Houston Had A Problem

This week's games have been long periods of quiet play combined with a couple of moments of celebration.  Sunday was similar with a first half that wasn't anything to write home about and a second half that held all the goals, but was king of meh in-between.  In the end though,  with almost the last kick of the game, Rubio found the back of the net and moved the Rapids up from 7th to 5th.  They also shut down any talk about them not being deserving of a playoff spot.  MLS announced today that the Minnesota United - Colorado Rapids playoff match will be at 5:30pm MT on Sunday Nov. 22nd and will be broadcast on ESPN.

Both Rapids goals were remarkably similar.  Both came from long runs out of midfield down the left side that went completely unchecked (you can see why Houston wasn't in the playoff race).  For the first Namli played a pass to Shinyashiki who had his shot parried, but directly back into Namli's path who put it away.  For the second Rubio broke the goalkeeper's ankles cutting inside and curled the ball home for the late winner.  In neither case did the Dynamo defense even bother either player.

The Dynamo goal was just a bit of bad luck more than anything.  After a poor clearance by Yarbrough the ball came back into the box.  Rosenberry made a successful interception of a pass but the ball fell right into a gap between him and Abubakar where the Dynamo forward was waiting.  Despite that Yarbrough had the shot covered but a slight touch as it went back Abubakar deflected it just enough to go between Yarbrough's legs.  Band bounces all around.

With the win the Rapids finished the regular season 5th in the West.  This despite the on-going battle with COVID that stopped the season three different times.  Starting the year, what feels like a decade ago, I thought the Rapids needed to win a home playoff game in order to achieve the standard they set for themselves with their talk in the last 3 years.  That would have required a 4th place finish.  I'm willing to say 5th is good enough given the COVID difficulties and their success in the youth movement, plus winning back the Rocky Mountain Cup.  Topping it off with a playoff win a week from Sunday would really show that we've improved but even without it I think the team is in a good  place.  We'll get more into that in the offseason.

Man of the Match: William Yarbrough.  Yeah,  his clearance on the Dynamo goal wasn't great but otherwise he had another strong game.  Its not often he gets beat due to positioning, it takes a quality shot to get by him.  He showed that again in this game.