A nugget of note which may have slipped past most following Saturday’s 3-1 reversal in Minnesota was that a league veteran and Rapids stalwart strolled beyond yet another club milestone.
Drew Moor made his MLS debut 17 years ago this coming weekend (April 23, 2005), appearing as an 84th minute substitute for FC Dallas in a 3-0 home win over Real Salt Lake.
He spent four-and-a-half seasons with his hometown team, before settling in Colorado from August 2009. Aside from a four-season stint in Toronto, the nicer side of the Rocky Mountains has been where the 38-year-old has played most of his soccer.
Inside Allianz Field, central defender Moor played 83 minutes in his first start - and only second appearance - of 2022. And in doing so, he edged beyond 17,000 minutes for the club closest to his heart. Moor’s regular season playing time for the Rapids now stands at 17,020 minutes. Only Pablo Mastroeni has spent more time on the field for the club (18,669).
With 404 MLS appearances, and 371 starts, only seven players in league history have higher numbers than Moor in both categories (in starts, he is one behind Steve Ralston). In career minutes played, the Rapids number three is sixth on the MLS list (33,697), while only Kyle Beckerman (21) and Nick Rimando (20) have played in more MLS seasons than Moor (2022 is his 18th).
These are all numbers that Drew Moor could only have dreamt of as a 10-year-old boy, wide-eyed, watching Brazil beat the Netherlands 3-2 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, one of 63,500 fans witnessing giants of the global game in the quarterfinal of the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
“The impression it left on me was unreal,” Moor would later recall. “Just being in that atmosphere and seeing what it meant to the Brazilian fans and the Dutch fans.”
This moment in time, on July 9, 1994, proved the catalyst for Drew Moor and the career he has enjoyed, and continues to enjoy.
“The World Cup being in the US changed the way I looked at the game, seeing what it meant to the players on the field and the fans in the stands,” Moor said.
“My dad and I, when we were driving back from that game, said to each other ‘where’s the World Cup next?’, and we found out it was going to be in France in 1998, and we went, and we saw some more games.
“It was the first time I’d ever been to Europe and - funny enough - we saw the semifinal game, which was between Brazil and Holland again. Those were defining moments in my passion for world football.”
That passion continues to burn inside this most popular of players. You don’t start the games, play the games, and clock up the minutes that Moor has without an intense dedication to your chosen craft.
It was interesting to observe during Saturday’s game, when skipper Jack Price had conversations with referee Chris Penso, that Moor was close by. He no longer wears the captain’s armband, but his voice is still heard, and his opinion still sought.
Who knows what the future holds for Drew Moor, a players’ player in the twilight of a career sparked by a visit to a World Cup match staged in the United States in 1994.
But when the FIFA World Cup returns to the USA in 2026, some 32 years after the nation hosted this sporting spectacle for the first time, Drew Moor will be 42.
A dad to two sons, Joey and Ryan, the eldest will be 10 years of age when that World Cup rolls around, the same age Drew was when - stood alongside his father in the summer of ’94 - the likes of Bergkamp, Overmars, Bebeto, and Romario served to inspire him to go on and do great things in a league which was still two years from existing.
Drew Moor, the boy who dared to dream.
