Ugh. Just ugh. That was a disaster the likes of which we haven't seen in a while. I'm going to skip the general recap (because there's nothing worth recapping) and go straight to the observations.My key to the game was the Rapids possession. I was correct that it would be the key to the game, because the fact that we couldn't keep possession is essentially the reason the game was so painful to watch.
Other Observations:
- The loss of Pablo hurt more than I expected. We've seen him and Larentowicz struggle to maintain possession the last couple of games, but Jeff and Nane had absolutely no possession in this game and that destroyed what little offense the Rapids had.
- Nyassi should have seen red. I have no idea what the ref was thinking.
- And he was only 1 of 2 or 3 Rapids that could have been sent off. The thuggish frustration fouls as the game went on was embarrassing as a Rapids fan.
- Its hard to tell if Cummings and Folan were having a bad night or just could never get the ball to do anything.
- Wallace looked like he pulled up with an injury, to add to our already lengthening injury list with Pablo and Casey.
- A rare bad night for Moor, finished off by a nasty foul that, while yellow, could have had him seeing red with some refs.
- Despite the horror of that game, we're still the ones wearing the scudetto, not them. :)
Player of the Game: Matt Pickens. Yes, in a game we lost 3-0 I'm picking the goalkeeper as the player of the match, which tells you how bad the game was. Without Pickens it could have easily been 5 or 6 to 0.
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3 comments:
do you listen to the extra time podcast? if not...one of the guys just KILLED colorado, calling them classless.
what you got to say about this?
I think a lot of no-Rapids fans have seen them in one or two games recently (this one, last year's MLS Cup) and assume they play a physical game. This week's game was over the line a number of times, but MLS Cup Dallas was giving it as much as we were, we were just better at it because Toledo was allowing that sort of game. In general though we're not the thuggish, classless team that people label us. In fact we've been int he lower half of the league in fouls committed each of the last 3 years.
We (usually) have two guys who run over people, Casey and Mastroeni, who also happen to be the two (or three with Cummings) faces of the team. Thus since their physical and card magnets the whole team gets labelled as physical even though most of them play cleaner than average.
Agreed. This particular game was over the top and a few to several of our players deserved to be sent off.
The guy on ExtraTime mentioned he only caught the last, whatever, twenty minutes of the game. One game does not fairly stigmatize a team as "thuggish" and "classless", much less only 20 minutes of it. His perspective lacked context.
Additionally, I feel the Rapids absolutely play a "physical" game, along the lines of American/British/German style play. Combined with FCD's largely South/Latin American origins and play style in their middle and front, it can appear pretty extreme.
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