Improvement, But Not Enough

The Rapids didn't embarrass themselves on Saturday night, which was an improvement from the week before, but they didn't do enough to meet the standards they set for this season.  My predicted 1-1 draw was accurate (though I picked the wrong midfielder to score, nice job Bassett) which on its own isn't a bad result against the conference leader.  When you realize its the 5th game in a row without a win, leaving us at 8 points out of 7 games, and it happened while we were up a man for the last 12+ minutes you realize its not good enough.  The team now has a week of rest before heading out to San Jose on Saturday for t he first of 4 games in 11 days since the game the players decided not to play has been rescheduled for Wednesday Sept. 12th.

Random Musings:

• I already see fans complaining about Yarbrough not stopping the KC goal but that was a well hit and well placed ball that he was partially screened on.  It wasn't impossible to stop but it would have taken a highlight save to do it, and I can't blame him for not making it.  Sometimes you just get beat and you have to tip your hat to the opposition.
• This game was also a good example of why Yarbrough is starting.  Listen to him command his defense.  You don't get that from Clint Irwin.
• The defense lineup being the same as the FSL debacle surprised me, I really thought Trusty was going to get a shot.  I know a lot of fans don't like Wilson, and I don't think he's earning his salary, but over the last couple of games he hasn't been a real problem.  We have bigger areas of concern.
• Like, for example, our midfield.  Price and Acosta have been pretty quiet the last couple of games and I feel like we're 7 games in and we don't yet know our best 4 attackers.  Lewis has been great off the bench and missed a great chance (on a tough ball to be fair) to win this one late.  Shinyashiki has some flashes early in this one but then regressed to his poor play of recent games.  Rubio's biggest contribution was not contributing on the goal and dummying the ball past him.  Kamara is apparently carrying a knock and didn't have much time to contribute.
• Nice job by Bassett on the goal, though he almost put i over (when I watched it live I though he had put it over at first).  Good job finding the space.
• In my preview of Stage 1 I said we needed a minimum of 7 and more realistically 10 points in the 6 games.  Well we got 1 point int he first two, both at home.  Now we have to get 6-9 points in the 4 games in 11 days stretch, with only one at home.  I'm not licking our odds.

Man of the Match: Younes Namli.  Bassett is getting the nod, justifiably, for the goal from a lot of people but I felt like this was the game where we really started to see why we signed Namli as a DP.  He was dangerous whenever he got near the box and KC knew it, putting 2 or 3 players on him each time.  Unfortunately Namli was a little selfish at times, believing his footwork would let him beat the defense more often than it really did, and more importantly his teammates weren't using the space he was creating by drawing all those defenders.  When they did good things happened, as we saw on the goal that Namli set up by drawing in the defenders and then laying the ball off into the space Bassett was running into.