The 2024 Preseason Starts Now?

Colorado heads down to try to mess with Texas tomorrow night, specifically the barcode-wearing Austin FC.  There's not a lot of joy among the burgundy faithful right now, with 1 goal and 1 point in the first 4 games and Jack Price gone for the season many fans are thinking this season is already over.  Honestly, I can't blame them.  Its hard to see how this team turns things around with what we've seen in the first 360 minutes of the season.  With the injuries and absences we have tomorrow, any turn-around is unlikely to start this weekend.  Kickoff is at 6:30 tomorrow and the announcers on Apple TV are Adrian Healey and Cobi Jones in English, Raul Guzman and Sonny Guadarrama in Spanish.

Availability Report:

OUT: D Moise Bombito (knee), M Jack Price (Achilles)*, F Yaya Toure (knee), F Diego Rubio (Chile), F Darren Yapi (U.S. U-20)

QUESTIONABLE: D Steven Beitashour (hamstring), D Alex Gersbach (hamstring), M Braian Galvan (groin)

* - Since Price has been announced as out for the season, this is the only time I'll include him in the Availability Report, since its not going to change week-to-week

That's an ugly list.  8 players unlikely to start at best.  Not to mention all our true forwards.  Hard to see how we get out of our scoring funk.

Really, I'm not sure what Fraser is going to do at this point.  I think he'll likely ask Ronan to take the role Price was expected to play this season, which would lead to a more attacking player like Max or maybe Acosta filling the 3rd role in central midfield.  Cabral seems like the only option at striker but who knows.

Prediction: 1-0 loss.  Hard to predict any scoring right now, and Austin seems to have a decent offense so I can't predict a shutout.  I wouldn't be shocked by a 0-0 or even a 1-1, but I can't see anything more than that happening.