Rapids Throw Away Chance To Move Into Playoff Position

There was a chance for Colorado to jump to 6th and solidly in a playoff spot with a win last night.  Instead they showed up flat with a questionable lineup and instead their opponents, the Whitecaps, are now in a playoff spot after a 2-1 win.  The loss turns this Saturday's game against Houston into a huge must win for the home side and even at that point they're going to need to pick up some surprise results on the ensuing East Coast road trip.  This was a significant setback for a team that seemed to be heading the right way over the last few matches.

Random Musings:

• I raised my eyebrows when I saw both Max and Vallecilla in the lineup when Abubakar and Priso were available.  Its possible that Fraser was concerned about Abubakar being one yellow from suspension with the big match this weekend, but Max was a very questionable start, as we'll see.
• I was happy we got through the first 10 minutes without giving up a goal finally, only to give one up 3 minutes later.  The sequence started with Vallecilla making a poor choice to play the ball back to Yarbrough when he had no outlets.  Instead of launching a long ball Will had Wilson come closer and played him the ball.  Danny, with his back to the field and a Whitecap on him tried to get the ball out side to the only option he could see, Beitashour on the touch line.  Unfortunately he didn't get enough on it and Beita made no effort to come to the ball.  That made an easy interception and immediate goal opportunity for Vancouver and we were down 1-0.  Playing it out of the back is fine, but somebody on the defense needs to recognize when there's no play and just boot it long to remove danger.  Nobody did on this one.
• The rest of the half was pretty ugly for Colorado.  They only managed one shot on target in the half, and spent most of the time just trying to move the ball up the field as they had no ability to break through the home side's press.
• Once again we gave up a goal in the last 5 minutes before half.  This time Max played a lazy ball back in the general area of our central defenders, but not to either one of them.  Had Wilson read the ball as soon as it left Max's foot he probably would have gotten to it, but it took him a second to realize that while it wasn't going to him, it also wasn't going to Vallecilla.  At that point it was 50/50 at best if he would beat Gauld to the ball and he made the right choice in staying back rather than trying and failing to get to the ball first, which would have led to a 1 on 1 with Yarbrough.  Sadly though, Gauld had a head of steam, and lets be honest Wilson isn't fast, so even staying back he was unable to stop Gauld's run and goal.  Really though, he takes very little fault for the goal, the mistake was Max's.
• The second half was more of the same, until the last 15 minutes.  Suddenly the Rapids that we needed to see from the start of the game showed up.  They were aggressive, they attacked Vancouver's goal, and Zardes got a goal and hit the post on a second opportunity.  It shouldn't take going down and hitting crunch time before we start playing though.
• A lot of the positive play we saw in that last 15 minutes was due to the introduction of Priso.  Compared to the non-entity Max was Priso clearly needs to be getting all of the minutes when Price and Acosta aren't available.  He had a good argument for man of the match despite only playing 10 minutes.
• With this draw the Bodmer Line is back up to 1.44 points per game.  Realistically though we need to get to 47-48 points, so we're looking at more like 1.8 pts/game to have a good playoff chance.  Last year we played at 1.79 pts/game.
• That means we probably need at least 6 points from Saturday's home game against Houston (12th place) and our 3 game road trip through Philly (1st place), Nashville (8th place) and DC (12th place and last overall in the league).  Given that we have 1 road win this season, its hard to expect any on that road swing, even against DC, which means 3 points this weekend is an absolute must.

Man of the Match: Jonathan Lewis.  Any dangerous chances we had before Priso entered the match came through Lewis, and while he struggled on his crosses through most of the game he kept Vancouver on their toes and mad them work to keep him from causing those dangerous chances.  In the last 15-20 minutes he was finally finding those crosses and probably should have had an assist or two if we could have finished.

Water Faces Water North Of The Border

Fraser River entering the Salish Sea at Vancouver

Rapids and Whitecaps, two forms of disturbed water.  Tomorrow night we'll see which can dry up the other as two teams fighting for their playoff hopes face off in British Columbia.  The Rapids go north in a weakened state, missing multiple players and their equipment manager after a late red card on Saturday night.  Kickoff is at 8pm tomorrow, and we're down to single-digit games left on the Altitude blackout with only 9 to go.

Injury Report: 

OUT: M Ollie Larraz, M Jack Price, F Yaya Toure

Disciplinary Report:

SUSPENDED: D Lucas Esteves, M Bryan Acosta

ONE CAUTION FROM SUSPENSION: D Lalas Abubakar

There's an unconfirmed report that it was the worst case for Toure after his knee buckled on Saturday night, his ACL.  We'll see if its confirmed but if so, that would obviously end his season.  Jack Price was downgraded from Questionable to Out, so that's not great to see.

Its always tough to predict the lineup of the second game in a three game week, especially when its on the road.  Given the importance of this one though I think Fraser will worry less about rest than he may have earlier in the season. I can't see the backline being much different than last week other than the necessary Beitashour/Esteves swap, and Zardes is almost certain to start up top.  Its really the midfield that could go any number of ways.  This assumes that Fraser doesn't try to reintroduce the 5-man back line of course.

Prediction: 1-1 draw goal by Rubio.  Essentially I have to choose Rubio as a goal-scorer at this point.  Barring injury or a real cold streak he's almost certainly going to put up the best offensive season in team history.  As far as the overall game, Colorado is a better team than Vancouver.  But we're missing some critical pieces and we're on the road.  Plus we haven't shown a real ability to stay focused defensively for 90 minutes.  Given all that the best I can see us doing is a draw.  A loss would put any playoff hopes on life support.

Colorado Gets A Point From An Ugly Match

While the weather was better on Saturday night than during the Minnesota game the prior week, the soccer was worse.  Lots of play in the middle third with very little happening at either end.  The teams did have 8 shots on target but very few of them were at all dangerous and both teams seemed to just be going through the motions.  That's not good enough for a Rapids team in a playoff dogfight.  A point really puts the burgundy boys into some required results in this 3-game week.

Random Musings:

• Another game, another early goal.  At some point either Joseph Samelson or I are going to go through and count the number of goals given up in the first and last 5-10 minutes of the first half this year and the number won't be pretty.  Its a sign of a lack of concentration.
• This goal is a really bad look for the Rapids, no way to sugar-coat it.  The sequence starts with the Crew making a stab into the box that Lalas and Wilson successfully defend and Columbus cycles the ball back out to the Rapids right side.  Out there are two Crew players with only Diego Rubio to pressure them.  Abubakar is manned up on a Crew attacker in the box, Acosta is on Zelaravan, and Esteves is keeping an eye on Cucho.  Meanwhile there are another four Rapids, plus Yarbrough, just hanging out in the box, with Zardes just outside of it.  For some reason Rosenberry is over on the left near Esteves.  Diaz releases the ball to Santos, and Santos goes right past Rubio who seems to think he has support behind him.  Lalas's man tried to pull him out of position but he doesn't bite, so Santos whips in a cross.  At this moment there are 9(!!!) Rapids physically in the box, including Will, against 2 Crew attackers.  Despite that the cross gets through the box clean, and Esteves loses Cucho who puts away the tap-in.
• Cucho is a great player, and the Crew got a little lucky in that his awkward touch actually directed the ball down into the turf and then up into the goal, where an "expected" shot directly into the goal might have been saved by Yarbrough, but there's no excuse for 9 players to allow an open shot from one of two attackers.  Bad by Esteves to lose Cucho, but overall bad team play to  leave your striker as the only player available to pressure 2 attackers while 5-6 guys defend space.
• Moving on to the waved-off goal, it was the right call.  The replay in stadium focused on the shot Zardes scored, but the offside was on the entry ball.  Zardes was just offside when that ball was played to him.
• The PK was an easy call for the ref.  And great job by Rubio putting it away even as the Crew keeper guessed correctly.
• After that the game really got stuck in the mud.  It took almost 30 minutes of the second half for either team to get a shot on goal, and both teams looked gassed at that point.
• Fraser played it safe, making like for like subs primarily and not really pushing for the win, which was disappointing to see.
• You never want to see a player go down, but it hurts more when its a young kid who's just getting his feet under him.  No work yet on Yaya Toure's injury, but it didn't look good.  We're all hoping its not as serious as feared.
• Rapids defended a man down after that due to being out of subs, but the Crew never threatened and seemed to be satisfied with the draw, oddly.
• The teams ended up tied on xG at 1.4.  But 0.8 of the Rapids xG came off the PK.  Outside of that the Crew had double the Rapids xG.
• Colorado will be without Acosta and Esteves in Vancouver on Wednesday due to yellow card accumulation, presumably Toure due to his injury, and their equipment manager who got sent off late.
• The Rapids will need a result north of the border too.  Given the upcoming schedule after this week its hard to see how we could make a real playoff push without getting at least 4 points from Vancouver on Wednesday and Houston on Saturday.

Man of the Match: Lalas Abubakar.  Broke up a lot of attacks and didn't give the ball away.  He also avoided the yellow card that would have suspended him alongside Acosta and Esteves on Wednesday.

COL VS. COL

The former and once again Crew are in town tomorrow night after the All-Star break.  The Rapids, not having any All-Stars, are coming off a week of rest while Darlington Nagbe represented the Crew in the game (and took a hard knock).  Columbus  is on a hot streak, with only one loss  in their last eleven games (five wins and 5 draws).  Kickoff tomorrow is at the normal 7pm time, and we're into the final 10 games of the Altitude blackout.

Injury Report: 

OUT: M Ollie Larraz

QUESTIONABLE: M Jack Price

Disciplinary Report:

ONE CAUTION FROM SUSPENSION: D Lalas Abubakar, D Lucas Esteves, M Bryan Acosta

Yes, Jack Price started last week and yes, he's still on the injury list.  This time though its an upper body injury instead of the leg injury he was recovering from.

Hard to tell exactly how the midfield is going to lay out.  Price starts if he can, but I'm assuming he won't be able to.  You could see a more attacking midfield with Gutierrez instead of Priso, or possibly in place of Acosta if they want to keep the more defensive midfielder in.  Columbus is weak on the flanks so I expect Esteves, Lewis, and Barrios to start over the more defensive options there.

Prediction: 2-2 draw, goals by Zardes and Rubio.  Zardes had a less than pleasant separation from the Crew when he was traded and I think he's going to want to show them what they're missing.  That and the weakness on the flanks should be enough to keep us in the game, but I'm not sure we get over the hump for 3 points.

Cole Bassett To Fortuna Sittard

Cole Bassett is currently, well as of earlier this week, on an 18-month loan to Feyenoord in the Netherlands.  Despite a strong pre-season where he started a number of the final games and scored twice, the talk coming out of Rotterdam is that Feyenoord isn't planning to play him much this season  Recently there's been a lot of scuttlebutt about him being loaned out to Fortuna Sittard, also of the Eredivise.  They barely avoid relegation last year, so they're om the other end of the table.

Well today it looks like that talk has become all but official, as numerous social media accounts reporting on Fortuna Sittard have reported the deal as done, and Sittard's own Twitter account teased an announcement with a blurred picture that does seem to be Cole.

The interesting thing here is that Feyenoord is not allowed to loan a player on loan.  So one of two things happened.  Either Feyenoord triggered the purchase option in Bassett's loan deal, and then loaned him to Fortuna, or the Rapids and Feyenoord cancelled the loan for Basset and Fortuna Sittard and Colorado created a new loan deal.  Early reports were all sides were working towards the latter option, but that the new loan would include Feyenoord having the right of first refusal on buying Cole before Fortuna Sittard could.

Regardless of how its being done, it appears that Bassett will be playing for Fortuna Sittard this season.  Hopefully he'll get more playing time than it appeared he would be getting at Feyenoord.  Otherwise there's a team in Colorado that could use his help.