And in the Colorado Rapids coach’s words, a “thoroughly unenjoyable experience.”

The first-year head coach watched a 2-1 loss to FC Dallas from a private room at the top of Dick’s Sporting Goods Park while serving a one-game suspension for yellow card accumulation. To a certain extent, he said he was able to distance himself from experiencing the emotions of the game. The distance provided objectivity. And from objectivity, clarity, as his team lost the fifth of its last six MLS games, giving up two penalties in the first half en route to the loss.

While there are always things to nitpick in the style of play and execution, Wells is laser-focused on the way his players carry themselves as the Rapids enter a 60-day break between games for the World Cup.

“My feeling is we didn’t have one player who really went to the heights to say, ‘Not on my watch, we cannot dominate a game of football this much and lose,’ and then channel it within their own personality, identity and position, and put that on the pitch,” Wells said. “I didn’t see enough of that life, energy, passion, desire to win. And when I really reflect on it, I’ve seen that before.”

Fitting that narrative almost perfectly, Paxten Aaronson and Georgi Minoungou, who combined for the Rapids’ only goal of the match, also each gave up a penalty.

Aaronson tripped Logan Farrington in the 11th minute at the edge of the box, and Farrington converted. On the Rapids’ next possession, though, a beautiful end-to-end play allowed Minoungou to find Aaronson with a neat cross, which the Designated Player buried to even the score.

Minoungou made minimal, but penalty-worthy contact with Ran Binyamin right before halftime, the referee deemed. Santiago Moreno beat Nico Hansen to his left for what would eventually be the winner. Colorado was the better team in the second half, generating 11 of its 17 shots in the final 45 minutes, but nothing came from it but more to work on during the break.

Wayne Frederick earned the Rapids’ fourth red card of the season for dissent from the bench late in the game. FC Dallas keeper Jonathan Sirois was getting his time-wasting money’s worth on a goal kick. When the entire Rapids bench made their thoughts known, referee Ismail Elfath took exception to something Frederick said and sent him packing.

Wells has purposefully instilled a chippy, physical mentality into the Rapids’ style of play, but it����ap past the point of rough competition and entering a territory of disciplinary mismanagement. He’s joked about not wanting his team to win the “fair play award,” but the Rapids lead the league in yellow cards by a wide margin (41 in 15 games) and are tied for the league lead in red cards.

The accumulation of cards of either color is starting to affect player — and in two instances now, coach — availability. Further, the in-game conflict leans towards the official in many cases.

“I think you have to walk the line. … Emotions can get high in a game, and that����ap normal, but I think collectively, it����ap important to just maintain the goal: we’re down 2-1, we have to score a goal. We can’t battle with the ref, we have to battle against FC Dallas,” Aaronson said. “I think it����ap about controlling our emotions. Obviously, in every football match, people get frustrated with referees, but I think we have to maybe do a better job of just completely blocking that out and focus directly on the opponent.”

The Rapids don’t return to play until a July 22 home game against San Diego FC, another struggling Western Conference club this season. The players will have a few weeks of vacation before returning for effectively another preseason ahead of the MLS season’s resumption.

His go-ahead goal on Wednesday night against the San Jose Earthquakes wasn’t necessarily his biggest, but it helped the Colorado Rapids en route to a 2-0 victory in the U.S. Open Cup quarterfinals. And for the first time since 1999, the Rapids are moving onto the Open Cup semifinal.

His second career goal for the Rapids came in 2024 late in the Leagues Cup round of 16 against Liga MX club Toluca, when Yapi scored a winner in the sixth minute of extra time to move on to the semifinal. Colorado took third in that tournament in a near-miraculous run.

Almost two years later, Yapi struck first in the 40th minute on a set play from a corner kick. Dante Sealy and Paxten Aaronson had a give-and-go on the initial corner, then Sealy sent in a wonderfully-placed cross to Yapi at the back post, who headed it in off the ground past San Jose keeper Daniel. It was his fourth goal in all competitions this season and first since signing a five-year U-22 extension.

“In terms of Yapi, that was by far and away a standalone performance of what he’s produced this season. … The mentality he showed tonight was everything I’m trying to push him to become,” Rapids coach Matt Wells said. “… His selflessness and the way he helped the team (offensively and defensively) has got to be a reference point for him and a benchmark for him. On top of that, we can build and keep improving the individual quality, and when we do that, we’ve got a top player.”

Rafael Navarro, with his ninth goal in all competitions this season, doubled the lead in the 45+10th minute from the penalty spot after Reid Roberts handled the ball inside the box.

San Jose, down a pair of its best players but still with plenty of quality on the field, rattled 12 shots (six on target) but none with much more than an outside chance of going in. The closest the Earthquakes got to scoring was a laser of a shot in the second half, destined for the left post, but it was saved by Nico Hansen.

The Rapids’ history in the Open Cup has been less than favorable. On both occasions, they made it to at least the semifinal (1996, ‘99), they lost to the Rochester Rhinos in the semifinal and final. Since then, the Rapids have only made two quarterfinals (2006, ‘07) and have not beaten MLS competition in the Open Cup since beating Real Salt Lake in the 2006 round of 16.

Now, they’re just two games away from Wells cashing in on a promise to win hardware with Colorado, at the moment just five months into his tenure. Wells, having won the Europa League as an assistant at Tottenham in 2025, is familiar with the feeling. Yapi hasn’t had the honor yet.

“We play to win trophies, and to be one step closer — the vibes in the locker room and just the whole club is very very high, and we’re excited for that semifinal,” Yapi said. “The guys tell me it����ap the best feeling in the world (to win a trophy), so tonight I wanted to show I really want a trophy. I really want to experience it and what it����ap like.”

Colorado will have to wait a while to inch closer to that reality. The semifinal will be played against St. Louis CITY on a yet-to-be-announced date in mid-September. St. Louis is the only team so far this season to beat the Rapids at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. The winner of that match will play the winner of Orlando City SC and the Columbus Crew in October.

In a game where the Colorado Rapids as a whole played like anyone but themselves, Navarro was true to himself as he displayed his sneakiest superpower: an innate ability to drift into space, unnoticed for split seconds at a time.

It was enough to find a winner in the 26th minute against a tough Minnesota United team on the road. After a wonderful turn at midfield by midfielder Paxten Aaronson, Navarro sprang free in the right channel. Aaronson played a good ball, Navarro dribbled across the goal and finished neatly past Drake Callendar for the lone goal of a 1-0 Rapids win at Allianz Field.

It was the Brazilian’s eighth goal of the season, tying him for eighth on the MLS scoring leaderboard. Well before the halfway mark of the season, he’s already halfway to breaking the single-season club scoring record (16). With four assists to total 12 goal contributions this season, he trails only Lionel Messi (16).

“First of all, it����ap the individual excellence of Rafa to be able to do that, and I think it����ap that combined with the understanding of the team’s patterns. If you watch the goal back, it����ap straight off the training ground,” Rapids coach Matt Wells said. “…Rafa and Paxten went to a different level tonight.”

The Rapids were in dire need of a result in MLS play after going winless in five matches while scoring three goals and earning just one point in a tough moment in the schedule. Minnesota entered the game with a formidable 21 points, albeit with an inconsistent home record. Colorado took advantage to get back on track, but via an unexpected style of play.

Forced to be creative with a bevy of starters benched with injuries or suspensions, Wells threw out a five-defender lineup with Connor Ronan and Wayne Frederick — both recently back from their own injuries — running the midfield with Aaronson. A lineup relatively unfamiliar with each other at game speed, Minnesota was able to control possession and drum up more chances.

Its best was a crossbar-skimming miss by former Rapid Anthony Markanich on a lovely cross by James Rodriguez, a Colombian legend who played his sixth and final MLS match on Wednesday before heading home to prepare for the World Cup. Seconds before serving the ball to Markanich, he had a shot of his own rattle off the crossbar.

The Rapids held an uncharacteristically low 45% possession, marking just the second game this season where Colorado didn’t possess the ball more than its opponent. It needed just five shots (two on target) to take the lead and did well to hold Minnesota to 12 shots (two on goal) and 1.17 expected goals, with no actual production.

Nico Hansen, in for an injured Zack Steffen, held his first and the Rapids’ third clean sheet of the year. A response in an unfamiliar but bold fashion ahead of the first leg of the Rocky Mountain Cup at rival Real Salt Lake on Saturday.

“I definitely think there was an increase in the mentality to force a win, to demand the win and to make sure there is nothing happening here that will stop us winning,” Wells said. “I just said to the guys, ‘We’ve got to bottle that,’ because on Saturday, when maybe the system changes back and the football reappears, it����ap not just that that����ap going to win us that game. It����ap going to be a combination of the football plus making sure this mentality we showed this evening has to be a baseline. It has to be a foundation for us going forward.”

With 11 goals and four assists since the start of the 2025 season, the 21-year-old forward has exceeded expectations. The club rewarded him on Tuesday with a contract extension, making him a U-22 Initiative player through the 2028-29 season, with a club option for the 2029-30 season.

During a young, early professional career that started in 2021 as a 16-year-old, there were doubts but no blaring alarms. Growing up, the Denver native scored goals at will at the youth and academy levels. Painstakingly, he waited three and a half years after signing to net his first with the Rapids’ first team.

It finally came in garbage time of a 4-1 win over St. Louis CITY in July of 2024, when he slotted it through Ben Lundt����ap legs from an angle for the final goal of the evening. You could see the weight lift off Yapi’s shoulders as he celebrated with a half-hearted knee slide and rolled onto his back. Motionless, he looked at the sky briefly before the dogpile of the team, subs and coaching staff smothered him.

Since then, he’s gotten better and better every year. He’s scored in knockout games, nearly hit double digits in 2025 and it culminated in an equalizing goal as a substitute against Lionel Messi in front of 75,000 at Empower Field a few weeks ago.

“I’ve been scoring goals since I came out of my mother, so to have that taken away from me for so long, I had to really find myself. In the process of me doing that, I lost myself a bit, lost my self-esteem,” Yapi told The Denver Post. “But now I’ve got it back and now I have this confidence from that experience from that stretch … During that time, I learned a lot about just trying not to panic and knowing that eventually the results are going to show up because of my hard work.”

In retrospect, he said, he’s grateful for that years-long goal drought because it����ap unlikely he’ll ever go that long without scoring again. If he goes goalless for a few straight games now, there are no alarm bells, just patience and trust. Plus, he’s got a number of other ways to impact a game — something he said he didn’t have earlier in his career.

Part of that is his versatility both positionally and tactically. He’s gradually gone from the top of the Rapids’ shape out wide. Originally, he almost exclusively played the center forward position alone in between opposition center-backs. Last season, during a tactical shift in former coach Chris Armas’s philosophy, he played in a front two on the left alongside Rafael Navarro.

This year, he’s all alone occupying the left wing position in a three-man midfield or attack in Matt Wells’s hyper-specific system. Yapi said he hasn’t had to make a monumental shift in how he plays, but more so that he’s still doing him, only in a different area of the field.

That means taking his strengths — speed, pressing, recovery and hold-up play — and being an excellent foil to Navarro, whom Yapi resembles more and more each season. Only this year, they’re feeding each other more than ever, rather than sharing the spoils created by teammates like they have in the past.

Yapi got out to a hot start with four goal contributions in his first five games this year before going three games without. Then he immediately scored as a sub against Miami, and has now gone four straight without a goal contribution before signing the extension.

All par for the course.

“These experiences are so important. When you’re young, obviously you want things to go well, but I’m kind of — this is gonna sound weird — happy that (goal drought) happened, because now I have the experience,” Yapi said. “When things aren’t going well or they are going well, I know how to react and I know how to change it in a heartbeat.”

Yapi is one of the last remaining Homegrown Rapids on the roster from a stellar generation that included Cole Bassett (now with the Portland Timbers), Oliver Larraz (Vancouver Whitecaps) and Sam Vines (Houston Dynamo). Yapi’s success and a pipeline of upcoming exciting youngsters at the academy and Rapids 2 levels are proof of development quality within the club.

“Darren truly embodies the pathway we believe in as a club, and we’re incredibly proud of the way he has progressed through our system,” Rapids president Pádraig Smith said in the club’s press release. “He has consistently shown his ability to impact games at the MLS level, and we believe he has the qualities to develop into a top attacker in this league and beyond. This new contract reflects both his performances and the standards he has set for himself, and we’re excited to see him continue to build on that here in Colorado.”

The Switchbacks, who compete in the second-tier USL Championship and put a 3-0 beatdown on MLS’s Sporting Kansas City in the previous round a couple of weeks ago, seemed primed to put the Colorado Rapids on the losing end of an upset, something the club knows well over its years.

Knowing there was no video assistant referee in the U.S. Open Cup round of 16, the powers that be toyed with the integrity of the game in extra time as the Colorado Rapids took the lead somewhat controversially with 5 minutes to go, then gave it back up even more questionably in the dying moments.

The game went to penalty kicks and the Rapids won, 2-2 (5-4). They’ll head to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2006, the opponent and location to be determined.

VAR would have been helpful on a few occasions, not the least of which being a straight red card to substitute defender Kosi Thompson in the 78th minute. A few minutes beforehand, Switchbacks forward and former Rapids 2 standout Yosuke Hanya unnecessarily pulled Thompson down with no more repercussion than a simple foul. In what felt like retaliation, Thompson leveled Hanya with a slide tackle from behind on a 50-50 ball, taking both himself and Hanya out of the game.

Further, the non-call and subsequent call in the final 5 minutes of the free 30 minutes were monumental in a mostly cagey match. In the 115th minute, Rafael Navarro flicked on an inch-perfect header to Georgi Minoungou, who in real time looked offside but didn’t warrant a call from the linesman. Minoungou finished neatly beyond Switchbacks keeper Christian Herrera to take a 2-1 lead.

Two minutes later, Josh Atencio was called for a handball in the box, trying to block a cross. His hand was raised, but the replay showed the ball hitting his torso more than his hand. Without VAR, the call stood and from the spot, Khori Bennett sent the Trailheads into a frenzy in section 102.

In the shootout, Rapids keeper Nico Hansen made two big saves as the Rapids took seven rounds to get the job done.

“I’ve challenged the guys off the back of (a 3-1 loss to) Vancouver. … We can be stronger as a team, we can be more resolute, we can suffer together,” Rapids coach Matt Wells said after the match. “To see the way the guys did that tonight with 10 men, that����ap probably my biggest source of excitement I’ve actually had so far this season because that����ap an attribute I still had a few question marks over. Very pleased to see it tonight.”

Before the madness, Navarro set up his first of two assists on the night in the 25th minute: a good, but slightly overhit ball toward the 6-yard box for winger Alexis Manyoma to chase. Looking like he’d lost the race with Herrera, Manyoma somehow got a toe to the ball and poked it past him for the opener.

Brennan Creek equalized in the 34th minute after a corner kick caused some chaos in the box. Garven Metusala tapped it to him and he blasted it past Hansen at the near post from about 4 yards out.

As it had in the previous round against Union Omaha, another USLC team, the lineup Wells conjured gave respect to the opponent. He knows too well from his time at Tottenham that it����ap the lesser competition on paper that can be most dangerous in competitions like the Open Cup. And for the second occasion, it almost was — for Wells, that����ap the beauty of it.

“Football is passion, football is competition. … I thought tonight was a fantastic advert for this competition,” Wells said. “I’m new here and new to this, but I hope the cup competitions always stick around because I found them magical in England. I thought tonight, as stressed as I am, as tired as I am and as prematurely gray as I’m going to be off the back of this game, I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

The Rapids now find themselves as close to a trophy as they’ve been since the mystic 2024 Leagues Cup run, where they lost in the semifinal to LAFC. Navarro, who leads MLS in goal contributions (11), was a massive part of that run and has become a pivotal part of this one.

“This year, I think the team is better prepared to win a trophy,” Navarro said through club translator Adriana Baumann. “We need to just believe that we’re capable of doing it.”

A scoreless draw between the Colorado Rapids and Los Angeles FC was just that. For the first time in club history, the Rapids did not lose at BMO Stadium on Wednesday night, finally nabbing a point in the team’s 10th-ever trip to face the Black and Gold.

Further, for arguably the first time in those 10 meetings, the Rapids were the aggressor from kickoff. LAFC, known for its pounce on the counterattack — particularly in this era at BMO with Denis Bouanga and South Korean legend Son Heung-Min — couldn’t get anything going for the majority of the game.

After the game, Son gave flowers to Rapids coach Matt Wells, the two old friends from their time at Tottenham

Wells said Son told him Colorado was the best team he’s played so far this season.

“I think it was another very high-level technical performance from us tonight,” Wells said. “Played with personality, played with courage just like we did against Miami (on Saturday). … We had a good process with the ball, we arrived a lot in the final third, but we probably lacked a bit of attacking sharpness and conviction.”

On the rare occasion LAFC got the ball, especially in the first half, it squandered the chance and bobbled it into obscurity. By halftime, it generated no shots and only had 23% possession to go with 0.00 expected goals.

Those numbers didn’t exactly flip on their head in the second half. The xG battle was even at 0.2 a piece in the end, but Colorado dominated possession (71.2% total) and threatened for a winner in the late stages.

Despite the result, in game 9 of the Wells project, the Rapids were as cohesive and effective in the game plan — minus the final scoring product — as they’ve been all year.

“I think we’re showing that we’re definitely a different team to what we’ve been in the past. Now it����ap about layering on that final-third conviction — I don’t want us to lose our place as top goal-scorers in MLS, which I know we have now done,” Wells said. “We need to make sure we marry the control, the possession, the dominance with being devastating in the final third.”

Getting a result against a team at a stadium that has historically been Goliath requires a certain level of bravery at the individual level. Wednesday night, it came from a few unlikely sources.

In the 16th minute, winger Dante Sealy did his best Georgi Minoungou impression with a nifty one-on-one move down to the byline inside the box. Two stepovers and a quick one-two between his own two feet gave him enough space to set it up on his weaker right foot. He fired a cross, which deflected off an LAFC defender’s face and required quick reflexes from keeper Hugo Lloris to deny a fluke goal.

Six minutes later, Josh Atencio drove hard with the ball from midfield to the LAFC penalty box to set up the Rapids’ best chance of the night. Hardly a dribbler, Atencio’s action led the ball to Rafael Navarro’s feet. He danced with it, set it up on his weaker left foot and forced another swell save from Lloris at the far post.

Center back Rob Holding was the other source of courage, leaving his post in the back to also join the attack on a couple of occasions. Nothing came of his wandering, but it was an interesting, clearly intentional wrinkle.

“When we played through their press, we took the game by the scruff of the neck. Josh did that well and did it straight to the end of the game,” Holding said. “…Dante was great — stayed out wide, gave us width and then was dangerous coming in on his left foot. I liked the fact he didn’t dribble into dead ends today. I know some games I’ve gotten on him about that.”

Colorado, Holding especially, was proficient in stopping the LAFC counterattack before it happened by jumping into passing lanes right after giving the ball away. If they got through, the infamous offseason conditioning was on display, capped by a Jackson Travis dead sprint to stop a threatening chance late in the first half.

The Rapids will need that to come in handy over the next few weeks. After this Saturday’s match at Western-Conference-leading Vancouver, next week will be their third straight with multiple games. Then a four-game sprint before the World Cup break.

“It����ap definitely paying its dues now, just how much we did in preseason,” Holding said. “It����ap how we’ve trained since preseason as well. We do high meters, high distance, high speed running and everyone’s ready to step in when needed.”

Of the five goals scored in a 3-2 thriller in front of a record crowd of 75,824, Colorado was responsible for four of them. The difference was a classic Lionel Messi strike in the 79th minute to win it for Inter Miami CF.

Still, it felt like a goal was met and an exciting product was delivered on Saturday afternoon in front of the second-largest crowd in MLS history — one that could bring a new group of soccer fans down I-70 to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in the future.

“There was one team on the pitch. I thought we were outstanding from start to finish,” Rapids coach Matt Wells said. “Nothing but pride for the performance, it����ap a travesty we didn’t win the game. … I’m proud that we’re changing the status quo — we were the dominant team on the pitch today and that����ap the thing that makes me the happiest.”

That wasn’t necessarily the feeling 45 minutes into the game. Miami finished the half up by two goals, after two bad mistakes by Colorado. First was a penalty kick conceded on a bad turnover inside the box. Miami pressed more than the Rapids expected, especially early, and it bit them in the 17th minute.

Colorado invites the pressure ultra deep in its own area often, but Josh Atencio took a wayward touch on a pass from Zack Steffen. After Rodrigo De Paul pounced, Atencio stuck a foot out and tripped him. The penalty wasn’t initially called, but Video Assistant Referee intervened and overturned it. Messi rolled the penalty across the line.

That wasn’t the worst mistake of the day. With around 20 seconds left before the whistle was supposed to blow for halftime, the Rapids opted to play negative into their own box again. Some confusion led to a 50/50 jump ball, which Miami won and worked in a cross, and Germán Berterame headed it in at the back post.

“(The goals were) a bit frustrating and not deserved. I saw the stats on the big screen, we had six or seven shots and they had two, and that����ap just how football goes,” defender Rob Holding said. “Sometimes teams come in, have 20% possession and go away with a win. But it����ap something we can build on in terms of our performance and be more ruthless in the final third.”

At that point, the Rapids had hold of the game for the most part, but couldn’t quite capitalize on the offensive opportunities they created. That changed quickly in the second half.

Part of forward Rafael Navarro’s evolution from good to great to start this season is a new tendency to drop further as possession develops. When Wayne Frederick laid off a cute pass to the Brazilian at midfield, Miami gave him nothing but space to dribble at its back line. He waited patiently for Maximiliano Falcón to stab at the ball, evaded the tackle and beat Dayne St. Clair with a back-post shot in the 58th minute. It was Navarro’s sixth goal this season.

Denver native Darren Yapi subbed on two minutes later and was the recipient of a perfect through-ball from 18-year-old Australian centerback Lucas Herrington. The buildup was different, but the 62nd-minute finish was a carbon copy of Navarro’s.

In the 79th, Miami got a turnover and caught Colorado without numbers, leaving Messi on the ball one-on-one with Herrington. As the Argentine star does, he cut to his left at lightning speed and curled a shot into the top left corner for the win.

The Rapids finished with 61% possession, one of the numbers Wells cherishes most from game to game. Miami is known for its possession, but it opted on numerous occasions to boot the ball down the field and dare Colorado to keep pushing.

Despite the result, the Rapids proved they can compete with the league’s top teams, which was the missing piece in the early portion of Wells’s tenure. But he said he wants to be included in that conversation rather than have others consider his team the underdog in a game like Saturday’s.

He has the next two matches to make that argument. First, a trip to LAFC, arguably the best Western Conference team, at a stadium where the Rapids have never walked out the victor. Then a trip to Vancouver, last year’s MLS Cup runner-up, and the top team in the West standings.

The Rapids’ mantra has been to make the next opponent the victim of an outcome like Saturday’s.

“When you say we’re going to play the two top teams in the west, my brain says, ‘We’re the best team in the west,’ which I know is not correct because we have to prove it over a sustained period of time,” Wells said. “We can’t just accept playing excellent, eye-catching football, pressing well and having a good tactical structure. We have to marry that with consistent results over time and prove we’re a big team from a results perspective as well.

“…Tonight, I saw a team that performed like a big team with a proper mentality with a huge personality. … That gives me massive hope that if we keep building and stick on this path, it won’t be long before you’re asking me a question about us being the top team around Vancouver and LAFC.”

The club icon packed up from a successful Club León team in Mexico to join the upstart MLS in 1996, which in its inaugural year had 10 teams, most of which were split up between just three owners. After doing work on the ground and hustling street corners to raise awareness of the Rapids, he was awestruck by the some 21,000 fans who witnessed a 3-1 victory over the Dallas Burn.

Soccer in America, and the financial volatility that came with the territory, put pressure on teams to perform in every match. Balboa recalls that after the league’s inception, it was set for three years, and every few years was a trial run for the next.

“Depending on how those three years went, that would determine the next three years,” Balboa told media members on Friday afternoon.

Safe to say, they went OK — MLS expanded to 30 teams in 2025 and the average club is valued at $767 million, according to Sportico in a February report. That����ap a far cry from the stakes Balboa described.

“When we stepped out on the field, you see 20,000 people applauding you, it����ap like, ‘Holy crap, OK. This can work,’” Balboa said. “…We wanted to put on a good show because we knew this was going to be the first time fans in Colorado were going to see what we can do, and on a blessed day, it worked out great, we won, 3-1. The idea was to make sure that we try to entertain.”

30 years later, almost to the day, the Rapids have a similar opportunity. The league’s survival won’t be on the line, but the club’s relevance in the Denver market — arguably the country’s most successful right now — very much could ride on a positive result on Saturday.

That����ap because Inter Miami and its global superstar, Lionel Messi, are coming to town. To accommodate the demand and celebrate the club’s 30th anniversary, Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. kick will be held at Empower Field at Mile High, home of the  Broncos.

The club announced on Friday that it has sold more than 70,000 tickets, nearing the stadium’s capacity and breaking the club attendance record, all just a few hundred feet from where it all started in Denver.

But the Rapids, in sixth place in the Western Conference, won’t be just happy to be there. They have something to prove.

A solid resume has been building since 37-year-old Matt Wells took over as head coach for the first time in his career. In just seven games, the Rapids have scored 19 goals, deadlocking them with Vancouver for the league’s most. So far, results have mirrored the style of play in terms of being all-or-nothing — Colorado has four wins, three losses and has not yet drawn.

The wins so far have come against lesser competition. Inter Miami provides the best challenge and litmus test yet.

“We want to be the best version of ourselves tomorrow. We’ve got an excellent home record, we’ve been superb here in Colorado and in the altitude, so the fact we’re in a different stadium doesn’t make a difference to me,” Wells said. “From minute one, we come here, we press the game, we need to take the ball away from them. They want to have the ball, we want to have the ball, so it����ap going to be a fantastic occasion.

“I know if we stick to our principles, we can win this game and we can play some great football that����ap going to excite the fans.”

The defending MLS Cup champions aren’t without their flaws, though. This week, coach Javier Mascherano shocked the league by departing the club, leaving Guillermo Hoyos as the interim coach. On the field, Miami sits in third in the Eastern Conference but isn’t scoring like it����ap accustomed to (just 13 goals in seven games).

Still, like it proved in the MLS Cup final last season, the duo of Messi and Rodrigo De Paul can be dangerous at any given moment. Add into the mix Uruguayan legend Luis Suárez, who missed the 2025 final, and you’ve got a nightmare of a puzzle to solve. Whether Hoyos can maintain Miami’s structure in a short turnaround is an open question.

If the Rapids can solve it, though, they can win much more than a game. Every time Messi and Miami travel to a new city, enormous crowds are littered with fans — who wouldn’t necessarily go out of their way to watch that market����ap team — there to witness the Argentine spectacle.

Colorado, which recently announced plans to revamp its brand and redesign its crest in an effort to reinsert itself in the Denver market, has an opportunity to capture the casual soccer fan at Empower on Saturday. Especially now that Wells has reestablished the high-flying, suffocating and dominant product on the field the club often says it wants to get back to, but has gone missing for nearly a decade.

“All I see is opportunity for us to play our football and opportunity for us to put on an incredible showing for our fans that come to every game, and for us to put on a great show to the fans that are maybe coming for the first time and potentially coming for different reasons — to see Miami and Messi,” Wells said. “We’re definitely determined to make a good impression on them, and hopefully it����ap a catalyst for more people watching us play our football, because so far, we’ve done some great things this season.”

Barely four months later, Mascherano is done with the club.

Mascherano is out as Inter Miami’s coach, the team announcing that stunning development on Tuesday with the club off to a 3-1-3 start and sitting in third place in MLS’ Eastern Conference — but winless in its first two matches at its new stadium.

Inter Miami plays the Colorado Rapids at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver on Saturday.

The team said Mascherano cited personal reasons, much like his predecessor, did in November 2024 when he stepped aside in the move that ultimately led to Mascherano joining the club and . Mascherano and Messi were teammates with Barcelona and Argentina’s national team.

In Mascherano’s place is another Argentine with ties to Barcelona — Guillermo Hoyos, who is credited, at least on some level, with discovering Messi at the Spanish club’s academy and predicting that he could become an all-time great.

“I would like to thank the club for the trust they placed in me, every employee who is part of the organization for the collective effort, but especially the players, who made it possible for us to experience unforgettable moments,” Mascherano said in remarks released by the team.

Mascherano’s entire coaching staff has also left the club, though the team did not reveal any specifics as to why. Mascherano was 27-9-11 in 47 regular-season and playoff matches with Inter Miami.

“Javier will forever be part of this club’s history. … We respect his decision and are deeply grateful for everything he contributed,” managing owner Jorge Mas said in comments released by the team. “Wishing him nothing but the very best in his professional and personal future.”

It is the latest in a line of surprising moves around the club in recent months, including Jordi Alba — another longtime Messi teammate — deciding to leave the final two years of his contract on the table and retire after last season. His retirement announcement came just days after the team held a retirement ceremony for another longtime Messi teammate, Sergio Busquets.

And now, Mascherano is out as well.

In barely over a year, he not only got the team its first MLS Cup but helped the Herons reach the knockout stage of the Club World Cup, the semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions Cup and the Leagues Cup final. The team clearly was disappointed by falling flat in the CONCACAF Champions Cup earlier this year — getting ousted in the round of 16 after making some offseason moves largely with that trophy in mind.

But even amid the frustration with not advancing in that tournament, few would have thought Mascherano’s time with the club would soon be ending.

“I will always carry with me the memory of our first star, and wherever I am, I will continue to wish the club all the best moving forward,” Mascherano said. “I have no doubt that the club will continue to achieve success in the future.”

Hoyos and Messi have a relationship that goes back for more than 20 years.

Hoyos famously touted Messi as a potential all-time great back when the then shaggy-haired kid was playing for Barcelona’s B team. Messi was 16 at the time, in the very earliest days of a career that would see him win eight Ballon d’Or trophies, the World Cup and four Champions League titles. Messi has referred to Hoyos in interviews over the years as a mentor of sorts.

Hoyos is Messi’s coach now, though how long that’ll be the case remains a bit unclear. As part of Tuesday’s moves, the team also said chief soccer officer Alberto Marrero is assuming the duties of sporting director, filling the spot vacated by Hoyos.

Tuesday, it announced a step toward clarity and alignment: a fan-driven effort to reimagine the brand and redesign the logo.

Results from December’s One Club, One Legacy fan survey showed that fans — from casual to die-hard — generally agree that certain aspects of the club’s brand don’t resonate with the Colorado market. The most common disconnect was the crest, which is currently a shield-shaped design with a soccer ball, mountain outlines and a wordmark. It was first released in 2007 when Dick’s Sporting Goods Park was opened.

When Chief Business Officer Haley Durmer joined the club last year and floated the idea of a potential rebrand, she said she heard similar questions both internally and externally about the club’s visual identity: “What����ap the purpose of the Rapids? What do we stand for? What����ap our identity?”

Concerning, she said, especially coming from inside the club. But for a team named after water, almost nothing about the brand, visually speaking, reflects it. Over time, the brand became “tired” and “forgotten” within the market, Durmer said. In broader terms, she admitted the crest doesn’t catch the eye when grouped with other MLS logos.

“You hear that from the public, it����ap like, ‘OK, we’re not doing a great job breaking through.’ But you hear that internally, you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, how do we not know who we are?” Durmer said, reflecting on the club’s past positioning. “And I think it����ap because of how KSE (Kroenke Sports & Entertainment) was structured and how the Rapids were part of that ecosystem, but not part of the ecosystem, and a little bit of a forgotten franchise in ways.

“This is a way for us to reclaim that feeling.”

The survey aimed to capture how the fanbase perceives the club and its interest in a rebrand, and wasn’t limited to just the crest. A potential name change was also tossed around, but more than 5,000 quantitative and qualitative (focus-group) responses concluded a whopping 90% of fans identified with the club’s current namesake and didn’t want change.

The main colors, burgundy and blue, are also there to stay. Durmer invited the opportunity to add to the color palette with “energetic” colors to “create more life for the HD age.”

Ultimately, Durmer envisions a logo that feels like the Rapids.

“One of the things that has come up in conversation is that it doesn’t feel representative of this community,” she said. “People don’t see themselves, feel themselves, see their fandom. Soccer in Colorado has evolved so much over the last 30 years, and the fans of today, fans of yesteryear and even alumni don’t feel connected to the look. It just doesn’t represent them.

“I want people to look at that and say, ‘Not only is that Rapids, that����ap Colorado and that����ap me.”

The next piece of the puzzle is breaking through the market. Redefining the identity could help bring people in, but the club will hit hard on gameday experience and messaging to get them to stay.

This year, the club implemented a hyper-local array of food and beverage options at DSGP to make the stadium feel a bit more like home. For home wins, the club introduced a water cannon players fire off postgame that, if nothing else, calls back to the Rapids’ namesake.

The most recent MLS team to reimagine its logo was New York City FC in late 2024, which was more a case study in fine edits than a redesign. A year prior, the Seattle Sounders hit a home run with their 50th-anniversary redesign, which modernized and simplified an already-iconic badge nicely.

Durmer did not give a timeline for the Rapids’ reimagination, but fans shouldn’t expect a final product for a couple of years or more. The club’s contract with Adidas for jerseys complicates it a bit, since those designs are finalized for the next two seasons.

She did say some rough mockups have already been created, but were sent back to the drawing board. Fans will be involved at all stages for approval and opinions with more surveys and focus groups.