COMMERCE CITY, Colo. -- The longest-serving and most popular player on the Colorado Rapids roster, team captain and midfielder Pablo Mastroeni has been signed to a contract extension, the announcement made Tuesday by the club as it also confirmed the hiring of Gary Smith as its new head coach.
"I can honestly say, it wasn't a hard decision for me," Mastroeni said, noting that the club's decision to retain Smith as head coach was the decisive factor. "The last two months of the season, with Gary at the helm, completely changed my mind about where I wanted to be, where my heart was. Coming out to training every day and sharing the field with my teammates in a competitive environment, an environment that I've wanted for years at the club level and unfortunately [only] found it at the national team level. We found that this year."
The fact that Mastroeni's mind needed to be changed was a reference to his disillusionment with the Rapids and his own questions about completing this career with the club he has been so closely associated with over the past seven seasons. He had expressed his concerns about the worsening atmosphere around the Rapids at this time last year, following a late-season collapse and the Rapids' first season out of the playoffs since before Mastroeni first came to Colorado in 2002.
By August of this year, with the Rapids suffering a four-match winless streak and the atmosphere approaching unbearable, Mastroeni was having trouble envisioning a future in burgundy and blue.
"At that point, midseason, with the transfer window that starts in July, I was pretty much gone as far as I was concerned, mentally," Mastroeni said. "I was somewhere else."
It was rock bottom for the Rapids, but along with a mid-August head coaching change from Fernando Clavijo to Smith, the environment improved, and the Rapids record followed suit. Mastroeni explained that Smith rekindled his love of soccer, even to the point that he approached each training session with a drive and competitive spirit that had been too long dormant.
"Those are feelings I haven't had in many, many years," Mastroeni said Tuesday. "And once that started happening, the team started winning games on the road, we started believing in ourselves, we started getting after each other in training. At that point I thought this is definitely a viable situation that I'd like to take on."
According to Rapids managing director Jeff Plush, the contract extension ensures that Mastroeni will remain in Colorado "as long as he hopes to be playing." He is already third all-time with the Rapids for games started, fourth in minutes played, and fifth in total matches. He led Colorado to three Western Conference Championship matches and has been named to nine consecutive MLS All-Star squads, tied for second all-time in the league.
A perennial U.S. national team call-up and a highly sought-after player who consistently attracts interest from top leagues around the world, Mastroeni's decision to stay in Colorado is a ringing endorsement of the Rapids' new direction with Smith at the helm.
"I knew he was unhappy a year ago," Plush said of Mastroeni's one-time doubts about the future of the club. "I had a private sit-down conversation with Pablo when he expressed that to me, and I asked him to give me a chance to get it fixed and to be patient. To his credit, he gave me the opportunity to get it fixed."
As the team finally found its identity under Smith, the confidence returned to the Colorado changing room, and Mastroeni's appetite was stoked by the club's dramatic climb into contention over the season's last 11 matches, culminating in a numbing draw on the season's final match - with the equalizer finding the net in the match's 90th minute, keeping Colorado out of the playoffs for consecutive seasons for the first time in team history.
"The feeling was right - a good group of guys, experienced players showing true professionalism, young guys wanting to learn, and somehow we [transformed ourselves] into a team that believed we could achieve whatever we wanted," Mastroeni said. "And so for me the decision was I wanted to recapture that feeling that we had at the end of the year. I want to change the result at the end when we don't make the playoffs, but I want to be here. I want to commit to a place, not only for myself but for my family."
The Rapids were clearly thankful to be on the receiving end of Mastroeni's commitment, and it is in keeping with their captain's character that he never made an issue of his unhappiness, giving the club every chance to resolve the situation. His leadership on the field and the value he provides in creating a sense of team unity and purpose cannot be underestimated, but for Mastroeni the books are still in need of balancing.
"Colorado is the place that formed me into the player I've become, and I feel obligated to at least give back in whatever way I can, and that's putting some hardware in our clubhouse and winning some championships and being serious," Mastroeni said. "I'm pleased to be here, I'm excited about the change, I'm excited about the direction the organization's going, and most importantly I'm excited to be playing alongside some of the league's best players."
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