Fraser Outsmarts Himself As Winning Streak Ends

I know Robin Fraser is known as a bit of a tactician, and he has certainly implemented a style of play for the Rapids that is largely working.  On Saturday night though he leaned on his tactical background too much and set the team up to fail.  Deciding to go to a little-used 5-3-2 formation by adding Abubakar back to the starting lineup in a back three with Trusty and Wilson, while pushing Rosenberry and Vines further up, the team wasn't prepared and LAFC made them pay.  It was clear from almost the opening whistle that the backline was unsure of their assignments and the Art Deco jerseys were finding space in the gaps being left.  LA scored twice in the first 33 minutes and while adjustments were made at half it wasn't enough as we only found 1 goal.

Random Thoughts:

• Inside the first minute LA could have been up 1-0 as Rossi was fairly unmarked on a cross he headed over the bar.  A preview of what was to come.
• Sure enough, in the 14th minute the Rapids have LAFC pretty contained, with LA attacking from midfield against a 5 man back line with 5 LA players ahead of the ball.  But then LA cuts into the middle, Wilson falls back covering the diagonal run, both Trusty and Abubakar step to the ball, and now there's a gap that Abubakar's man runs into.  Rosenberry slides to cover but its too late as Rossi is already goal side of him.  A bit of a lucky deflection under Lalas gets through to Rossi and its 1-0.
• Again in the 33rd minute LAFC is attacking and the Rapids actually have the advantage in numbers.  But Abubakar runs to empty space leaving Rossi to run into the gap between him and Rosenberry and he didn't need much of a window to make it 2-0.  
• On both goals it was obvious the backline didn't have a good understanding of where each other would move.  Abubakar and Rosenberry in particular were out of sync with each other, leaving gaps.  This is not a surprise when forcing a new formation on the team.
• In the end, Fraser made decisions like we were the lesser team, despite being on a 3 game win streak and significantly better than LAFC in the standings.  If we went in with our standard 4-5-1 (with or without Abubakar as a starter) and we were down 2-0 in the first half then you tip your hat to LAFC for beating us.  But putting out a defensive formation we're not familiar with is inviting them to attack us and gives them confidence.
• Credit to the coaches and players for making the adjustments necessary at halftime.  A goal right after half from Barrios with a nice assist from Rubio put LAFC on their heels defending the lead for most of the second half.
• In the end we only had 2 shots on target all night.  Hard to win a game when you give up 2 goals and only put 2 on target.  We came close to tying it up a couple of times but never got a great look outside of the goal.
• Outside of Rubio's assist there wasn't much offense from anyone not named Barrios.  Part of that was the defensive formation but we needed more from our midfield in this one.
• Really hated seeing Abubakar come off with an injury during his first action after his last one.  We may be relying on the Trusty-Wilson combo for longer than we thought.
• Even with the loss the Rapids are still 4th in the West and tied for 6th overall in the league on PPG.
• Next up is Dallas in our last home game until the 4th of July.  3 points there would out us in nice shape going into the extended international break.

Man of the Match: Michael Barrios.  Scored the goal and was by far our most dangerous player on the night.