Another Game, Another Loss

While the Rapids continue to look better since the addition of Gutman, they continue to be unable to score when needed.  Once again we saw Colorado waste chance after chance until it was too late.  Nashville played in 2nd gear for the first 60 minutes, then put in their big players and within a minute it paid off with a 1-0 lead.  It quickly became 2-0 and the game seemed over.  Gutman's goal (yes it deflected off Cabral but I'm giving it to Gutman) in the 80th minute made things interesting as the Rapids had a couple of good chances after that, including a Bassett free kick that went off the post, but in the end it was too little too late.

I know a number of people want to take shots at Danny Wilson, because Nashville's first goal was deflected in off of him, but really the problem there was Ralph Priso.  He made a horrible cross-field pass to nobody then tracked back and tried to cover for his mistake by marking nobody and running around like a chicken with his head cut off.  The second goal was a defensive mess where 3-4 Nashville players were unmarked.  Just too easy.

This was probably the best lineup we could put out there and it just wasn't good enough.  Mukhtar, in 35 minutes, had more shots on target and a higher xG than anyone on the Rapids.  This roster is not good, an no amount of lineup rotation or formation switches by Fraser can compensate for that.

For the Rapids to move on to the knockout round they have three scenarios.

If Nashville beats Toluca the Rapids must beat Toluca or draw them and win the shootout

If Nashville and Toluca draw, no matter who wins the shootout, the Rapids must beat Toluca

If Toluca beats Nashville the Rapids must beat Toluca and the combined margin of the wins in those two games has to be at least 3

The first option is probably the most likely, forcing a 0-0 draw and winning the Shootout, so we should root for Nashville on Thursday.  But our best hope might be for Toluca to crush Nashville by 3 or 4 so they have nothing to worry about when they play us and even with a 1 or 2 goal loss they would win the group.

Man of the Match: Andrew Gutman