Rapids Drown In Seattle

Its been a rough day, following a rough Rapids match, which is why this is going to be short and sweet.  After taking an early lead Colorado once again feel flat on its face on the road, and its hard to see how this season is anything but a write-off after a performance like that.

Going to skip random musings and just hit some highlights.  Starting with the nice work by Rubio to set up Lewis for the goal.  Barrios gets his only notable contribution of the match on it as well.  At that point, up 1-0 and with a red card coming, the Rapids should have gotten out of my hometown with a point at worst.

The Seattle goal was a mess by the officiating and a mess by the Rapids defense.  Yes the foul call was questionable (at best).  Yes the ref allowing the free kick from 20 yards away was a significant mistake  (so much so that PRO issued a statement today admitting the ref screwed up), but that doesn't excuse getting beaten by a 65 yard cross-field ball and a simple pass for goal.  This is the 5th time this season I believe the Rapids have given up a goal after the 40th minute of the first half.   A lack of mental discipline on defense is killing us.

The red card was a joke, but time-wasting was something emphasized by PRO to the players as a focus this year.  We saw Danny Wilson pick up his fifth yellow last week due to it.  Rowe could hardly argue he didn't know what he was doing intentionally flipping the ball over the adboards.  Do stupid things, win stupid prized.

At that point the Rapids should have bossed the game.  But in reality Seattle out played, out shot, and out scored Colorado while down a man.  That's the 5th time this year we've played a man up, and we've lost 4 of those matches.  The book is out on Colorado, we can't break down a low block.  Get the lead, drop men behind the ball, and watch us struggle.  Its been a problem going back a season or two now and is the biggest flaw of Fraser's strategy.

After this we need a win in NY next week.  A reminder (because I forgot) the game is no longer on Saturday night because RBNY is hosting Barcelona for a friendly and our game was rescheduled for next Tuesday.  Between our game on Saturday night and that match RBNY will have played 3 matches (league match on Sunday night, Open Cup seminfinal coming up on Wednesday night, and the friendly against Barca).  Hopefully they're tired and we're rested.

Man of the Match: Jonathan Lewis.  Scored the goal and saved one off the line.  A +2 on the scoreboard overcomes the rest of his play when up a man.