Everyone Needs Two Months Off

Saturday night was ugly.  Its clear everyone, the players, the coaches, and even the fans, needs some time off.  18 games in 90 days works out to a game every 5 days and this team looks exactly like a team that's gone through a gauntlet like that.  Not only that, but only 4 of the 15 league games in that time were against teams who are currently not in a playoff position, and 9 of the 15 were on the road.

In this game Dallas only had 3 touches in the box, and won 2-1.  Two stupid fouls led to two penalty kicks and that's all Dallas needed.  Were the fouls soft?  Yes, absolutely, especially the second one.  Was their contact ?  Yes, in both cases.  They did not need to be PKs, but they weren't, technically, wrong.

But more important than being soft they were completely unnecessary.  On the first the back line has any danger handled.  Then Aaronson tries to make a defensive play at the top of the box, misses the ball, and catches the foot of the Dallas attacker.  Dallas' player goes down like he was shot (no, that's not a JFK reference) but the reality is that if Paxten doesn't make the challenge Herrington is in a perfect spot to step up and snuff out any danger.  Likewise on the second call the Dallas attacker is actually dribbling backwards and Georgi flies by, sticks his leg out to make a challenge, again gets nothing but the lightest touch on the attacker (who again drops like he's shot), and its another penalty.  If Minoungou does nothing the Dallas attacker is taking the ball back to a less dangerous position.

These kind of mental errors happened elsewhere as well.  Miguel Navarro is one yellow from suspension and in the 70th minute just lined up a Dallas player looking at a long ball and took him down with a shoulder charge.  Easy yellow and now he sits for the first game back.  Then in the 88th minute he does it again (though not quite as hard).  You can see the ref think about going for a second yellow and then deciding otherwise but it would have been justified.

That wasn't even the worst of it though.  In the 87th minute, after being subbed off and sitting on the bench, Frederick along with a couple of other players were haranguing the Assistant Referee about time-wasting by Dallas (which they were doing).  He obviously said something because either the AR or the 4th Official (who had come in to break things up) summoned the center cover and he was holding out his yellow card on the jog.  When he got over to Wayne though Frederick obviously said something way over the line because he demonstratively pulled his red card out and showed Frederick the door.  Wayne clapped him on the way off, which is just throwing more fuel on the fire.  So he's out too when we come back from the break.

Oh, and you noticed I haven't named the ref.  It was Ismail Elfath.  I point this out because he's the top name on CONCACAF's referee list and going into the World Cup has a real shot to be the center ref for the World Cup Final.  There's no guarantee of course.  He has to have a good World Cup. the right teams need to advance (or not advance) and there's always politics involved..  But it would be a big surprise to see him not work at least a quarterfinal and probably at least a semifinal.  Obviously every ref can have bad days and I thought his handling of things wasn't as good as I've seen in the past, but do these guys really think they can hide obvious fouls from a ref of his level?  That complaining to a center like Elfath is going to get them anything but a card?

These guys are making dumb mental errors and its costing them.  Of course, Matt Wells wasn't on the sideline for this one because of the number of cards the coaching staff has already gotten this season.  So maybe a better example needs to be set.  Colorado has a rep in this league now, averaging 14 fouls a game and a staff that's mouthy.  That's something they're stuck with and will have to adjust to going forward.  Good teams don't put refs in a position to beat them.  The Rapids are not a good team right now.

Man of the Match: Rob Holding.  I had a hard time picking somebody this game.  The guys that combined for a gorgeous goal were the guy who got stupidly red carded from the bench and the two guys who gave up unnecessary PKs.  So I went with Holding both to represent the good job the defense did in keeping Dallas from doing anything dangerous outside of the PKs but also because he had the initial line-splitting pass to spring the attack that led to the goal.

A note about what's coming here over this two month break.  I've got a new book review for you later this week, and then we're going to circle back to the salary drop from last week and merge that into a mid-season review.  I'm going to try to take a small break over the next couple of weeks too.  Then as we get into the World Cup itself I'm aiming to do something I don't think anyone else has ever done, an all-time ranking of Rapids kits.  I might drop in some general World Cup thoughts as well, and probably point out a few World Cup kits I like too.