The U.S. Open Cup Round of 16 is here. Tomorrow night Colorado is in Frisco to face Pareja and the rest of FC Dallas. At stake is a spot in the quarterfinals on the road at the winner of the Houston/KC game. Historically in the MLS playoffs the Rapids have owned Dallas, especially in Dallas, but in the Open Cup the results have been reversed. In 2002 and 2004 we were eliminated from the USOC in Dallas, being shut out both times.
St. Ledger and Burling are still listed as out on the injury report. In case you're wondering Tim Howard is not eligible for this game (though if we win he would be available for the quarterfinal and any other games). Jones and Gashi should both be back from National Team duties but that's yet unconfirmed.
My guess would be that we see a largely reserve lineup again with a big home game on Monday. Maybe Gashi gets a run out to knock some rust off after only having 8 minutes of game action in the last month. Pappa might get a few minutes as well as he works himself back into full fitness. Otherwise I expect players like Badji, Serna, Conor Doyle, Jared Watts, and Dennis Castillo. MacMath will almost certainly get the start with Howard taking over for league games come Monday.
As always I'm not going to predict a final score as its hard to tell without knowing how serious they're going to take the game. Assuming we do run out a reserve lineup though I will predict a loss, mainly because I'm not sure how much anyone in the organization cares about this competition this year with how well the league season is going. If we decide to play a good chunk of starters though, we can beat Dallas.
EDIT: Forgot the most important info. Kickoff is at 6:30 tomorrow and the game will be on U.S. Soccer's YouTube channel.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment