What Was That?

I don't know how you explain that game last night.  No team up 2 goals in the first 10 minutes and up 2 goals with 20 minutes to play should come close to losing the game, much less need a PK in stoppage time and barely miss a tying goal due to offside.  Consider that the Rapids hadn't won on the road this season, and they had only scored 3 goals once, in the regular season home opener.  The last time they scored 3 on the road was in Minnesota late last season (another miracle comeback).  The last time they scored 5 on the road was the epic 5 goal win in Sandy to come back and win the Rocky Mountain Cup.  I'm not going to even try to analyze the complete game, I don't think anyone can, but there are some highlights I want to discuss.

Random Musings:

• The team deserves a ton of credit for not giving up.  I'll admit that after 10 minutes I had figured this game was over, and even after getting back to 2-1 I didn't have much hope.  What little I did evaporated after we gave up a PK to go back down two.
• Abubakar had about the worst 30 minutes I've ever seen out of a Rapids defender.  He gave away the ball on a bad pass, then deflected the resulting shot leaving Yarbrough stranded for the first NY goal, he lost his mark who scored the second NY goal on a free kick, and he misplayed a simple ball to give NY a break and had to commit a penalty to prevent a 3rd NY goal but the PK was finished anyway.  Just a flaming dumpster fire of an appearance.
• Fraser made the obvious move at halftime to pull Lalas and move from 5 in the back to 4.  The Rapids have been playing better with 4 for the last few games, so the decision to go with 5 and then put Warner in front of them was a strange choice by the gaffer, and it backfired.  Hopefully Fraser learns the lesson and sticks with 4 in the back now.
• The referee had a busy night on this one, with two PKs, two goals pulled out of the net due to offside and rescinding a red card through VAR.  In all the cases the final call appeared to be the right one.  While Abubakar's holding started outside the box the action appeared to continue into the box which is a penalty, but Danny Wilson was close enough to cover so DOGSO didn't apply.  Both offsides were accurate, but close.
• This is now the third time this season the Rapids have had a goal disallowed due to an offside player screening the keeper.  All the calls were correct but its odd to see three so close together.  I think its just coincidence but the coaching staff might want to consider if their tactics are leaving us open to this call.
• Seeing 5 goals from 5 different goal-scorers is pretty unusual for this team.  Getting two from defensive players (Rosenberry and Warner) is a huge surprise.  Shots like that is why I don't have a problem with Rosenberry pulling the trigger when he feels it.  I don't want any other defenders doing it, but Keegan has scored enough of those that he should take the shot when he's got it.
• Max had his best game as a Rapids, though admittedly that wasn't a high bar to clear.  He probably should have had Warner's goal but good positioning from the RNBY keeper denied him.
• Barrios changed the game when he came in for an ineffectual Lewis, unlike some of his more recent appearances.  If we could only get some consistency out of our wingers we might have a chance.
• Shout out to Yaya Toure for his first goal!
• In the end, the Rapids got very lucky in this game.  Despite a horrendous defensive performance the Red Bulls only put two shots on target (not counting the PKs) after their 2 goals in the first 10 minutes.  But even at the very end when all we needed was to clear the zone to win the game Vallecilla was ball-watching/marking space instead of his man, and Esteves wasn't much better.  Luckily their aimless defending pulled them upfield enough for the NY attacker to be just barely offside.  That could have easily been 2 points wasted.
• Interesting note about all of the Rapids goals.  Three of them too a deflection on the way in and the other two were deflected by RBNY to the goal-scorer.  Sometimes its better to be lucky than good.
• The official Bodmer Line now stands at 1.42 pts/game, but I don't think that gets it done this year.  More likely we need to be at 1.75 pts/game to make the playoffs.  A tough hill to climb but this win might be the kickstart we need to get there.  We've been at 1.6 over our last 5 games, just 1 point off that pace, so we're close.
• Next up is a weakened Minnesota United side at home.  They are down three important players to yellow card suspensions.  3 points this weekend will be critical.

Man Of The Match: Diego Rubio.  Easy pick.  He had a goal, two assists, and the shot that rebounded from the Red Bull keeper to Toure for the winning goal.  The Warner goal was the only one he didn't have a direct impact on.  We clearly don't win this game without him.