Our First Trip To San Diego

Joshua Tree National Park

Colorado will play its sixth game against a California side tomorrow night as they finish their season series against San Diego with their first trip to the coastal city.  Interestingly we've played our two games against the San's before playing either of our games against the LA teams (not counting the CCC matchup).  The Rapids need to get out of their funk with no wins in the last 4 before the Rocky Mountain Cup match this weekend.  Luckily nobody is on yellow card warning so barring a red card discipline should not be a problem going into the rivalry match.  Kickoff from sunny SoCal is at 8:30pm tomorrow.

Availability Report:

OUT: M Ali Fadal (knee); F Rafael Navarro (ankle)

Uhoh.  I guess that ankle knock Rafa got on Saturday was worse than we hoped.  If the trade off of not having him travel tomorrow is that he can start on Saturday I'm ok with that sacrifice.  But if he's out multiple games that's not good.

I think we're going to see some rotation due to the three game week and a reverting to the 4-2-3-1 due to Navarro's injury.  Plus it might be time to shake things up and see if we can get a different result.  Our lack of forward depth is showing with Rafa out.  I assume Yapi gets the start but it could be one of the Harris' or Cabral up front.

Prediction: 2-0 loss.  Maybe Mihailovic gets one on a set piece but otherwise the way we've played recently and without Navarro I don't have much hope.  San Diego's possession game wilted under our pressure in the home match but a lot of that came from Rafa's work rate.  I think SD is much more successful this time around.

Second Verse, Same As The First - 2025 Edition

If you watched either the game in DC a week ago or the San Jose game Saturday night you watched both games.  The Rapids have a strong first half, don't convert their advantage into a good enough lead, go behind in the last 5 minutes of the first half, then come out flat and never really threated in the second half and lose the game.  If anything Colorado showed less fight in the second half this week than they did last week, though at least on Saturday they got a couple shots on target in the second half.  Once Awaziem made the critical error that led to the second San Jose goal though it was obvious to everyone in the stadium that the home team wasn't coming back.

4 games winless and 1 win in our last 6.  Now we face a tough trip to the flying high expansion San Diego and a Rocky Mountain Cup derby in the next 5 days.  Right now you have to favor that winless streak extending to 6 games.

Really, to right this ship we need to get 4 points in those two games and the win needs to be Saturday over FSL.  We can probably get aw ay with 3.  Anything less and its going to start looking like a lost year without a massive change.  And we're going to have to seriously ask if Chris Armas is who we thought he was when he was hired.  As Juanners pointed out on BlueSky, Armas is in a contract year and there's been no hint of him signing an extension.  That raises an eyebrow.

Coincidentally, Gary Smith was in attendance at the Dick this weekend.

Man of the Match: Rafael Navarro.  He had great passing all night.  His outburst when he was subbed off could be taken one of two ways.  Either he was upset about the ankle injury he picked up right before the sub or he was upset about being subbed off.  Neither is a great sign but I think the former is better long-term than the latter.

One More Time

 

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Outside of our CCC matches against LAFC tomorrow's matchup with the Earthquakes is our first repeat of the season.  Two months ago it was a late Calvin Harris goal that got us the 3 points in California.  Once again though we had fallen asleep at the end of the first half to give SJ their one tally.  We need to play a full 45 minutes twice tomorrow and get this dip in form turned around.  This is also the first week where we have 3 league games with a trip to San Diego on Wednesday before the home leg of the Rocky Mountain Cup next weekend.  Kickoff tomorrow is at the normal 7:30pm.

Player Availability:

OUT: GK Adam Beaudry (ankle), M Ali Fadal (knee)

A great availability report.  Even if healthy neither Beaudry or Fadal would expect to get time in this game.  Fadal likely wouldn't make the gameday squad.  Also the Michael Edwards loan to Charlston was made official in midweek.

With everyone available I expect Armas to go with a pretty standard lineup for the new 4-2-2-2.  I think to "fix" the defense we see Vines and Rosenberry back in on the wings but I don't know that those areas were really the problem.  Perhaps Keegan's experience can help.

Prediction: 2-2 draw, goals by Mihailovic and Navarro.  I think we're a better team than San Jose and we should be winning this one.  But until I can see us get through a game without failing at the end of the half I can't trust us against an offense as good as the Earthquakes.  I think this is going to be 2 points we fumble away.  We need to figure this out before FSL in a week.

Rapids Appear To Be Stuck In Dallas Too

As could have been easily predicted something went wrong with Armas' plans to get to DC (his plane had mechanical difficulties) and he was stuck in Dallas.  The rest of team acted like they were there with him.  The exact same problems we've been seeing this season continued, namely an inability to get shots on target and an inability to finish halves.

In this case Yapi scored off an assist by Navarro in the 43rd minute (our first score in the last 5 minutes of a half this season) only for DC to score twice before halftime.  That's now 11 of 18 goals given up in the last 5 minutes of the half across all competitions.  Then we spent the second half not getting a single shot on target despite being behind.  I could go over the game in more detail, but really it boils down to that.  We need to finish halves and actually shoot, otherwise we're going to be consistently inconsistent all season.

So lets move on to more interesting news.  Tom Bogert had two interesting roster notes yesterday.  One, Michael Edwards is being loaned to the Charleston Battery for the season.  With Nate Jones already loaned to Vegas that means there's no extra depth in defense.  The group we've seen (Rosenberry/Cannon/Awaziem/Maxso/Murphy/Vines/Travis) is what we have to work with.

That depth will apparently get better next season though, as Bogert also reported that the rumors about the Rapids being interested in Australian youth-international defender Lucas Herrington are about to become something real with the final details being worked out on a deal.  He would join from Australian club Brisbane Roar in January.  Herrington is a 17-year old central defender who was reportedly highly sought after by European but apparently has seen the Rapids success in moving defenders to Europe (vines, Trusty, Bombito) and feels this is the next step.

Man of the Match: Rafael Navarro.  Just for the cheeky chip he used to set up Yapi's headed goal.  That was class.

From Seattle to Washington

 

Thomas Jefferson Memorial, my favorite of the many NPS sites in DC

The Rapids are in our nation's capital tomorrow night to face DC United.  Hopefully by game time their coach will be there too.  Chris Armas is currently in Dallas where he's getting the well-deserved honor of being inducted in the National Soccer Hall of Fame tomorrow.  The HoF has arranged the ceremony so that he will be the first of the 5 inductees to go tomorrow afternoon which, if everything goes right, will let him leave and fly to DC in time to get to the game by kickoff.  One might suggest that a little more coordination between U.S. Soccer and MLS could have prevented a scenario where one of the inductees was scheduled to coach a match over 1000 miles away from the HoF on inductee weekend.  Kickoff tomorrow is at 5:30 MT.  C38 is running a bus up to Lariat Lounge Brewing in Evergreen for the watch party.

Player Availability:

OUT: GK Adam Beaudry (ankle), M Cole Bassett (calf), M Ali Fadal (knee)

Well Bassett being out isn't ideal I did suggest in my writeup of the Seattle game that he was pressing and maybe needed a break so maybe there's a silver lining to it.  This is the beginning of a busy month with two midweek-matches, including one leading into the Rocky Mountain Cup match in two weeks, so extra rest shouldn't hurt.

There are a few options on who could replace Bassett.  I think the obvious one is Ronan, but we could see Cabral out wide or even Yapi dropping back.  But I think Ted Ku-DiPietro will be extra motivated to go against his old team and Armas will look to use that.

Prediction: 2-1 win, goals by Mihailovic and Navarro.  DC is struggling this season, especially on defense.  Colorado should be able to take advantage and pick up 3 points, even if Armas can't be there as part of the pregame.