Rapids Continue Being Consistently Inconsistent

Well, that was ugly.  The confident, organized, well-passing team we saw on Saturday was not present last night, despite the same starting XI.  Instead the defensive effort most of us expected with a backline of Castillo - Da Fonte - Miller - Williams was produced and the Rapids had no chance, losing 3-1.

One of Pablo's problems reared its head again last night. He is apparently incapable of determining if something was successful due to luck and/or poor play from the opposition or if it worked because of good play/good tactics. Because the lineup worked on Saturday he rolled out the same lineup last night, but it wasn't like he made some great tactical change on Saturday that he was repeating last night. He got away with it on Saturday because Houston is a lousy road team and the lineup he put out there was (somewhat) rested. Seattle isn't a great road team but they're better than Houston and we were much more tired than Seattle.

• Once again we saw Miller was incapable of playing center back.  Really starting 4 fullbacks on the backline was bound to bite us eventually, even if Williams does have CB experience.  Ford has been on the bench the last two games and reports are Sjoberg was ready to go last night but was not in the 18.  Added rest or not, the decisions not to use them probably cost us.
• For example, on Seattle's first goal I'm pretty sure those two know to mark the (almost) leading scorer in U.S. Nats history instead of leaving him unmarked in the box.  SMH
• We were very lucky to finish with 11 on the field.  Da Fonte should ahve seen a second yellow and Castillo could have gotten one as well.
• That said, poor yellow on Boateng.  After review what looked questionable at first was clean.
• That's about the only positive thing I can say about Boateng's play.  Awful game.  So far our one notable offseason signing appears to be a bust.
• The team didn't have a shot on goal until the middle of the second half.  Not the thrilling attacking soccer you want to see in front of a sellout 4th of July crowd.
• The Bodmer line is up to 1.69 pts/game after this loss.  The playoffs are all but out of reach.
• Our only hope is for the Rapids to be very active improving the team int he window that opens on Monday.  Given the dearth of rumors out there and the Front Office's general track record on scouting new acquisitions from outside the league I'm not holding my breath.
• The team now has a 2.5 week break for the Gold Cup.  They need it to rest and get healthy.  Last time the Rapids had 7 games in 22 days was September of 2011 where they played 4 MLS and 3 CONCACAF Champions League games between Sept. 9th and Oct 1st.
• With the break I'm going to take one as well for a couple of days.  Then we'll talk about what the team needs in the window and a couple of other articles I've been thinking about.

Man of theMatch: Dominique Badji.  I took the the easy way out and went with the goal scorer.