HTHL interviews Cole Bassett: Part One
The Rapids midfielder is having a breakout season. In part one of our HTHL interview, we discuss his season highlights, his soccer-playing style, and his influences.
In his seventh full season as a professional soccer player, Cole Bassett is no longer regarded as the fresh-faced homegrown the Rapids hope can contribute here and there for the club – he’s become a lynch-pin contributor to all of the team’s success this year.
It hasn’t been a straight or easy path to this point, though. Cole’s breakout rookie season was followed by the truncated 2020 Covid season. The 2021 season was another step forward for Bassett and the club as the Rapids challenged for Supporters Shield and ultimately won the Western Conference. Then came Bassett’s big move to Europe, a dream he had been pursuing since his Academy days, as the Rapids loaned him to Dutch powerhouse Feyenoord to start their 2021 season. Cole made a few cameo appearances before going on loan to Fortuna Sittard, where he was woefully under-appreciated, clocking just 198 for all of the 2022-23 season. It was a recurring motif of ‘one step forward, one step back’ for the Front Range native.
He rejoined the Rapids to begin the 2023 season and started making up for lost time, recording a career high 6 goals as well as 1 assist. That was merely a prelude of things to come.
Bassett’s 2024 season has been a breakout year, and there’s still plenty of matches to go. The native of Littleton has 7 goals, 5 assists through the first 24 games of the season. He has an automatic spot in the Rapids starting lineup each week. Better yet, he’s proven himself to be the league’s most rangy midfielders – racking up more miles per game on average than every other player in MLS. His FBRef advanced stats clock him as one of valuable attackers and forward-thinking passes in game today. And he’s only 23 years old.
Cole and I shared a zoom a few days before before the Rapids-NYRB game on July 13, and 24 hours after Bassett had been informed he wouldn’t be on the 2024 US Olympic Soccer team (we talk about that in part II of the interview). I was in the ‘Micheal Azira Patron Saint’ Honorary Podcasting Basement, and Cole was on the deck of his Denver-area apartment as we chatted about the season, about Chris Armas, about Cole’s goals, his style of play, and more. Here’s part one of my interview with the impressive (and well-spoken) Cole Bassett.
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Soccer Rabbi: First of all, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking some time. I know that you've got a lot going on and you guys are really busy. And your rest time is is sacred.
So, you're having an amazing year. It's been, I think, a lot of us when you came back from Europe, we were excited to see you rejoin the club. And I think we all had high hopes that it would be really great. But I think you've exceeded all expectations and had just a fantastic return to Major League Soccer these past year, year and a half. But I wanted to ask you, going back over the last, I think we've had 21 games or something like that… what's your favorite moment from a game this past year? Or if you can't pick one, pick a couple.
Cole Bassett: Yeah, there's been quite a few with Chris (Armas). Just because a lot of the games are a lot more fun. I don't know how it is for you watching games, but they tend to be quite more fun to play in as well compared to past years. But I would probably say just winning away at Salt Lake was big. I mean, we did it before I left. But there were no fans in the stadium. Five - nil, it was special there. [Cole’s talking about the game on September 12, 2020, when the Rapids plastered RSL 5-0 at Rio Tinto. Bassett had an assist to Braian Galvan for the fourth goal and scored the fifth and final goal himself.]
But I think two - one [March 9, 2024, away to RSL] and that kind of kick started our season. I didn't think we played very well in that game, to be honest. But to be able to go there and get a result was actually huge for us. So yeah, I think that's got to be the top moment,
Yapi’s goal the other nights has to be up there - for just team camaraderie. I've never seen the whole team knee-slide into a corner. And the coaches came off the bench. We got the video after the game on Hudl (a sports video and tactics app for tablets) – it's a different view than the broadcast view. And you looked at it and see our whole bench jump up right as Yapi got the ball; before he even scored. And they just started moving, moving, moving. And then he scores and they all take off to the corner. And I just think that shows how much the team cares about each other this year, which, you know, makes it a lot more fun to play.
Click below to open a new tab and play Yapi’s goal and the team piling on.
SR : It's interesting that you mentioned two moments from the year that are not your moment, they are team moments. And they're not necessarily like, well, I did this and it was so amazing. Is that how you naturally approach the game? And has that always been the way you approach the game – where you kind of think about how your team is doing more so than you are concerned with your own personal success?
CB: No, no, it honestly hasn't been I think that since I came back from Europe, before I left to Europe, there was my head was always just I want to go to Europe, I want to go to Europe, like I need to do well, if I do well, I'll go to Europe. I think just moving over there at such a young age, you mature in a sense of you understand that it's a business and you need to do well, you need to win your spot. And if you're playing well, you'll obviously have a good career. But I think I've figured out throughout the years that it's a lot more fun when … it is a team sport for a reason. It's kind of loving the guys on the field.
And if the team's doing better, you're probably doing better yourself. So I think this year I'm trying to buy into that.
And especially – we lost a lot of big leaders, the last couple of years here in Colorado, and I think me and Keegs (Keegan Rosenberry) are the longest standing guys here.
For us, we've just kind of taken leadership roles this year that we haven't had in the past. And it's made me grow as a person; even though I'm still young. Ish. I like to think I'm young, maybe not in soccer terms anymore, with (Spain/Barcelona forward Lamine) Yamal’s being 16. And guys like that. But I think it's just a lot more fun when you involve the team. And then I think I've played better myself when I've tried to be less selfish.
SR: Are your goals, basically team goals at this point where you're thinking about cups and success in the playoffs as opposed to trying to hit marks in terms of goals and assists and you know, where you're going to go next and so on in your career?
CB: I think you've both, you definitely have to be self driven. Like for me, I want to be at the Olympics, though that wasn't a team goal. That was me. That was what I wanted to do before I set out. On the season, I wrote down the goal of how many goals I want to get contributions wise. And, you know, I still got a little bit of a ways to go, so I gotta keep scoring in a system.
But then yeah, I think after that, when you get through those individual stuff, I think right now, I mean, you see Leagues Cup coming up, you see a home playoff match, that we're gonna have a chance to be able to play for here in the last 10 or 11 games. And then you want to win an MLS Cup. The Rapids haven't done that in 14 years. So that would be something special.
But I think those are the big ones on my mind obviously as we go throughout the season. And little individual ones can mark off on the, like, on the stuff that I've written down. But yeah, I think the team ones are kind of up higher compared to the individual ones.
SR: One of the things that I watched you do starting your first year in Major League Soccer, I may have even watched it when you were with the U18s, is you have a very unique dribble that I don't know, I've seen too many other players have and I call it a waggle drop step, I think you know what I'm talking about, you have this kind of shoulder move, shimmy shake, and then you kind of hips slide over to the right. It's a move that you're really good at. And it's really a signature move for you. Where did that come from? How do you do that? And is it something when you're dribbling the ball that you conceive of as you're thinking like, I know what I'm going to do? Or is it something that just happens naturally like breathing?
CB: Yeah, that's a good question. And I don't think I've heard too many people notice that, but a lot of my teammates do when we're in training, they always say, “Oh, it's a signature movement.” And that shot as well. I feel like if I'm on the left side of the field, and I can cut in and bend the ball far post, that's probably my most confident finish. I mean, if you give me 10 Of those, I feel like I can score seven or eight of them. So I think that's one of the main reasons I tried to do it.
Where I got it is Willian from Chelsea. I can't remember what year it was. But I used to watch him. On the left flank, I think it was when he was still wearing 22. And he had a game against Southampton, I think it was, where he did the little shimmy, like he just fakes and then he comes inside, and it just opens up space.
And I'd love to have a little bit more quickness in the hesitation and then get out of there. And that's what some I'm still trying to work on is bringing a little bit more power and pace into my game, when you're able to break away from people. But that's kind of where I got it. And I think people have started to figure it out, though. So I've had this stop going a little bit to the right, and try to get on to my left as well. But I think it is a good move to be able to free up some space to shoot.
SR: That's a great point. It's like one of your … it was one of your first moves. And now you're growing beyond it. And also knowing that, which is kind of a crazy thought, I still think of you as young. But I assume you now know that you are not as young as you used to be. Guys watch tape on you and defenders watch tape on you. And they go Oh, when he goes like this, I should do like this. And so with that in mind, all athletes kind of have these moments where people start to figure out their tendencies. And then you have to develop something new. So what's something new that you've developed recently that maybe a riff that’s something different that you are still working on? And we'll assume that nobody at RSL is listening to this podcast.
CB: It’s the burst of speed. Padraig (Smith, Rapids GM)... we had a meeting at the end of the year last year, even though I finished the year well, but he still said “I want to see a change of speed versus just speed from you. I know you have it in you.”
But I think that's what takes the top players and puts them up here compared to just averaging good players. Because they have that burst of speed it catches the eye a little bit.
I know I'll never be Kevin Cabral or Moises Bombito, where it's like just flat out pace. But a lot of my teammates have said to me as well, like when you're running with the ball it is you might not look fast, but you actually it's hard to track and it is a little bit tough to be able to follow.
So I've been trying to get the fake hesitation and then go to my left. And I know I don't have as much speed. So you really have to sell the move to be able to create space on your left foot. And it's not something that I get to do all the time, especially being in the middle of the field. But I do tend to drift out wide a couple of times a game and that's something that I'd like to try a lot more of, especially with Djordje being on I think a lot more moments like that.
SR: They'll need you to do that. There's another signature move that you have. It's not so much a move but kind of a decision that you make goal scorers come with lots of different particular proclivities things that they tend to do and your tendency over the years that you've been with the Rapids has been the late box arrival goal, you know that the frontline guys are getting to the end line or getting nearer to goal and then you either arrive late on a cutback goal or you arrive for the rebound. How much has that been something that you've kind of planned or talked with the coaching staff about and how much more is that? How you prefer to affect the game?
CB: Yeah, it is something. I've I've watched a lot of video and I know people have started to say Frank Lampard gotten a few videos sent to me of you know, MLS has kind of picked up on that. But I've watched him.
I remember when Anthony Hudson was coach, I used to say, “Can I watch Frank Lampard videos? I want to see how it was that he always arrived in the box at the same time how he was scoring 15 Plus goals every single year.” And I've watched a lot of videos on the timing of it. And I feel like I just kind of have a natural sense of not just wanting to score goal but feeling where the space is a little bit.
But it's tough. Like there's certain games where you just don't feel like it's fallen to you. And you're like, why is it not coming into this space? But then other games, I think, like last game (Rapids v St Louis, where Cole had an assist and a goal, combining both times with Kevin Cabrál) was quite easy. I was looking around, I was like, where is everybody? Like, normally, it's not that easy, where you just have nobody on you. So I think those those goals are quite easy. But there's still plenty of games where I miss a couple chances where I feel like I'm in good spaces. And I just don't execute. So then that motivates me to go back the next week and continue to work on those because, you know, for me, the one thing I've always said to the guys is I always score one goal, I never have two or three.
I need to start getting braces and hat tricks. Because I feel like with those late arriving rounds, especially in MLS with transition, you can get a few extra late in the game.
SR: That's really interesting, I wonder how much of that is the Djordje Mihailovic effect of like, suddenly, he's scoring in bunches right now. And so now everybody's like I need to get a goal – one goal is not enough. You and I both remember last year and three years ago when this team couldn't buy a goal to save its life. And now you're – I'm not saying bragging, but a little bit – saying like, Hey, we should actually be scoring two and three. And back in the day, we'd be thrilled with a one nil win.
CB: Ya know, times have changed (laughs). It's just different styles of football. You know, Robin (Fraser, Rapids head coach before Chris Armas ) had a very good style that led us to first in the West for one year, so we had good success with it. But Chris has brought a different style of just, you know, energy. And every time you have a chance to play for it, he wants you to play for it. And that's translating the goals.
SR: One last thing about your style of play. So, one of the most talked about things regarding your play this season has been the miles you cover, that if I'm not mistaken, you run more than any other player in Major League Soccer. What is that? How do you conceive of that going out on the field? And how much effort have you personally had to go into this season in terms of conditioning, versus the coaching staff, and just … genetics? What do you owe that to?
CB: It's funny because you would think I would say I train all offseason on conditioning.
I don't do one bit of conditioning in the offseason.
I think most of its genetics and growing up in altitude. My parents, my dad was a track star, he went to cow and my mom played field hockey, so they both were running around a lot. And I think I owe a lot to them. I honestly don't really know what it is because what is offseason time like for me I've always been a skinnier kid. And I've had to develop the physical side of the game a lot.
And then recently, once I went to Europe, I realized how much just a burst of speed matters and and how quick you can be matters rather than just flat out sprint speed, but the quickness at which you do things. So I've been trying to work on that a lot more than fitness. I think it just tends to be I want to be an all action midfielder throughout the game.
So that's why I tend to run that much. But I don't notice it in a game. Like it just feels natural to me. And I guess now I'm the highest guy but it's not like something I go out every game and I'm like, oh, I need to hit this number. It's just kind of how I play. I like to be everywhere. So what ends up happening in the way.
End Part I