COMMERCE CITY — Eight games into the Rapids’ 14-game winless streak to end last season, first-year coach Pablo Mastroeni was drilling his team on tactics and technique. He had broken his presentations into video sessions, walking his players through his version of Soccer 101.
Nothing he had tried worked. Neither did the video sessions, as it turned out. Amid the turmoil, Mastroeni considered taking the field again as a player until his father, Frank, urged him to change his perspective.
“He said, ‘Son, you’ve got to change the way you look at this thing,’ ” Mastroeni recalled. ” ‘Quit thinking like a player.’ “
The elder Mastroeni suggested his son go so far as to change his appearance so that when he looked in the mirror, he remembered he was a coach, not a player.
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That’s when Mastroeni began growing out his mustache. By the time he arrived at the MLS SuperDraft in mid-January, he had a perfectly groomed handlebar look that set Twitter afire.
“The mustache is symbolic of a rite of passage,” Mastroeni said.
The 2014 season was a transformative year for Mastroeni, whom the Rapids named coach just before the season began.
“I’ll look back in my coaching career and think that was the most important year in my coaching life, to have gone through that,” Mastroeni said.
His change in appearance was a first step in his final journey across the white line from player to coach. Through the offseason, he traveled to England to observe former teammate Aitor Karanka lead his Middlesbrough team, and to scout players at Fulham FC.
Soon after, Mastroeni was back stateside, in Los Angeles, getting a high-level coaching license from the U.S. Soccer Federation. Then it was back to Commerce City to prepare his team for the season, which the Rapids opened with a 0-0 tie in Philadelphia. The Rapids open their home season Saturday against New York City FC.
“There was a lot of reflecting,” Mastroeni said. “A lot of collaboration with the other coaches, and talking about our experiences abroad and how that translates here and the transition from player to coach. (It) was a lot of good dialogue and education, really.”
Once the calendar flipped to 2015, the Rapids were ready to remake their roster. Mastroeni wanted to add veteran leaders with MLS experience. And Colorado did just that, bringing in goalkeeper Zac MacMath, center back Bobby Burling, fullbacks Michael Harrington and James Riley and center midfielders Marcelo Sarvas and Sam Cronin. The last two bring a bit of an edge to the holding midfield position, playing a brand of soccer Rapids fans grew accustomed to when Mastroeni wore No. 25 and the captain’s armband for Colorado.
“If we could go into every game with a host of Pablos, we’d be a pretty good team,” said Rapids sporting director Padraig Smith, himself an offseason addition to the club. “No doubt about it, every coach looks to build in their own image, and what we’ve got are players that, like Pablo, are tenacious players, technically gifted players, mentally and physically strong.”
That style was on display in the season opener, as the 10-man Rapids ground out a scoreless draw, committing more fouls than in any match last year.
Dave Dir, a former MLS coach and an assistant under then-Rapids coach Oscar Pareja in 2013, said Mastroeni made mistakes in his first season, as any rookie coach does.
“I’m sure he learned from those mistakes,” Dir said.
Mastroeni inherited a team that made the playoffs on 51 points in 2013 but managed only 32 points a season ago. Dir said based on that, he couldn’t offer a rousing endorsement of the first-year coach’s performance, but he said he was not around to see what challenges the Rapids faced.
This year, Mastroeni exudes a confidence he didn’t have a season ago.
“Preparation and planning this year from a soccer perspective, we’re all buttoned up as to what we want,” he said.
As for the mustache, get used to it. Mastroeni said he plans to wear it the rest of his coaching career. In fact, he has even secured the approval of his wife, Kelly.
Sure, there were a few “Movember” jokes in late December, but when Mastroeni told her he would shave before the SuperDraft, the truth came out.
“She says, ‘You’re not going to shave the mustache, are you?’ I was like, ‘No, I’m just going to clean it up around it,’ ” Mastroeni recalled. “And I was like, ‘So you like the mustache?’ (She replied), ‘It has grown on me.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, it’s growing all over me too.’ “
