Colorado Outplayed By DC

Horrible play, two complete debacles on defense, and only two shots on target.  An almost forgettable game that almost doesn't deserve a review, but I wanted to highlight the two goals as they really show the disaster of our defense last night.

On the first goal Neal was allowed to bring the ball a good 50 yards into the Rapids end with no pressure.  Freeman just kept backing up and backing up and backing up.  By the time he got near to the box he had Marshall for support but Marshal was just standing their pointing at the ball like it was a snake about to bite him.  Sahili made a crossing run behind Marshall, pulling Moor with him since neither Marshall or Freeman was paying attention to what was going on behind them (to the point that Marshall backed into Sahili as he crossed behind Marshall).  That left DeRosario with a ton of open space in front of goal and Neal played a perfect ball to him.  Larentowicz was standing in space between them but didn't move to cover DeRo as Moor was pulled away.  Pickens charged out to try to stop the shot with no luck and it was 1-0 DC.

On the second goal  a DC player brings the ball deep into the PK area. Moor slide tackles it away but doesn't get it over the end line. He then gets back up, fights for it, slide tackles it again, and that forces the DC player to play it back outside to where a cross was whipped in. The whole time Marshall is standing a couple yards away pointing at the ball but never engages, even when Moor is on the ground for the second time in 5 seconds.  The cross finds an onside Boskovic who heads it on net.  Pickens comes up with the parry but it falls to Sahili, who was also on-side and with Pickens on the ground its easy to make it 2-0.  Both players were kept on-side by Zapata who ended up standing between them not making a play on either ball and a good 2-3 yards behind all the other defenders who had stepped up to put Boskovic and Sahili in an offside position.

My key to look for was Hill and Cascio up front.  It turned out to be Casey and Cascio but it didn't matter as there were only two shots on goal, and they both came within a minute of each other int he second half (one form Hill, one from Cascio).  Beyond those we had no threatening attack all night.

Other Observations:

• There were only two bright spots in this match, Matt Pickens (discussed below) and Casey getting the start and playing 65 minutes.  Everything else was awful.
• Moor was essentially trying to do the job of 3-4 defenders last night.  On both goals he was left out of position and unable to cover due to Marshall standing around point at the ball instead of attacking it.
• Freeman and Marshall should never play together again.  Period.
• Larentowicz has failed to cover like that on multiple occasions this season and its burned us a couple of times.  He needs to step up when the defense gets pulled out of position.
• Castrillon?  Rivero?  Not sure they played last night.
• To add injury to insult, Mullan was pulled at half not as a tactical decision but because he injured his knee.  His status for Saturday is questionable.

Player Of The Game: Matt Pickens.  Duh.  8 saves, at least 5-6 huge ones to prevent a goal from great shots.  Maybe he could have done better on the first goal but not by much and given everything else he did he prevented this from being a 5 or 6 goal game.