Biggest Game Of The Year (So Far)

After choking away a win of the Rocky Mountain Cup in Sandy with 6+ minutes to play the Rapids have a chance to make up for that with a win tomorrow night.  Any other result and the Utah Soccer Club takes it back home with them.  Both teams are missing key pieces so it should be a fairly even battle, but historically the Rapids have not played to their level in this matchup.  They need to put the history behind them, come out like they have for 174 of the 180 minutes of this rivalry so far this season, and put Salt Lake away before they can break our hearts at the end (again).  Kickoff tomorrow is at the normal 7:30.

Player Availability:

OUT: GK Adam Beaudry (U.S. U-19 team),  M Kevin Cabral (arm), M Djordje Mihailovic (USA Olympic Team)

Quick note, Beaudry is starting for the U-19s as I write this.  Cabral can't go after his elbow injury as he scored on Wednesday but otherwise all our non-National Team players are available.  That includes Kimani Stewart-Baynes who the Rapids have held back from his Canadian U-20 callup due to the injuries to Harris and Cabral.  They hope to release him to the team on Monday.  Daniel Chacon is also off the IR (and was on Wednesday) though per Burgundy Wave the team plans to bring him along slowly so don't expect to see him in a gameday roster for a while.

Straight-forward.  Put your best players out there and win the game.  These are our best 11 (minus the missing Mihailovic).

Prediction: 2-1 win, goals by Bassett and Navarro.  Honestly I want to predict a draw.  We've seen this story before, the Rapids have a chance to win this rivalry and fall on their face.  But I can't get over the fact that the Rapids were the better team except for 6 minutes in both games in Sandy.  Both teams are missing their best players from the last game (Arango and Mihailovic), and its not like Djordje was firing on all cylinders back in game 5 when we beat them.  So I'm going to be optimistic and predict a win, but I won't be surprised to be wrong.