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.

That was the case in Saturday morning’s 3-2 thriller in Canada, where the Colorado Rapids gave up a two-goal lead to lose up north to Toronto FC. The Reds have been a pleasant surprise in the Eastern Conference of MLS and are comfortably in the mix of top east teams, standings wise.

New signing Josh Sargent, a frequent flier on the U.S. Men’s National Team who joined TFC from English Championship side Norwich City, headed in the late winner to open the account with his new team.

By then, the match had devolved into madness. Between the Rapids, league leaders in fouls committed (95), and Toronto, with MLS-leading 85 fouls suffered, the match was designed to give a heavy load to referee Ricardo Montero. The game featured 30 fouls total and garnered three red cards — one per team that seemed fair, plus an extra to the Rapids that felt harsh in the moment and contributed most to the outcome.

“I think our disappointment is the impact (referees) feel that they need to make on the game, and that����ap been proven across the league time and time again,” Rapids defender Keegan Rosenberry said. “Not just with us, but in games we’ve seen with other teams and across the league over time. However I think the big takeaway tonight has nothing to do with refereeing decisions with the goals and the big game-changing moments. It����ap the way we looked 10 vs. 11 and 10 vs. 10.”

The most controversial call was the game’s final red card, given via second yellow to Rapids left back Miguel Navarro in the 74th minute. At that point, Colorado was leading 2-1, all three goals coming when the match was at 10 vs. 10. Then, Richie Laryea, who scored TFC’s first goal on a botched cross turned near-post top corner nine minutes prior, beat Navarro off the dribble toward the byline.

Navarro reached an arm out and Laryea went down right outside the box. On replay, the contact looked minimal, but the yellow came anyway. Currently, VAR cannot intervene in second-yellow calls, but in February, the International Football Association Board voted to change that, effective this summer.

“My feeling leaving the pitch was frustration with Miguel — he’s on a booking and then to get a second booking in such a key moment when we had the game under control (was frustrating),” Wells said. “And then I watched the incident back, and it����ap never ever a foul, let alone a booking. So there’s nothing I can teach Miguel about in that scenario.”

Three minutes after Navarro was sent off, Rosenberry lofted a clearance disguised as a back-pass from midfield to Zack Steffen to reset the play. But Steffen lost the ball in the wind, missed the control and it trickled into the net for Toronto’s equalizer. Sargent scored the winner off a corner in the 85th minute.

That final stretch of action felt like a completely different game between two different teams compared to the first 60 minutes on Saturday. Jackson Travis was sent off in the 34th minute for a crunching tackle on Raheem Edwards. Originally a yellow card, VAR upgraded it to red after the replay showed Travis connecting studs to Edwards’s ankle and stepping down — a textbook straight red card.

The Rapids finished the first half impressively down a man, then caught Edwards in a mistake in the 49th minute. Rosenberry lofted a through ball to Wayne Frederick behind the defense, and Edwards pushed him in the back before he could make a play — another textbook red for denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity (DOGSO).

Colorado pounced instantly. Paxten Aaronson scored on the ensuing free kick with a precise shot under the wall to the bottom left corner for his third goal in two games. Three minutes later, Rosenberry cleaned up a poor Toronto clearance and smashed in his first goal of the season to double the lead.

More than the officiating, Wells was upset with how the game looked between the two goals and the extra chaos that ensued later.

“(After the second goal) I fully expect from that moment, just to take absolute charge of the game with our identity and our principles,” Wells said. “My feeling in that moment was, ‘Okay, now there’s parity and we’re 2-0 up. Toronto shouldn’t touch this football for the remainder of the game.’ And it swayed completely in the opposite direction because in our buildup, we were so quick to give the ball back to them and we started playing direct when the game didn’t require that.”

With both starting fullbacks suspended and another recovering from an ankle injury, the Rapids will likely have just one regularly-featured fullback in Rosenberry for next weekend’s home match against the Houston Dynamo. That game will feature the return of longtime Rapids Homegrown Sam Vines, a left back who the club waived the day before the season started.

Right back Reggie Cannon is considered week-to-week and hasn’t played in nearly a month. New signing Kosi Thompson can’t officially join the team for training and matches until he receives his P-1 visa, which could be a lengthy process. That means Wells will have to get creative in the meantime, whether it����ap an attempted appeal for Navarro’s suspension or reaching into the Rapids 2 bag for a capable replacement.

For now, the locker-room sentiment is similar to what it was after a season-opening 2-0 defeat at Seattle: channel the frustration, and make Houston the victims of it.

Heading into Saturday night, the Colorado Rapids’ four 2026 games featured two multi-goal wins at home and two multi-goal losses on the road. The pattern broke at Sporting Park in Game 5 of the Wells era, where the Rapids throttled Sporting Kansas City 4-1 for their third win of the season.

Paxten Aaronson, Colorado’s all-time record inbound transfer, opened his 2026 account with a brace. That gave him more goals in one evening than his entire Colorado tenure prior, which began in August of last season.

Both goals looked pretty similar: arrive somewhat late, receive a layoff from a forward and slot it to the bottom corner. He had one in each half and one to each side netting.

Much has been made in recent weeks about the attacking midfielder’s lack of scoring, but a brace against a rival could just get him going. Better late than never.

“Nothing has shifted from day one of working with Paxten. Before I even came to the club, knowing my game model and my way of playing — Paxten’s qualities were a match made in heaven,” Wells said. “You forget he’s very young because of his experience (in MLS and in Europe), but he’s in a great spot. We just have to keep him there.”

Colorado had an end to the first half that went from nervy to delightful in a matter of just a couple of minutes. After Aaronson opened the scoring in the 12th minute, former Rapid Calvin Harris assisted Shapi Suleymanov for the equalizer in the 44th on a run in behind that caught Jackson Travis sleeping.

Two minutes later, 21-year-old midfielder Wayne Frederick scored his first professional goal for the lead back in first-half stoppage time. Dante Sealy put a dangerous corner into the box, then SKC keeper John Pulskamp unconvincingly parried it off the crossbar and down to a thankful Frederick, who cleaned up for an easy one.

Frederick was a name that wasn’t much more than an afterthought until Wells entered the fray, but the youngster has now played 239 minutes this season, started two matches and has a goal and an assist. Those are all career single-season highs — just five games into the campaign.

“Wayne’s been excellent from the start of preseason. … The functions that I need in the team and our game model and our way of playing, Wayne delivers those,” Wells said. “His goal was probably more pleasing for (set piece coach) Rob Burch than me. It was a play Rob called during the week and we tried to design it around Wayne to score. … Tactically, he’s improving all the time in terms of the function I want within our attacking football.”

Rafael Navarro scored goal No. 3 on Saturday night in the 71st minute, only a few minutes before Aaronson put the final touches on the match. And it was most pivotal.

SKC had all the momentum in the second half and threatened to score on numerous occasions. That situation was only made more tense given three of Colorado’s four defenders had a yellow card and two of them had hard fouls that could have resulted in a sending-off.

Then against the run of play, Aaronson found a pass to the byline to left back Miguel Navarro, who played all 90 minutes of his first Rapids start on Saturday. He picked out a perfect low cross to Rafael Navarro for a tap-in.

That����ap the Brazilian striker’s third goal in five games, which puts him on good early track to challenge the club’s single-season scoring record (16) for the third straight year. The closest he got was 15 in 2024.

But with an offense that has now scored four goals in two of its five games under Wells, the sky is the limit for Rafael Navarro and beyond. That mark for a single game has been a rarity for years — only seven occurrences this decade.

Even up 4-1 in the final 15 minutes, the Rapids kept pushing past the limits of stamina to find a fifth goal, both in the press and in the buildup. That����ap Matt Wells ball at its best.

“I think the No. 1 thing is just the duels. Coming into the game tonight, we looked at the stats of the duels — Kansas City was No. 1 and we were way too low, so we prided ourselves on that” Aaronson said. “We know we have a good build-up, we know we have top coaching and top players, so tonight was just about winning the duels and I think we did that.

“… I think it����ap kind of a belief around the group. Coach has done a tremendous job … Giving everyone that hope and that belief that no matter what game, no matter which minute, you can come in and make an impact.”

The win flipped the result of the same fixture from last season, where the Rapids were decimated by the same score by an arguably even worse SKC team while in the midst of a playoff push. That sort of result defined the past couple of Rapids seasons: pulling off some impressive results, but not taking care of bad teams, especially on the road.

Small sample size, but early impressions would suggest the opposite will define this era: keep the foot glued to the gas, and do not play down to the competition.

Eventually, Bassett said, the club gave him a choice: stay in Colorado, where his service had been respected and appreciated but perhaps no longer a fit, or test the waters in another MLS market.

He chose the latter. Twenty-six days later, on Saturday afternoon, he started in the Rapids’ home opener, as was always the plan. Only it was in a Timbers jersey.

“It definitely is weird. I was kind of hoping for a bit more time, but at the same time you get a lot of emotion built up to go out there and perform today, you get a lot of family and stuff that comes back and supports,” Bassett told The Denver Post on Saturday. “It was a meaningful game for me, and I knew that after (the Rapids’) performance last week, they’d be on top of stuff today. … Special to be back, but it was a weird one. I’m glad that it’s out of the way.”

The Rapids treated Bassett to a tribute video before kickoff, which he said he heard in the background during warm-ups but didn’t pay too much attention. The crowd in attendance applauded Bassett, who made 155 regular-season appearances for Colorado, scored 31 goals and provided 22 assists.

Portland was outplayed for the entirety of Colorado’s 2-0 win, the first of Matt Wells’ managerial career. Nobody in green — not even Bassett, who was arguably the Timbers’ best player in a one-assist, all-over-the-pitch win over the Columbus Crew last weekend — could get anything going, aside from a pair of threatening shots which Zack Steffen saved.

And as much as Colorado welcomed its best-ever Homegrown player back to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, it picked on Bassett in the second half. Every match, fans in the southeast corner of the stadium choose a player to boo whenever they touch the ball. Most of the time, it’s the left winger whenever the opponent attacks south. Conveniently, the stands chose Bassett, who has occupied a central role for Portland but also drifts wide from time to time.

All in good fun, but in some ways a response to Bassett’s eagerness to bury the Rapids in his return.

“One of the things I said to (Timbers forward) Antony was, ‘Keep scoring against Colorado when we play them,'” Bassett told reporters in Portland two weeks ago after his transfer. Antony has scored six goals in seven matches against the Rapids since joining Portland in 2023.

After the match, Bassett said he had around 10 jerseys to swap with former Rapids teammates. Midfielder Connor Ronan got the one off his back. Bassett said he’s skipping the plane back to Portland and staying in Colorado for an extra day to catch up with friends and family. One of those might be Rob Holding, who said Bassett was instrumental in helping Holding settle after his transfer to Colorado last summer.

While Bassett spoke to media after the match, Rapids forward Darren Yapi interrupted to give Bassett a hug in passing. Steffen also caught up with him in the tunnel after the match.

“It’s great to see him. We miss him, but we’re really happy for him,” Steffen said. “It’s something that everybody has to do in life: You’ve got to take the next step into the next chapter and challenge yourself. Really proud of him for taking it head on, and we wish him the best.”

On the docket from in the opening half of Sunday night����ap season opener against the Seattle Sounders: an overturned red card, four yellow cards, a Seattle goal, an overturned Seattle goal and 16 minutes of stoppage time as a result. The second half at Lumen Field didn’t feature as many stoppages, but Seattle scored again on the way to a 2-0 win over Colorado.

Despite the bizarre first half, Wells said his halftime talk didn’t include any of that noise. Instead, for a team that Wells said looked “unrecognizable” from the weeks of training since he took over as head coach, he told the Rapids to take a look in the mirror.

“I didn’t recognize it at all. Not seeing elements of that even in our training. The full half-time was spent debriefing that, analyzing that and trying to give the lads some solutions for how we could improve in the second half,” Wells said. “The second half was marginally better in terms of at least it was a poor imitation of ourselves, but at least I recognized it.”

The first-half speed bumps ground the game’s flow to a halt. Naturally, that favored Seattle, its cohesion and experience playing its system. For Wells’ team, doing the right and wrong things systemically looked similar in that neither feels familiar yet. By full-time, play stabilized and the vision for this team looked a little clearer.

Still, an inaugural two-goal loss against what is shaping up to be a Western Conference power could have been worse for a young coach and a particularly young starting lineup.

That included two center backs in Lucas Herrington and Noah Cobb, who are not yet even 21 years old, rather than veterans Rob Holding and Ian Murphy. Jackson Travis, 22, started at left back with veteran Sam Vines waived on Saturday and new signing Miguel Navarro had only been in the country less than a week.

Both center backs held their own, but Cobb was at the center of attention 30 minutes into the match after a hard challenge initially earned him a straight red card. After the second long VAR review of the night, it was reduced to a yellow. In the second half, Herrington recovered well to guard Jesus Ferreira, but unluckily deflected a shot straight to Paul Rothrock for Seattle’s second goal.

Rothrock, who subbed in just the eighth minute after Jordan Morris went down with an injury, assisted the Sounders’ opening goal in the 15th minute after a hustle play to keep the ball in play and a cross to Albert Rusnák.

Offensively, the Rapids produced just seven shots (three on target), most of which came in the second half. Second-year draft pick forward Alex Harris provided a spark after subbing on in the 68th minute and produced one of the best chances of the game: a short-distance shot on a rebound that Andrew Thomas saved. He also led a handful of fast breaks that left Seattle uncomfortable at times.

Though Harris now has only five appearances for 63 total minutes in his MLS career, Wells pointed him out as a standout on Sunday night.

“It wasn’t until Alex Harris came into the game that I saw a player playing with the correct level of intensity, enthusiasm and energy,” Wells said. “He should definitely start the next game as long as he trains well this week. I’ve just told him in the dressing room that the shirt is his.”

That����ap Wells keeping his word from preseason that no starting spot is safe. Herrington and Cobb trained well, he said, so they started. That����ap a refreshing methodology that has had a recent history of lopsided internal competition for playing time.

For now, Wells and his team feel anger, he said. As long as it����ap channeled correctly, Wells noted it����ap a “positive emotion.” They’ve got just six days to adjust before the Rapids’ home opener against the Portland Timbers on Saturday, a game in which former Homegrown star midfielder Cole Bassett will return home for the first time.

“I’d much rather those guys be angry because anger leads to feedback. Anger leads to solutions and anger leads us to moving forward,” Wells said. “We have to make sure that the biggest victims of our poor performance tonight is Portland.”

That����ap because Seattle has a proven track record of controlling games, compared to the Rapids’ brief time trying to learn how. The reigning Leagues Cup-champion and have not lost to the Rapids since May 2022.

While that streak might not end on Sunday night, this early battle should still be revealing. Wells wants the ball as early and often as possible to control games, but it will be a struggle against one of the league’s best at keeping possession, especially in one of the hardest stadiums to play in. Last season, the Sounders ranked seventh in possession at 53.3%.

“We’re going to go there and try and dominate with our football. We’ve played some top teams in this preseason, and every game we’ve had the same intention,” Wells said. “We vary in success, but we’ll go there with the same intention. Every time they have the ball, we’ll try to press because we want the ball. And then when we have the ball, we try to dominate, try to create chances.”

How possession and control pan out will rely on the midfield, which is both team’s deepest position group by far. Seattle’s group looks much the same outside of an outbound transfer for 20-year-old Obed Vargas and a free-agent signing of former Minnesota United midfielder Hassani Dotson. Other than that, Seattle’s midfield includes talisman Cristian Roldan and Designated Player Albert Rusnák with Paul Arriola likely to come off the bench — as good as a group gets in MLS.

Colorado’s group is young and unproven, but hungry. Former Sounder Josh Atencio could start for the first time at his old stadium in the defensive midfield alongside new 22-year-old signing Hamzat Ojediran. Club-record signing Paxten Aaronson will operate the attacking midfield in some capacity.

If the Rapids are overwhelmed, the result may look the same as season openers in the recent past. But if they — and the midfield particularly — can take control of the game, even briefly, it would mark early signs that the opening stages of this revamp is about more than just Wells saying the right things.

In the grand scheme of the turnaround, Wells has preached patience, but Seattle rarely allows it. Sunday’s match, which kicks off at 7:15, won’t define the Rapids season, but will hint at how much the team actually understands — and can execute — Wells’ game model.

What does success look like in Matt Wells’ first year?

Kroenke Sports & Entertainment President of Team and Media Operations Kevin Demoff put it bluntly after the club missed the 2025 playoffs and parted ways with former coach Chris Armas in November: “This club should be competing for titles.”

The Rapids are likely far from that mark, but internal belief in first-time head coach Matt Wells has grown before even setting foot on the sideline at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. That����ap in part because of his no-nonsense, detail-oriented coaching style and the way he has introduced his game model to the roster. This preseason, it took time for those ideas to take shape, but a 4-1 win over Orlando in the finale — a game of which the Rapids posted rare highlights — showed what����ap possible.

That may not be title contention in year one of the project, but if the team is as receptive to significant on-field changes as Wells has suggested, 2026 could bring along actual progress instead of another reset.

“I think our expectation is to compete for an MLS Cup, and a successful season is taking meaningful steps in that direction and being in that conversation,” Demoff said during a preseason press conference on Tuesday. “Nothing short of being competitive, playing attractive football, drawing people here and growing the brand is acceptable.”

One highlight from the Orlando match stood out: a possession started deep in the Rapids’ own corner to stretch Orlando’s defense, then Colorado found nine consecutive one- or two-touch passes to nine different players. In just 10 seconds, the move finished with a stunning service by Darren Yapi for a header into the net from Rafael Navarro.

That����ap the exciting brand of soccer Wells has promised from the day he was hired — and the kind of sequence that played out sporadically at best over the past two seasons.

Which players will define a new Rapids era?

Particularly with the departure of longtime star Homegrown Cole Bassett, no player carries the weight of expectation like Paxten Aaronson will this season. Now just 22, he was brought in late last season for a club-record transfer fee and locked into a five-year contract, which is longer than typical Rapids’ contracts.

Much of that expectation is rooted in the role he occupies and the freedom it demands, particularly now in Wells’ system.

“We play a positional game. It����ap important for players, in the first buildup, to hold their positions. They understand what movements to make, but the movements are all dictated by how the opponent presses,” Wells said. “We’ve still been far too precise (in the final third). I want to drop the precision there, and I want us to play with much more aggression, conviction, more bodies in the box. Constantly attacking, constantly trying to score goals, even if at risk for a counterattack.”

That vision fits what Aaronson does best: progressing the ball through traffic, accelerating attacks and serving as connective tissue in an offense designed to match his assertiveness. Even if he doesn’t score at a high clip, the Rapids expect him to be a central figure offensively and on the press.

Another player who could make the Rapids’ offense sing this year and beyond is winger Dante Sealy. Also 22, the Trinidad and Tobago international was Wells’ first target and acquisition as a head coach. His system required an inverted winger with an eye for goal, and the former CF Montréal star provided that.

He scored nine goals for a near-bottom Montréal team in 2025 and has already gotten praise from Wells this offseason. No Rapids winger in the past decade has hit that mark. The closest was Michael Barrios in 2021, who scored eight goals and provided five assists. Colorado finished atop the Western Conference that year.

Are the Rapids built to dictate games or react to them?

Perhaps the most infamous Rapids loss of the 2025 season was a 3-0 thrashing from the L.A. Galaxy. Without its star midfielder, and many starters resting for another competition, Los Angeles used almost exclusively young and inexperienced players, and still overwhelmed Colorado.

At the time, the Rapids were a reactive team — give up possession, spark a press, win it back and score in transition. The Galaxy punched them in the mouth early and often. That game set in motion a wave of disappointing results after another, which culminated in elimination from playoff contention on Decision Day.

In some ways, Colorado was wired to see itself as the underdog, which led to some unexpectedly good results at times but more often produced bad losses against bad teams.

Wells has used the preseason to hammer the opposite home. In a media availability after training on Thursday, he had the rasp of a coach who had spent the past two hours getting his message across.

“The training was so good, but then there were certain things we did in training in terms of our finishing where we didn’t show true belief and commitment and ruthlessness,” Wells said. “That����ap what I’m trying to create in this group: an edge and an aggression and a ruthlessness — a conviction behind what they do. … I’ll never stop going after that.”