New Philadelphia Union manager Peter Nowak is already looking for players to form his club for next season. Apparently he has some big time say in who can and can’t be signed to his club according to Jack Bell over at the New York Times.

With his first signing for the expansion side, Nowak may sign former Colorado Rapids keeper Bouna Coundoul.

Nowak is expected to have control of player personnel decisions in Philadelphia and his first signing could be a goalkeeper, Bouna Coundoul, a native of Senegal who played his high school ball in New York. Coundoul played last season for Colorado in M.L.S. and has also played for his national team. He is currently a free agent who has been training with clubs in Finland.

While I was never the biggest fan of Coundoul, maybe Nowak could get a little more out of him than Fernando Clavjio ever did.

Fernando Clavijo is resigning as coach of the Rapids effective immediately, according to the Denver Post this morning. No real shocker here as Clavijo left the club earlier last week to be with his family in his native Uruguay. He mentions that he wants to help the club but needs to be with his family right now.

“A lot of things happened through the year that I was not happy with in many ways, but I think because of family now I’ve decided it’s the right time to put all my energy into my family and recharged my batters and myself, too,” Clavijo said.

Like I said last week, I believed it was one of those things were he was getting out before he was outed in the offseason. The front office decided not to do anything to him during the year but you can tell they gave him little confidence that he would be returning next season as the head coach of the Rapids.

Even though we all know he was going to get the boot at the end of the year it is almost always better to see someone leave on their own power.

Clavijo said he will inform the team of his decision and endorse assistant coach Gary Smith, who lead the team to a 2-1 victory over the Kansas City last weekend. My bet is Smith will carry out the duties for the rest of the season and Colorado will push heavy for Houston assistant John Spencer in the offseason.

Are you shocked at all to see Clavijo stepping down right now? What does this mean for the Rapids?

Not even 24 hours after a dreaded vote of confidence, Colorado Rapids head coach Fernando Clavijo has left the club to return to his native Uruguay today to attend to a family medical emergency.

According to reports he will not be back in time for the club’s weekend match with Kansas City, but he did not rule it out completely.

The situation comes at a time when speculation is surrounding his future with the club. His contract runs through this season. Currently the Rapids haven’t won a game since their July 4th blowout against New York. At 6-10-3 on the year, the Rapids are the second worst club in the league.

Its one of those odd things really, he knows his time is limited with the club right now. So does he go ahead and just bolt town before he gets the pink slip? We will have to watch and see but something like this always screams that the person is leaving on their own terms and not at the hands of some suit in the front office. Either way it doesn’t sound too good for this club right now.

What do you make of this news? Is he as good as gone here or is this just a thing to fuel the presses?

A couple Colorado Rapids updates for you all this afternoon (or evening depending on where you are).

First up from the desk of Steve Goff. He’s reporting that Fernando Clavijo “thought he would be fired” but did not in a recent meeting with executives from the club. Instead he was pretty much given an ugly vote of confidence, meaning he is the lame duck that we all thought he was. His contract expires at the end of the season and unless the Rapids turn things around quickly and make a MLS Cup this season, Clavijo will be shown the door after the final game.

I think the club is probably doing this because 1) they rarely make moves like this during a season, 2) they are hoping in the off-season to be able to bring in a John Spencer (former Rapids striker) or a Paul Merinar to take over, and 3) because at this point I think they believe their club is seriously still in the playoff hunt despite their recent form. I guess they don’t watch their club much either.

Clavijo isn’t the answer now, nor has he really ever been for this club. I could see him go elsewhere in this league but then again I wonder if any club would really take a chance on a guy that is well below the sea level in terms of all-time records. Continue Reading…

It is possible that in the coming days we could see another coaching change in Major League Soccer. This time it will be one that has been long over due in the minds of many around the league. According to Steve Goff, the Colorado Rapids are set to fire Fernando Clavijo and promote assistant Gary Smith.

Its about time right?

Yeah, considering the Rapids have been pretty terrible in recent weeks (1-5-3 in their last nine). Plus Clavijo’s all-time mark with the Rapids now stands at 39-49-24. Those aren’t exactly numbers that he promised when he started with the club. I think I recall him even saying by year three they would be a MLS Cup contender or something to that effect.

What happened in year three? The Rapids missed the playoffs.

This move could be coming in a matter of days so I will keep you up to date on what I hear.

Yes, I know it has been a while since the last update for this watch list. But unlike the rookie watch list, this one needs only to be tackled every now and then. The one of the last updates was right around the time that Dallas decided to give Steve Morrow the boot.

No one has been fired since but seeing that we are now at the “All-Star break” here (well sorta, there is a game tonight) it seemed like a good time to revisit this once more.

To be honest, I have kept up a little bit on the sidebar with this list but haven’t gone into any detail about it. The names you see are in the heat. Though I did have to take Real Salt Lake’s Jason Kries off the list due to his club’s recent success in the standings.

So who makes this list? Who is feeling the heat now at the All-Star break? Well, its still a couple of the same names and maybe one or two new ones that are fairly close to going on the hot seat. Let’s see, shall we? Continue Reading…