NY Outclasses Colorado

On Saturday the Red Bulls clearly showed they were better than the Rapids. With the exception of about 10 minutes on either side of the half NY dominated the game and won by a deserved 3-1 scoreline. The Red Bulls were the better team in every section of the field and while a bit of individual brilliance from Omar Cummings gave the Rapids a bit of hope, NY took that away quickly.

The first NY goal in the 17th minute was a bit of class as Lindpere to a Henry pass and back-heeled it back to Henry on a give and go that beat Kimura and Larentowicz. 15 minutes later it was another NY DP, Rafa Marquez, that floated a free kick into the back that was headed back across goal by Tchani where Tim Ream headed it home for his first ever MLS goal.

The Rapids exerted more control going into and coming out of halftime. Ballouchy pinged one off the post two minutes into the half and 6 minutes later Cummings went to work. He took the ball in midfield, pressed forward, and from 35 yards hit a laser off the bottom of the crossbar to half the deficit. The advantage was short lived though as 6 minutes later Jamie Smith failed to clear a ball that landed at Dane Richards feet inside the 18 and he put the nail in the coffin of Colorado's hopes. The Rapids had two legitimate calls for a PK later in the game, but they went unheeded and NY got the deserved win.

My key to the game was playing up to our opponents and not coasting. I don't think we coasted by any means but NY was still significantly better than us.

Other Observations:

• Anthony Wallace was beaten like a drum by Dane Richards early in the game. He adapted well though, and with the exception of the poor clearance by Smith kept Richards fairly contained.
  
• This game will not be on Jamie Smith's highlight reel. Besides the bad clearance that led to the final goal he wasn't on the same page offensively with the rest of the team.
• The team probably got hosed on at least one PK, but the refs aren't to blame for the loss (despite what Gary Smith might say.
• I love Koz but Kimura vs. Thierry Henry just isn't fair.
• Baudet had some ups and downs, it wasn't his best game. Still, we need him healthy going forward, hopefully the injury isn't too bad.
• At least nobody close to suspension picked up a yellow card.
• Chicago and Toronto's losses has turned the playoffs into a 4 team race for 3 spots. We're still in good shape.

Player of the Game: Omar Cummings, for the second straight week. He had a legitimate GotW for a second straight week, one of a few highlights for the Rapids in this one.

Rapids Hope To Send Red Bulls Splashing

Colorado is in NY tomorrow facing the Red Bulls. Its their second trip to NY this year after losing there in the U.S. Open Cup play-in. After their two 3-0 wins the last two weeks the Rapids are riding high, but they face a much improved RBNY team who now sport Rafa Marquez and Thierry Henry. Game time is an early 2pm Denver time, with the game both on KWGN and on Telefutura. No official watch party for this one, but I'm sure the regular spots will have the game on.

Injury Report:

OUT: MF Ciaran O'Brien (L hip sprain); MF Colin Clark (L ACL tear); FW Ross Schunk (R ACL tear)

PROBABLE: GK Matt Pickens (back spasms), DEF Marvell Wynne (L hamstring strain)

Discipline Report:

ONE CAUTION FROM SUSPENSION: Conor Casey, Pablo Mastroeni

TWO CAUTIONS FROM SUSPENSION: Omar Cummings, Jeff Larentowicz

Marvell Wynne reportedly did not make the trip to NY. I also would not be surprised to find out Ian Joyce did not make the trip as his wife delivered their first child on Monday. Congrats to the Joyces! NY has 5 players either out to injury or on duty with the U.S. U-20 team, so they're hurting as well. My best guess on the starting XI:

Pickens

Kimura - Moor - Baudet - Wallace

Ballouchy - Larentowicz - Pablo - Smith

Cummings - Casey

I think we see no change from the starting group last week. It worked well and after some initial difficulty Wallace fit in well. The only change I could see is if Smith thinks we have possession issues on the road and shifts Cummings back to his position in the 4-5-1, but I think he's realized the value of the 4-4-2.

Key To Look For: Do the Rapids play up to their opponents? NY is significantly better than the two teams we just beat 3-0. Will the Rapids raise their game to match them, or will they think that they've done well enough up to this point?

Prediction: 1-0 loss. I think NY is a very good team and the Rapids aren't at their level yet. We have a solid defense but I expect that the Red Bulls can shut down our offense. We're also playing early on the road, which won't help. Add in the emotional impact of NY playing (essentially) in NY on 9/11 and I think that they'll get a close win.

Roommates Shut Down Chivas USA

Best friends and roommates Omar Cummings and Kosuke Kimura put a beat down on the Under-A-Chivas Saturday night. After a first half where nothing happened but the Rapids controlled play mainly through Chivas' inability to do anything in the offensive third Omar decided it was time for a change...to his shoes. He swapped cleats at halftime and suddenly became a different player.

In the 52nd minute Koz stole the ball and fed Omar on the right side. Omar took a rocket of a shot from the edge of the box that Chivas keeper Zack Thorton could only parry, and Casey was there to clean up the rebound for a 1-0 lead. 16 minutes later Cummings once again go the ball on the left side and decided to twist the Chivas defense into knots. He got into the box, cut outside, cut inside, cut back outside, and put a shot to the far post past Thornton. Once Chivas got untied they realized they were down 2-0 after that Goal of the Week candidate. Omar wasn't done yet. 13 minutes later he turned his defender and left him in the dust for a 1v1 against Thornton and a 3-0 lead. Not surprisingly, Cummings was named MLS Player of the Week yesterday.

My key to the game was knocking Chivas out early. We knocked them out early...in the second half. Once we started though, we didn't let up until they were out cold.

Other Observations:

• Kimura had his best game of the season and was my pick for Man of the Match until Omar went off in the last 30 minutes. It seemed that every time Chivas came down their left side, Koz stopped them cold.
  
• With the two wins in the last two weeks and the other results the margin for error for the playoffs has increased somewhat. We might be able to get in with 2 more wins and a draw or two, but we need to remain focused and get 3 wins to make sure of it.
• This team is so much more dangerous with Cummings playing along side Casey up top and not as a winger.
• That's partially due tot he fact that Pablo and Larentowicz have figured out how to make the central midfield work without somebody in front of them. The Ginger Ninja's presence has given Pablo the confidence to go forward and at least be a threat to free up the wings.
• Anthony Wallace made his Rapids debut and looked solid if unspectacular on the left. Given the (apparent) lack of faith in Earls I'd start him there again until Wynne is healthy.
• Andre Akpan got his first MLS minutes. He didn't have much of a chance to do anything other than prevent a Chivas player from stopping the long ball to Cummings on the last goal.
• A note to the three yahoos sitting behind me in Class VI. when you weren't talking about how amazing SEC and Tennessee football is (both significantly overrated) you were making it clear that you've never really seen the Rapids play, and I doubt you've ever seen a MLS game. Thanks to your loud mouths I'm pretty sure half the team is wondering why Class VI was turning on them in a 3-0 rout.

Player of the Game: Omar Cummings, duh. He was Player of the Week league wide, clearly the man of the match.

Rapids Take On Baby Goats

The Rapids are looking at another must-win game tomorrow. The win last week combined with the other results took a bit of the pressure off, but the Under-a-Chivas are the worst team in the conference and if we can't beat them, we don't belong in the playoffs. These teams faced off in the opening game of the season, where the Rapids got their first ever opening day road win. Game time tomorrow is at 7, tailgate starts at 5, due to the Washington-BYU game I won't get there until about 6:30. ;)

Injury Report:

OUT: MF Ciaran O'Brien (L hip sprain); MF Colin Clark (L ACL tear); FW Ross Schunk (R ACL tear)

DOBUBTFUL: DEF Marvell Wynne (L hamstring strain)

PROBABLE: GK Matt Pickens (back spasms)

Discipline Report:

ONE CAUTION FROM SUSPENSION: Conor Casey, Omar Cummings, Pablo Mastroeni

TWO CAUTIONS FROM SUSPENSION: Jeff Larentowicz

Chivas has 5 players missing or questionable. Colorado will have to re-shuffle their back line, my best guess::

Pickens

Kimura - Moor - Baudet - Earls

Ballouchy - Larentowicz - Pablo - Smith

Cummings - Casey

It seems like we've returned to the 4-4-2. I expect that Smith will go with the same backline he used mid-game last week when Wynne got hurt, but he could put Palguta in the middle and keep Moor on the outside.

I also think that Pablo and Casey should pick up yellow cards this game. Next week's game in NY on 9/11 seems to be a game we're unlikely to win. Better that they're suspended for that game then one of the following games when our odds at full strength are better. Cummings will get a card knocks off if he doesn't get a card this week, so he's free and clear if he stays clean.

Key To Look For: Knocking Chivas out early. The more Colorado lets Chivas hang around the better their chance of stealing a point or even pulling off the upset. Like last week we need to hit them hard and hit them early.

Prediction: 2-0 win, goals by Conor Casey and Omar Cummings. I think that Casey continues on the hot streak he was on last week, both getting a goal and an assist. Chivas can't crack our defense and we blank them both games this season.

Rapids Stuck In An Eddy, Part 3

Part 1 and Part 2 if this, for now, 3 part series are here.

So far we've discussed the fact that the Rapids apparently have no plans to improve this season and the fact that their moves since the end of last season seem to be running in place. This week I want to look at some of the statements we've heard from the Rapids leadership lately.

Let's start with coach Gary Smith (prior to the win over Houston):

“What you need effectively are four wins,” he said. “Six games are at home. I’d have bitten someone’s arm off at the elbow to be in that position.”

The leader of the team has set a goal of 4 wins in 10 games. This coming off a streak of 1 win in 10 games. So in the last 2/3rds of the season 5 wins out of 20 is "effective". That amounts to 7-8 wins over the course of a 30 game season. I'm really glad we put 6 wins up in out first 10 games, because otherwise the goal of 5 wins in the rest of the season would leave us going nowhere.

I'm not sure 4 wins is enough, 5 is probably going to be what we need. Assuming that 4 games is enough though, do you really want your head coach to come out and say "We're aiming for a .400 winning percentage"? Shouldn't he be saying "Every game is winnable, and we'll be disappointed if we don't win more than all of them" or something? Admittedly some of our games look like we're unlikely to win (@LA, @NY) but you have to have the confidence to go in to those games expecting to win.

Let's move on to Technical Director Paul Bravo (from the booth during the broadcast of the KC home game):

"We're striving to be great, we're not striving to be average"

Really? As I've shown in the last two parts of this series they don't seem to be striving to do much more than the status quo. Does "striving to be great" include passing on the only non-U.S. linked signing in a year due to money? Does "striving to be great" mean signing no significant players while the rest of the league signs players like Henry and Castillo? Does "striving to be great" include being the only MLS team not to test themselves against international competition this season? Does "striving to be great" include a coach making a statement that they're aiming for a .400 winning percentage?

Bravo's statement is a great platitude, but he needs to back it up with more than talk.

Finally, Managing Director Jeff Plush. We've already covered his statements about DP players and international matches in the first part of this series, but that's not all he's said. For example, (on the signing of Davy Armstrong:

"We know that, for our country to be as successful as it can be in this sport, you have to develop your own players," Rapids managing director Jeff Plush said. "We can't be in the situation where we're going out and acquiring players from around the world to build our rosters. You have to have a development system. So it's a very exciting day."

To be fair to Plush he seems to be following his own statement, given the lack of international signings in the last year. But the idea that we're going to be successful in this sport without building our rosters from international players is ludicrous. Name me one team in the top 5 leagues in the world that has only domestic players. That concept went out the window as the sport grew worldwide over the last 20 years due to TV, and it was even outdated before that. While I understand that Plush was trying to hype the (legitimately) important step of signing an academy player, statements like this just make you wonder if he knows what it takes to succeed in this league.

I'm all for making soccer work in this country, but we have a (soon-to-be) 18-team league, 10 soccer-specific stadiums by next year, players like Henry playing here, and a fanbase that is disappointed when the National Team fails to make it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. I think the sport is doing fine considering the league is only 15 years old. Plush's focus should be on what the Rapids need to do to succeed, not what the sport needs to do. Considering his team is in a playoff spot (barely) while his team averages 4 starters in the starting XI per game and an international coaching staff tells you that a domestic-only policy doesn't fly.

I just picked one recent quote from each of the men in charge of the Rapids. There are others that could be listed, but I think this makes the point. I think its clear that the Rapids leadership is not on the same page as the fans or the rest of the league. Until they are, the Rapids will continue to float in this eddy while the rest of the league sails by in the main current of improvement.

For now, this is the end of the series. We'll see what the future brings.