Saturday night at BC Place, the Vancouver Whitecaps will host the Colorado Rapids in an early-season showdown between two Western Conference teams that have been off to strong starts.

The Whitecaps are following up a midweek clash with Pumas, where the home side played well, but conceded a rather cheap late goal which upset what otherwise would have been a very strong leg-one result in Concacaf play.

Colorado, meanwhile, has not played since last weekend in MLS, where two Đorđe Mihailović goals in the span of four minutes were the difference against Charlotte FC in a 2-0 home result.

After making some big splashes between the 2023 and 2024 seasons, the Rapids showed promise last year, somewhat similar to the Whitecaps. Although a 7th place finish in the West (one spot and three points above Vancouver) was not particularly impressive given the hype surrounding the team going into the season, it was still a step forward after being dead last in the West in 2023.

Unlike Vancouver though, the Rapids were comprehensively destroyed by the other LA team, the LA Galaxy, in the first round of the MLS playoffs, leaving serious questions as to what the team from Colorado needed to change in order to take another step forward in 2025.

While Colorado’s off-season going into this year was much less eventful than the previous one, they did make some shrewd acquisitions that appear to be working for them so far. Chief among those moves was locking up number nine Rafael Navarro from Brazilian giants Palmeiras on a permanent move, after the promising striker scored 17 goals in all competitions last year while on loan. Navarro already has three goals and one assist through six matches this season.

Beyond that, Seattle Sounders academy product Josh Atencio has been a quality addition in defensive midfield, adding youth and experience at a position where the Rapids were lacking last year.

Colorado also added two central defenders from Cincinnati in Chidozie Awaziem and Ian Murphy. Awaziem, the Nigerian 28-year-old, has locked down a starting role alongside Andreas Maxsø, and that has provided some much-needed defensive consistency, a trait that completely abandoned the Rapids in last year’s playoffs.

The Rapids had the fourth-worst defensive record in the West last year during the regular season, so those defensive additions are clearly part of Chris Armas’ plan to improve his team in 2025.

In addition to Navarro up front, the dynamic duo of Cole Bassett and Đorđe Mihailović was key to the Rapids’ seismic improvements in 2024 and will no doubt also be key to any further advances this team is able to make this season.

The duo combined for 37 goal contributions last season, and Basset, in particular, was able to take a big step forward, finally eclipsing his five goal, five assist, age 18 season (all the way back in 2020), with nine goals and seven assists in 2024.

Finally, a huge question for the Rapids this season will be the play of American goalkeeper and former Man City man Zack Steffen. I am not exaggerating when I say that Steffen was the worst starting goalkeeper in MLS last year, and it was not particularly close. Steffen posted a -9.1 post-shot expected goals figure, which for reference, means you are conceding about 0.3 goals more than expected every 90 minutes played.

All that being said, Steffen has been off to a much better start in 2025, already sitting pretty at +3.5 post-shot expected goals, including a great 12-save performance against San Jose, and a 5-save showing on opening day, keeping a clean sheet against St. Louis.

Turning things over to the Whitecaps, the player availability sheet is one of the big talking points. The Whitecaps took a serious hit against Toronto last weekend, losing Mathias Laborda for a month, while also seeing Andres Cubas go off injured.

For Cubas, the injury to his shoulder is not particularly serious, so he could be back in the mix either this weekend (he will be available), or at the very least next Wednesday in Mexico City. Elsewhere, Ryan Gauld and Sam Adekugbe remain out, though Adekugbe is getting closer to returning, and I would imagine he will be back to full training sessions soon.

In terms of players who are fit and available, we will see if Emmanuel Sabbi is ready for his first start in a Whitecaps shirt this weekend, as he’s looked promising in his substitute appearances to date. Equally, Jayden Nelson might be due for a start after coming off the bench against Pumas midweek (Update: Nelson has now been ruled out with an injury). Along the backline, I would be surprised to see much rotation, though perhaps Isaac Boehmer could be in a good position to earn himself an MLS start.

Overall, this is a pretty good Rapids team that will probably be close to Vancouver in the standings throughout the season. Though I would back the Whitecaps to win this match if everyone was healthy, I think the Rapids will do enough to earn themselves a point, so I will go for a second consecutive 1-1 draw.

(Image Credits: Colorado Rapids)