We've Seen This Story Before

The Rapids got a lead at home, and gave it up late...again.  A draw was probably a fair result for the game based on the play (and its what I predicted) but you hate to drop points like that.  Seattle came in looking for a scoreless draw or maybe to steal 3 points on a smash and grab and they got what they wanted.  With the draw the chances of catching Seattle for first in the West are fairly limited.

Random Musings:

• Namli was a late scratch from the lineup due to tightness, which isn't great since he's already missed so much time.  We only have 4 games to get him synced with the rest of the team before the playoffs.
• Jack Price does not get enough publicity from the national press.  He's the best dead ball specialist in the league and is 3rd overall in assists, pretty much all from free kicks like last night.  He needs 2 more to tie Terry Cooke for 2nd most assists all-time in Rapids history.
• Danny Wilson was named in the MLS mid-week team of the week, and he did play really well, but he was at sixes and sevens on Seattle's goal.  He tracked the play the whole way and covered nothing but empty space the whole time.  Doing that pulled Trusty and Esteves out of position and led to 3 Sounders being 5 Rapids.
• But the goal really comes back to Rosenberry's injury.  The prior game in Seattle are the first minutes he missed all season, after playing most of the 2020 minutes and all the 2019 minutes.  Because of that we don't really plan for him to sub out and it hurt us.  We moved Acosta to RB and he's not a RB.  He was beaten on the goal first with the pass, and then by Chu in the box where he got separation for the cross.
• It was an interesting lineup last night with Acosta at LB and Shinyashiki in midfield.  I'm guessing part of that was due to Namli's late injury.  My bet is that Shinyashiki was slated to start up top where Badji played but moved back into Namli's spot.
• Luckily Vancouver had a late comeback against Portland last night.  The Timbers appeared to be on their way to a win that would have put them within 3 points of us going into Saturday night's head to head matchup.  Now they're 6 points back so a win on Saturday puts them 9 back with 3 to play.  They would have the tiebreaker (total wins) so we don't lock up a top 3 finish with a win, but we do get to a point that it would take losing the rest of our games while somebody else won all of their's.
• A win this weekend would finally clinch a playoff spot though.
• SKC is even on points with us but has a game in hand now.  They play Seattle on Saturday so the result of that one should tell us who we might be able to catch for second.

Man of the Match: Dominique Badji.  Pressed into starting service he came up with a goal.  What more can you ask for?