The Rapids played a double-header of pre-season matches Feb. 16 against Las Vegas Lights; they of the neon jerseys, llama mascots and bombastic head coach Eric Wynalda. Here are the Rapids two starting lineups. The first is their ‘B’ team; the second is tantalizing close to what an opening-day squad might look like.

1’ – First group is underway! Got a few injuries so our DA guys will have a chance to shine. Rawls

Anderson (DA)

Raben

Padilla (DA)

Hansen (DA)

Muñoz (DA)

Boateng

Blomberg

Gashi

Hundley

Jackson 📝 https://t.co/bNP7eB7wWS#Rapids96 | #LVvCOL pic.twitter.com/tQJVI03L3Z — Colorado Rapids (@ColoradoRapids) February 16, 2019

1’ – Here we go! No video stream but there is a Spanish radio broadcast for this one. Rawls

Nicholson

Rosenberry

Sjöberg

Wynne

Mezquida

Price

Acosta

Bassett

Kamara

Rubio 📝 https://t.co/eeZKGEF4aV#Rapids96 | #LVvCOL pic.twitter.com/eYk8A3imAy — Colorado Rapids (@ColoradoRapids) February 16, 2019

Colorado won the first match, 3-0, with Shkelzen Gashi bagging two and Matt Hundley netting another. In the second match, the club drew 2-2, with Dillon Serna and Nicolas Mezquida getting on the board.

Although I can’t speak to the tactics or the organization since I didn’t see the games (they keep these a secret, remember?), there are still some things we can learn about this team from the lineups. Mezquida, Price, Acosta and Bassett are the first-team midfield, which is pretty close to what we predicted last week — although Benny Feilhaber is likely to replace Bassett.

A few notable players were missing from both matches — free-agent additions Benny Feilhaber and Clint Irwin and team captain Tim Howard. I spoke with the club about the players that were absent in this one to get the story. Here are the details:

Feilhaber was off with a family matter. He was in training in Las Vegas but had to return home before the match. He is now back with the team at their training camp in San Diego.

Howard was due to start, but felt some groin soreness during warmups and was held out by the training staff as a precaution.

Irwin is dealing with a chest contusion and was also rested; hence the reason third-string keeper Andre Rawls went iron-man through the two matches.

Sam Nicholson was back! He has been dealing with back problems since September of 2018, so having him on the pitch is great news. He slotted in on the left side and was subbed off for Dillon Serna in the first half.

Kei Kamara played half the match, which is great since he’d also been dealing with minor injuries.

Also notable — Shkelzen Gashi played and played well. In the past two pre-seasons, he’d missed significant time with injury or fitness issues.

All of that is interesting. Little knocks, pulls and muscle soreness are common in the preseason of any professional sport. Everything is worth keeping an eye on, but nothing is worth panicking about. There’s plenty of time to be irrational later on, folks.

Their final preseason matches are this weekend as the Colorado Rapids take on the LA Galaxy on Saturday and again Sunday.

No word yet if those games will be streamed for fans.

The White Album

The Rapids unveiled a new kit Tuesday. Here it is:

White kit.

White shorts.

White socks.

…

Pour one out for #Rapids96 equipment manager @Blay29 , who will need to buy stain-removing detergent by the metric ton this season. https://t.co/8wIpUHJwHC — Mark Asher Goodman (@soccer_rabbi) February 19, 2019

I corrected myself on Twitter shortly after this tweet. Brandy Lay is no longer the Rapids equipment manager; he has been replaced by Jordan Weidman.

With that announcement, it brought to 18 the number of MLS teams with a white jersey. Only NYCFC, NYRB, SKC, Houston and Columbus don’t have one. Colorado hadn’t had a white kit since 2008, when they had a third kit that was white with red accents. So going with a white kit was inevitable at some point. And amongst the white kits, I like the Rapids’ one. It’s got cool silver piping and having white on white-on-white is good, amongst the many alternate possibilities. Real Salt Lake, for instance, made a plain white kit a bad white kit by putting some weird red streaks on it.

Of course, this is grading on a curve. There’s no mincing words here. White is pretty boring. I would have liked to have seen light blue, stripes, something with green in it or even gray.

I’ll be darned if I don’t really want one, though. Hence the perplexing mystery of the all-white kit. Kind of dull, but in an alluring way. It’s the ‘Imagine Dragons’ of soccer kits.

Dwarves

Apparently, the only dwarf in Helms Deep was Gimli. Several of you noticed and I was scolded accordingly.

more #Rapids96 coverage from Mark but first i need all my Lord of the Rings nerds to pile on and tell him the dwarves weren’t at Helms Deep because it’s the refuge of the Rohirrim under King Théoden. all humans. then some elves show up. then Gandalf. i’m done send tweet https://t.co/PZLwFga50o — Connor Cape (@MileHighCape) February 17, 2019

Mea culpa. Please don’t revoke my dork card. There’s a ‘Magic: The Gathering’ convention later this month, and if they found out I committed a cardinal nerd sin, like mixing up key details from J.R.R Tolkien’s world, I’ll be banned from attending forever.