Lewis Hands a Draw To Nashville

The story of the Rapids this season is much like 2023.  No ability to score.  The play is probably technically better, but if you can't put the ball in the net it doesn't matter.  On Saturday they had 2 shots on goal and a 0.7 xG.  Our three DP's (Cabral, Navarro, and DM) have a combined 0.16 xG this year.  Fernandez, who played 26 minutes on Saturday, has 0.22 himself.

This is, simply, unacceptable for a team that had this problem last year and made major changes in the offseason.  We clearly haven't fixed the core problem from last year, scoring.  That would come back to bite us in this one, with the only goal being a stunning well-taken header by Shaq Moore (one of the few players who's shirt I have, from when he played for Tenerife) into his own goal.  The Rapids had the lead for most of the second half but it didn't feel earned.

Jonathan Lewis would make sure we didn't get those undeserved points with  a blatant handball in the box that was picked up by VAR.  Nashville converted the PK in the 90th minute and the teams ended level at 1-1, which was deserved based on the play.  Neither team looked good.

Other than that the match was fairly unremarkable.  The two most notable moments were both in front of C38.  In the first half Mosie Bombito cleared a ball at the post that I think he only half knew about and then turned to C38 and got us going with was a fun reaction from a Rapids player.  Leaning into that would be good for this team.  Then late in the match Yapi came on for a ineffective Navarro.  He was chasing a loose ball near the other post and the Nashville defender just beat him to it.  It looked clean live from our POV but the scab ref gave a yellow, which resulted in a chant of "scab! scab! scab!'.  Turns out on replay Yapi might have gotten lucky.  He solidly got the defender's ankle, to the point where you can see it bending away from the contact. It could have easily been a red card out of context, but a lose ball on the post means both guys are diving in and the ref probably decided yellow was the more reasonable call.

If the Rapids can't beat a Nashville team coming off a midweek game, at altitude, without their two best DPs then you have to wonder who they can beat.  They're off to Sandy and Seattle the next two weeks, two places that have been very bad to them historically and two teams that look much better than them.  Houston at home after that, maybe?  Then LAFC at home, probably not.  We could be looking up at a big mountain very quickly.

No Man of the Match until they show they have actually improved.