Alright, alright, alright

Its our first trip to Austin tomorrow as we face the expansion team looking for revenge from the 3-1 loss they gave us in our home opener.  It won't be easy as the Rapids are a greatly diminished side, though this is the last game before we get reinforcements.  Acosta, Lewis, and Vines are still with the Nats (and Vines is likely never coming back anyway), Wilson is suspended, and Rubio is recovering from injury.  New acquisition Mark-Anthony Kaye has been at the gold Cup with Canada but they were eliminated by Mexico last night.  Kaye played the full match and is unlikely to contribute much if he even makes the gameday roster tomorrow, but could be available off the bench.  Dominique Badji will be available though.  Kickoff is at 7pm.  Tomorrow is also the 700th day since Altitude was removed from Comcast and DISH.

Injury Report:

OUT: M Younes Namli

International Callups:

USA: D Sam Vines, M Kellyn Acosta, M Jonathan Lewis

Canada: M Mark-Anthony Kaye

Disciplinary Report:

SUSPENDED: D Danny Wilson

ONE CAUTION FROM SUSPENSION: M Jack Price

TWO CAUTIONS FROM SUSPENSION: F Diego Rubio

This is more of a guess than I usually make.  I expect Rubio won't be ready to start but he'll be an early second half sub if we need him.  I'm not really sure who's going to play LB with Wilson out.  I expect Trusty to slide back inside and somebody (Beitashour?  Anderson?  Kelly?) to take over, but we could leave Trusty out there and give Ford or Moor a start at CB, though that would be surprising.  What we do on the back line will largely drive our midfield trio, though I'm sure Price and Bassett will start.  The only question is if Bassett will be the playmaker with somebody like Warner behind him or we get Mezquida again.

Prediction: 1-1 draw, goal by Rubio.  Austin does not have a good offense.  If you subtract the 3 goals we gave them in our opener they've scored 7 goals in the other 13 games they've played.  They actually have a 1 goal better defense than we do, but again, that prior head-to-head matchup is the reason for that.  (In 3 games we've given up 9 goals, in the other 11 we've given up 7).  This is probably going to be ugly soccer played in heat with a diminished team and we'll be happy to get out of Texas with  a draw.  Stealing 3 points with a 1-0 win wouldn't be out of the question but not expected.