Forget players, what the Colorado Rapids need to poach from Chivas USA is Wilmer Cabrera

Chivas USA has left this Earth, and a dispersal draft for their players will be held soon enough. The Rapids will, assuming it follows the same structure of pick disposal as other drafts -- that is, worst teams pick highest -- have a chance at one of the decent players that were littered throughout their squad. That can't hurt a team that is in desperate need of some player turnover this off-season.

That being said, I don't think that the most important move the Rapids could make involving Chivas would be from that dispersal draft unless they somehow get Cubo Torres out of it, which they won't for multiple reasons. Rather, I think that they should take the opportunity to snag back Wilmer Cabrera, the former assistant to Oscar Pareja who was lured away last off-season by the coach-less Chivas team that went on to finish 7th in the West.

Wilmer Cabrera is coming off of a sordid first season as a head coach in Major League Soccer, and with that resume he's probably in the same boat as the Robin Frasers and John Spencers of the world: small experience, little winning, not the type of guy that seems likely to jump on immediately as a head coach elsewhere unless there's a very desperate team. From the looks of things, there are no such teams in MLS at the moment, which means that either Cabrera is going to stay on as future head coach of LA 2017or he's going to be out of a job as soon as the new ownership is announced... today, I believe.

He's no Jason Kreis, so I find it hard to believe that they're going to let a man with a 9-19-6 head coaching record be the sitting manager for a team that isn't going to play for a few more seasons. He'll still have that 9-19-6 record once he starts in '17, and he'll have gained no meaningful on-field experience -- the only way to make a coach or player better -- to bring much hope to an LA team that is going to need to be hot right out of the gate to shake their Chivas roots and compete immediately with the Galaxy. And despite how ridiculous that 'trade' for Oscar Pareja was last January, it would be even more ridiculous to expect a coach to go out on loan to get experience.

So Wilmer's probably out of the job there. Where to go? Oscar Pareja's FC Dallas team would seem to be the obvious answer, but it's an easy argument to make that the Rapids very, very much need him more. Bulldog Ben told us all about how bare-bones the Rapids coaching staff is compared with everyone else in the West yesterday. One thing Pablo lacks is a true assistant, with John Metgod gone and the other guys all pulling multiple duties. Wilmer would provide not only a very experienced assistant, but one who is familiar with all of the core players of the team (Brown, Powers, Serna, Klute, Irwin) and be able to provide insight on what worked so well in the 2013 season with that core as Pablo and the Rapids try to build both a team and system to win games in 2015.

He doesn't seem likely to stay on at LA, there aren't any teams in MLS I can see that would be looking his way first during a coaching search this off-season -- in fact, this off-season is likely going to be a pretty quiet one in that regard unless Orlando City SC decide on a whim to bring in Cabrera just because he has MLS experience -- and the Rapids could use him for multiple reasons. I see no reason why the first move of the off-season shouldn't be to pick up their old Colombian friend.