Rapids Manage To Avoid Last Place

The Rapids looked good at times against Minnesota last night and by picking up a point managed to avoid last place in the tournament.  That said, this team still has a long way to go to be the challenging competitive team the organisation built towards 2020 for.  My prediction:

1-1 draw, goal by Kamara.  That will be the 1000th goal in team history, according to Richard Fleming.  I don't have faith the Rapids are going to get over the hump against the best team in the group, and I highly doubt the results elsewhere are going to to their way to allow them to advance anyway.

It turned out to be 2-2, but everything else was accurate, even Kei getting the first goal for the 1000th in team history.  Much like the SKC game the Rapids were arguably the better team for the majority of the game, but a 10-15 minute period where the team lost focus cost them points.  After an easy breakaway for Kamara put the team up 1-0 they allowed goals in the 36th and 43rd minute.

The first came off a well worked corner kick that United just beat us on.  The kick was well placed and a perfect touch by Finlay redirected it into the net.  Sometimes you just have to ti[p your cap and say "nice job" to the other team, and this was one of those times.

The second goal was a defensive breakdown.  Sam Vines got skinned on the left side and Drew Moor was left with a decision.  Step to Vines' man to stop his open look at goal or stay on his man.  Moor stepped to the ball and Gregus immediately put the ball into the space Moor vacated and Finly just needed to be a solid object for it to rebound off of for his second goal.  I'm not sure what the expected decision, or best decision, for Moor is there, so I can't say he made the wrong one, but it didn't work out this time.

As we've seen in three out of five games this season though the Rapids despite being down would fight back.  Lewis would come off the bench and for the third time this year score a tying or winning goal.  This time, unlike Friday, it held up and Colorado avoided going home with nothing.  Even a win wouldn't have mattered though as SKC beat FSL yesterday morning so the Rapids had been eliminated before they started play.

In the next few days I'm going to do an analysis of where the team is as we wait for the rest of the regular season (if it happens) so I'll leave anything more for then.  We finish the MLS is Back tournament with a 2-1-2 (W-D-L) record and a -1 goal differential for the season, and a number of questions.

Man of the Match: Jon Lewis.  The fair, IMO, knock on him so far is that he can't stay "in the match" for a full 90 minutes and that results in inconsistent play, thus he's better coming off the bench.  At some point though with his scoring rate you have to give him another shot as a starter.