pending the arrival of his international transfer certificate -- and are on the brink of signing Colombian center back Oscar Murillo.
Earls worked with Colorado assistant Steve Guppy when the latter was Rochester's player/assistant coach back in 2008, and the connection led to Earls twice coming in for training stints. The former Irish youth international can fit in anywhere on the left flank, but Rapids technical director Paul Bravo sees him helping out primarily in defense.
"He's a guy we've had on our radar for a couple of years, and we've put a fair bit of time into seeing [Earls] play," said Bravo. "So we have a working knowledge with Danny so we felt comfortable with him as a guy who could give us depth in the backline as well as maybe push into midfield."
Assuming the deal for the aforementioned Colombian goes through, that would appear to give Colorado a glut of central defenders with Julien Baudet, Scott Palguta, Ty Harden and Drew Moor already on the books. But Bravo added that Moor will likely line up at right back this season.
Jeff Carlisle is a regular contributor to ESPN Soccernet, and covers the San Jose Earthquakes for Center Line Soccer and MLSnet.com. Jeff can be reached at eljefe1@yahoo.com. Views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's, and not necessarily those of Major League Soccer or MLSnet.com.
