Colorado Still Winless In Seattle

You knew it was not going to go our way when Sjoberg was a late scratch due to a stomach bug and Watts started in his place alongside Burling.  Sure enough, 15 minutes in, a poor decision by Powers and a bad deflection from Watts led to a Sounders goal and after that the Rapids were chasing the game, badly.  After their first road loss Colorado will have to rebound to face the Timbers on Saturday.

General impressions:

• The Rapids are now 0-1-10 in Seattle with a 26-7 goal differential all time.
• The first half was awful.  Colorado essentially stood around and let Seattle pass the ball all over the field.  They were lucky to only be down one.
• As much as I like to hammer Watts for poor play the bigger mistake on the Seattle goal was Powers.  His decision to try to play the ball in small space instead of just clearing it led to an easy turnover and cross.
• That said, WTF was that Watts?  Have you ever cleared a ball before?
• Pappa essentially has no right foot, so beautiful goal from him.  Harrington expected him to go left like he always does and left him was too much space on the right.
• Doyle in Powers role and Powers on the left did not work.  Powers has to be in the center which means Doyle up top.  Either that means a 4-4-2 to play Solignac at the same time or only putting one of our two new strikers at once.
• Pittinari was a turnover machine last night, I don't know how he managed to go 90.
• Torres was AWOL in the first half, I can't blame Pablo for subbing him off.
• The strategy of balls over the top hoping Slognac or Doyle could do something isn't going to work against most teams, certainly not against Seattle.
• Irwin had a good night, could do nothing about the goal.
• Our set pieces were worse than normal.  I particularly liked the one in the Seattle's end in the second half that didn't get past the 1-man wall and resulted in a save from Irwin within 15 seconds.

Man of the Match: Juan Ramirez.  Putting him in actually created a spark to our offense and showed us what a hustling Rapid looked like.  What few dangerous chances we had came through him.

Prediction for Portland: Family events are going to keep me from putting up my normal  preview tomorrow night.  I expect a 1-0 win against Portland on Saturday with a goal from Torres.