arsenal. We discussed the possibility of potential loan opportunities and acquisition opportunities from some of their player ranks should the opportunity arise in January.

RF: Fans will have seen the recent run, and I know this is not a trip which has been triggered the last few weeks – it’s been planned a long time in advance – so how has the last 12 games affected what was discussed over in England, with an eye on 2015?

TH: Well, without question, it hasn’t been a very good run. We’re not happy about it. No-one’s happy about it. I’m sure you ask the same question to Paul, Pablo, the coaches, the players, no-none’s happy about this and nor should we be. It’s not something any of us envisioned when we were sitting in third place with a fantastic victory on July 25th. Again, this trip was planned for some time. In fact, it’s an annual trip for me, but it was a trip that made sense for Paul to come on months ago based on our long term player acquisition goals. Clearly there’s even more of a heightened sense of awareness and we fully realize that we need to invest. We need to find more key ‘difference makers’, as Paul likes to say, and Pablo likes to say, and right now like José Mari who we found in Spain last year, there are a lot of players who see our league growing. These players maybe have been in the bottom level of some of the elite leagues or they have been relegated into the second divisions of those leagues, and see Major League Soccer as a fantastic destination, (with) fantastic communities, facilities and fans. I think that Major League Soccer is certainly on the radar for a lot more players that are in between the top flights and what might be closer to what our level of play is here in the States. Paul had a chance to go to France. He took in some training at PSG – I’ll let him talk to you about that experience, and some of the players he saw – but we specifically had players to look at both in the French League 1 and League 2, and La Liga and La Liga B. He subsequently came back to London Friday for our meeting with Arsenal. He got right back on the road Saturday to Spain and again had some other players to look at. Obviously, when José Mari is healthy, he’s as good as any other player on the roster, and has been superb for us, so if we can find more players like that, we need to. If we’re going to be successful in this league, we've got to continue to invest and find better players.

RF: As you mentioned, it’s been a disappointing 2014 for the Rapids, on the field. You still have that same spark, that same desire, that same drive, so what keeps you focused on the end goal?

TH: There’s been some very difficult Sundays and some very difficult weekends, but I let that sink in. I’m very lucky and blessed to be distracted by my family and other priorities that are important in life, but when I get in Monday morning the job is there in front of us and the requirements of this job is always going to be there. I’ve always had the passion for this club and delivering success, and while Paul and I embarked on this project two years ago, we haven’t delivered it yet, and so from a fans’ perspective they should want more, they should be asking for more, and I fully understand that and we accept that. So that motivates us more than anything, in that we know that this is a longer term project and we want success now at the same time. The journey took a little bit of a different route this past off season. We expected Oscar (Pareja) to be here and, again, he had a very rough first season; we heard similar feedback after 2012, but we devoted time to Oscar's professional development and took time to plan a proper offseason, and get our scouting right. I think everyone agrees we came back and improved in 2013. We did that all year. We found ‘difference-makers’ in the July (transfer) window in Vicente (Sanchez) and Gaby (Torres), and we were able to get into that flow that we think is required to be successful at this level, and this year we never got in that flow. I think Pablo (Mastroeni) has learned a lot. The staff has learned a lot, but we need to invest in him as well, and we’re going to do that, but the business continues to grow and that’s a credit to our fans. We enjoyed our best season ticket numbers in the history of the club, our best sponsorship numbers in the history of the club, our first shirt sponsorship, our best TV ratings and we raised more money for our community foundation for the Rapids this year, than we’ve ever raised, so there’s a lot of positives to still keep you motivated to drive this project forward.

RF: Fans will take on board what good things are happening away from the field, but they will look at the first team and say ‘that’s what is hurting me’. When the team’s not doing well, how much do you hurt, or can you not allow yourself to get distracted?

TH: It hurts tremendously. In fact, in my entire career, including at Derby where there’s promotion and relegation, I don’t think that I’ve felt the same hurt as I’ve had this season, and part of that is because we care about this club so much. It’s our professional livelihoods, but we’re also sports fans. We’re fans of the Rapids and our families and children are fans of the Rapids. I have the utmost respect for the rest of our Front Office that are on the front lines, renewing tickets and talking to Season Ticket Holders and fans on a daily basis. It hurts, but that’s okay because we need to feel that hurt and share it with our fans. I do believe that many of our great fans are happy overall with where the club is going over the last four years and feel the increased professionalism and our match day experience, but listen, the lack of results this season is not what we had planned. I think we knew it was going to be a little bit of a challenging season, but then again we thought we had brought in some guys who wanted to be here and help on the pitch. We certainly have a young core that we’re really excited about. Clearly it didn’t go our way the second half of this season, so we’re going to hurt for some time. I definitely hurt for those Saturday nights, those Sundays, but come Monday it’s on to the next match, the next challenge, the next way to make us better. This is a 365, 24/7 business, so that’s what is going to happen, and I fully realize that what matters most to fans is what happens at 7 o’clock on a Saturday nights.

RF: I know you’re meeting with fans this week. I imagine one of the questions may be would be ‘give me three reasons to come back in 2015. Give me something to cling to. Why is this product going to be better in 2015, and why are you so confident in the direction that you’re taking this club?’

TH: First and foremost, (I'm) very confident in our Ownership, Paul and Pablo. Paul has proven with his key trade acquisitions in the stretch of 2010 that helped this club win its first MLS Cup, with the kind of scouting that he’s done at the NCAA level, to help us really win the draft the last two years – Dillon Powers, Deshorn (Brown), Marlon (Hairston), Jared Watts, John Berner, etc. His founding of our highly respected academy with Brian Crookham. Add to that his key acquisitions that he brought in last year - such as Gaby and Vicente - who were superb. José Mari has been very good. But he (Bravo) needs more help, and we’re going to invest in more help. Secondly, I believe in our young core players. we had three of the MLS 24-Under-24, we had honorable mention with Dillon Serna, we have three players called into the US Under-23s, we have two Homegrown Players starting that make a difference in our starting 11, so our youth and player development gives me great confidence that if we can add and invest with the right experienced and talented players around these guys, and push to raise the level of play and competition for spots, that core will only get stronger, and continuity breeds success in my opinion. Finally, I fully believe that Ownership is going to allow us to invest, whether that be additional technical people on staff that will help both Paul and Pablo get better, additional scouting resources, bringing in another DP in January and our desire to increase collaboration with Arsenal. Those are all reasons why I know we’re going to get this project to where it belongs, sooner rather than later.

RF: Have you identified specific player needs in the roster, bearing in mind the last 12 games?

TH: Clearly that’s going to lay with Paul and Pablo to decide, but I think all of us have a pretty good sense that - and I think both Paul and Pablo have discussed this quite a bit - we clearly need to invest defensively, and we will, but at the same time we also need to invest in all areas of our squad, so it’s not an easy answer because we need that help, so we need help at the back, we need help in the middle and we certainly want ‘difference makers’ up front. This league is only going to get better, it’s only going to get stronger, so if we’re going to keep up and find success then we’re got to invest like that every year. I also want players that want to be here in Colorado, that understand where we are going and want to be part of this project.

RF: And that was going to be my next point. NYCFC are going to come in next season, as are Orlando City, in a huge blaze of publicity, with Kaka, David Villa and Frank Lampard. Fans are going to look and say ‘they’re doing it, why can’t we do that here?’

TH: Let’s be honest, spending at that level doesn't always guarantee success. Toronto, I think, is an example this year, for sure. And there’s teams fighting for playoff spots this year with three DPs, so that doesn’t always mean that is the right formula. I think the right plan is what we have begun over the last several years, which is build a very strong infrastructure on player development. We’re going to have a very strong relationship with our USL PRO affiliate in Charlotte, which I know will be a great ownership group. We’ve increased our investment in our scouting for NCAA, which we’ll continue to do because that’s still an important place to acquire assets and add value to your squad. We will find the best players globally with our increased technical staff and we will work harder – we’ll have to work harder – than other clubs and if we can leverage our relationships and the resource of someone like Arsenal, to help us find those ‘difference-makers’, it means we'll not necessarily have to over spend but we will spend wisely. All of these plans do require investment and we are going to invest, but I would argue that it also requires investing in, recruiting and hiring the best possible Technical people as well. We, effectively, were down a staff member this year and Pablo deserves to have more help on his staff, and we’re going to do that. We’ve invested in our sports science product, and we’ll continue to invest in that as it starts to become a greater factor heading into this first full offseason. We’re going to invest in scouting - sports performance and analytics. Teams across Europe have that individual in their club, that is researching performance analysis, to make sure that when we make a decision to invest, that we make the best decision because that player hits all the key performance indicators we want in any position of need. We’re certainly going to invest in all of those aspects, and it requires all of that, I think, for us to be successful in 2015 and to sustain our long term vision.

RF: If we were sat back here a year from now, what would have been a good year for you, a good 12 months?

TH: Well, first and foremost, get back into the playoffs and certainly to have more success throughout the season. Also, real consistency in our level of performances, especially playing at home at altitude. Getting on the front foot at home, (and) giving our fans the best possible product, really playing a great brand/style of soccer at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, so they have a reason to come back and support us the way they do. Adding some more players that want to play for Colorado, bleed burgundy every day and specifically players that have experience in this league and other top leagues. I think that every club has different requirements but certainly I think we can look at what DC (United) did this year, and you can see that they had a young core, struggled – much more than we did this year – and you look at what they brought in. They brought in some of those key ‘difference-makers’ and veterans, and how that lifted that entire group. It can be done and it can be done that quickly year to year in this league.

RF: For the team, there’s two games to go. Does the hard work then start, after October 25? In other words, are you busier during the offseason than during the season?

TH: To be successful in sports I don’t think there’s really an offseason anymore. Certainly for those of us in the Front Office there isn’t. I think you have to be investing your time, effort and work ethic into this 12 months a year. To be fair, knowing where we were going, – prior to the difficult streak we’ve been on – Paul and I presented an 18-month plan to Ownership in early July. It’s unfortunate that we’ve had the run and the streak we’ve had, but we’ve actually started (planning) earlier than we ever have, again to try to get out in front of the competition that’s coming in and the continued growth of the league. We’re after it every day. Again, we’re all smarting a little bit after this last three months. It hurts for all of us to see what we’ve gone through as a club, and I say that on behalf of everyone in the organization, but I also believe in the organization, I believe in this soccer club, I believe in Ownership, I believe in our staff and players, I believe in our fans, I believe in our partners and right now the majority of these folks are here to push us forward and to be a part of this project, and so for that, we are grateful and I offer our thanks.