Rapids Play Best Game Of Season

Well, that was fun.  And completely unexpected.  The Rapids ran Vancouver off the field in the first half and outplayed them in the second, allowing them to cruise to a 3-0 win and reset the playoff race a bit.  Chris Armas finally had his full starters to choose from for the first time in two months and might have settled on a starting XI, or close to it.

Colorado could have had 4 in the first half, with a ball being cleared off the line (and without a better view it might have been in) shortly before KDP found Mihailovic who played the simple ball to Harris for an easy goal and an early lead.  The team would double it at the half hour mark with Harris and Mihailovic setting up Navarro for one of the prettier goals you'll see this season.  Navarro should have put it away in stoppage time after Ted KDP won another penalty, but his attempt was saved.

Coming out of the locker room Colorado kept the pressure on and got that goal off a Mihailovic corner that Maxso headed away.  The key moment of the match came shortly after that though, when Brian White was able to dribble into the goal area and have a point blank shot that Steffen managed to block.  Vancouver getting one back there would have been shades of the New England debacle and may have had the home side questioning themselves.  instead they kept the shutout and finished strong.

• Big game from the $5.5M defense.  The starters all got the start and they kept Vancouver off the board.  Steffen being back is huge.
• Harris and KDP need to start every game on the wings if available.  not sure why it took so long to unlock Harris but he's clearly better than Cabral, Alex Harris, KSB, etc.
• I think Navarro needs to be done with PKs.  Too unreliable.  I know Mihailovic missed his last one but he put a solid kick off the post, it wasn't saved.
• Bassett and Ronan worked well in the double-pivot but they were probably the weakest of our areas on the field.  I'm not convinced either is a starter, but I'm not convinced Larraz or Atencio is either (maybe Larraz).
• Surprised to see Vines get the start coming back from a groin injury.  He was fine but he needs to put a few fine performances in a row together.
• With the win the Rapids re back in a playoff position.  Their three rivals (Houston, Austin, and San Jose) all lost which created a big swing.  Colorado is the only team in the league to have played 23 games so on PPG they're in 9th place, but San Jose is .01 ahead and Austin is only .03 ahead so its essentially a 3-way tie.  Houston is almost 0.1 behind.  Because of that the pressure to get a result out of the Seattle and Philly road trips has reduced.
• In 2009-10 C+C Goal Factory combined for 51 goals and 20 assists.  The R&D Group is at 42 goals and 26 assists since the start of last season with 11 games left this season.  If they can find 5-9 more goals this season you'd probably have to consider them the best attacking du in team history.

Man of the Match: Djordje Mihailovic.  3 assists make it easy, Plus with them he passsed Mark Chung with 39 goal contributions over the last two seasons, a new two-year team record after setting the single-season record in 2024.