Well That Was Garbage

No game review this week. If the players aren't going to bother showing up for the game, I'm not going to be bothered to analyse it. Suffice it to say that every time I've thought we hit rock bottom this season, we've done worse. With the results this weekend the Colorado Rapids are not only last place in the conference, but they are last place in the league. With a game on ESPN2 in Dallas on Thursday night, I don't see that changing soon.

"Football isn't a matter of life and death - it's much more important than that"

Bill Shankley could have been talking about tomorrow's game when he said those words. The Rapids travel over the Continental Divide on their annual trip to SLC. Not only are the Rapids playoff chances at stake, but the Rocky Mountain Cup could be decided tomorrow night. The Rapids currently have a 3 point lead in the competition with only 2 games to play, so a win tomorrow means the Cup comes home to Denver. A number of fans are making the trip to RES to cheer on Colorado in person, but those that aren't will be meeting at the British Bulldog as normal. Kickoff is at 7pm MDT.


Here's the injury report:

OUT: MF Mehdi Ballouchy (concussion); MF Terry Cooke (L hamstring); MF Greg Dalby (R ankle); GK Justin Hughes (L groin); DF Ugo Ihemelu (concussion); MF Pablo Mastroeni (R hamstring); PROBABLE: DF Jordan Harvey (R knee); DF Jose Burciaga Jr. (R hip); MF Jacob Peterson (L hip)

DISCIPLINE: Suspended after 1 more yellow card - Colin Clark, Pablo Mastroeni

My lineup prediction:

Bouna Time!
Erpen - Gibbs - Petke - Harvey
Peterson - C.Gomez - LaBrocca - Clark
McManus - Casey

After a long stretch relatively injury-free the Rapids are the walking wounded this week. I expect that Gomez will find his way back into the starting 11 with Ballouchy and Dalby injured. I think Burciaga proved himself a liability last week and will be replaced by Harvey. Finally I expect Smith to switch back to a 4-4-2 to get Casey some help up front.

Critical Matchup: Rapids midfield vs. the RES turf

FSL plays its home games on the worst surface in the league, a turf field sitting on top of concrete. They've been able to take advantage of this by learning the play of the pitch and riding that to an undefeated home record this year. Its vital that the Rapids keep possession in this game, and they do that by the midfield being able to handle the turf and adjust accordingly.

Keys To Look For:

• Gomez will be coming off the bench after two games of not playing. Can he reintegrate himself into the team?


• Is it Bouna Time or Burpo Time?


• Controlling the passion. The RMC is a heated rivalry and we've seen FSL lose it in the past and make the game more about taking out the Rapids than winning. Whichever team plays with passion without losing control will have the advantage.


• Will Peterson do something with the ball when he gets the chance?


• Making our chances count. For the last month to six weeks the Rapids have created chance after chance without finishing them. At some point we're going to have to start putting those chances away.

Prediction: 1-0 win. The Rapids have a winning record in RES, so they don't face the same road problems there that they do everywhere else. We'll squeak out the win and bring the Cup back where it belongs!

Another Verse, Same as the First

Keepin' It Real has made another attempt to trash talk before tomorrow's game. I'll give them credit for improving from their first attempt, but still pretty weak. The statement that "Statistically speaking, they should have won something/anything just by sheer dumb luck of the draw" might have meant more if a quarter of the league hadn't failed to win something in that time. Hard to say dumb luck should get you a championship when 1 out 4 failed to do so.

And they do a nice job of cherry-picking stats from the current year for comparison. What they left out was Goals scored, Rapids: 29, FSL: 25, Goal differential, Rapids: -1, FSL: -2, Total wins, Colorado: 7, FSL: 7, along with FSL's worse road record I mentioned on Tuesday. I'm not seeing much to seperate Colorado and FSL this season, and when we win tomorrow Colorado will pass FSL in the standings, just like they've done every year.

But no surprise that FSL fans like to divert attention from how bad they've been by focusing on the failures of the Rapids. Anyone who's read this blog knows that I'm the first to say that the Rapids have been a complete failure at getting one of the 3 major MLS trophies, but as bad as we've been, look at FSL in comparison.

Rapids first 4 years: 3 playoff appearances, 1 MLS Cup appearance, 1 US Open Cup final appearance, overall record of 61 wins in 128 games.

FSL first 4 years: 0 playoff appearances, 1 USOC game won (game, not trophy), overall record 28 wins in 115 games

And to deal with the whining from the FSL fans that comparing 1996-1999 to 2005-2008 isn't fair, here's the Rapids list for 2005-2008

Rapids last 4 years: 2 playoff appearances (Including 2 Western Conference Final appearances), 2 USOC games won (Including beating FSL), overall record of 40 wins in 115 games. Oh, and finishing in front of FSL each of the last 3 years.

So to answer the question posed by Keeping It Real,

So if Salt Lake is fake, what does that make Colorado?

Better than you

MLS Cup, U.S. Open Cup, Supporter's Shield - Where do we stand? Part 3

This was originally scheduled for last Wednesday,m but with the news of Clavijo's departure I pushed it off to this week. We're two-thirds of the way hrough the season, so let's reexamine where we stand. My last analysis is here.

USOC: Out after loss to KC
MLS Cup: To be decided at the end of the season, currently we are out of a tie for the last playoff spot by 2 points.
Supporters Shield: Goes to the best regular season record

Right now that's Columbus, with 37 points from 21 games and the goal differential tiebreaker. We're at 24 points from 21 games. Lets do some figuring to see some best case/worst case scenarios.

Best case:

• Nobody played better than .500 ball the rest of the way, or 1.5 pts/game. That would put Columbus on top.
• That gives them 13-14 points the rest of the way.
• Added to their current 33, that's 50-51points.
  

• Lets say the Rapids play really well and only get 1 draw the rest of the season.
• That means they would have a maximum of 49 points (8-0-1) and would miss the Supporter's Shield.
  

What's all this mean? The Supporter's Shield is lost to us. We would have to win every remaining game and hope that both Columbus and New England play no better than .500 over the last 9 games. That's not going to happen. Our only hoe for hardware this season is MLS Cup.

Weak attempt at trash talking from the West side

Yep, that time of year again when the Rapids head over to SLC to put a beat-down on FaKe SaLt LaKe. Some people may have seen the weak attempt at trash talk by the FSL blog Keepin' It Real. Let's look at their list of "trash talk".

• Clavijo - Like every Rapids fan wasn't talking trash about Clavijo


• Roof at the Dick - Well FSL fans have never been creative, no wonder they can't see any point in having a unique roof. Given the stadium they play in, FSL fans really shouldn't try to talk trash about the Dick.


• KSE/Rapids FO's attempt to kill the atmosphere at the Dick - Again, something the Rapids fans have complained about all year


• Pablo - Yeah, sucks for FSL that the Rapids have a player better than any 3 FSL players put together


• Nuggets - NBA? Who cares.

A weak attempt from West of the Rockies, much like their soccer team. Its been the same list of trash talk for 3 years. Clavijo, Dick jokes, atmosphere sucks, and Pablo. You'd think they would come up with something new, but that would require FSL fans to wake up and realize that its no longer 2005, even if their team hasn't changed at all since then.

As bad as Clavijo has been the Clavijo-led Rapids have finished in front of FSL each of the last 3 years, and we'll move ahead of them when we beat them on Friday. For all the talk about the "great fans" in SLC, its the Rapids fans you hear on the telecasts of RMC games from RES games and its a Rapids fan who heard us from the other side of RES and came to join us. And unlike the FSL fans, Rapids fans don't resort to throwing bottles and pipe bomb threats when the Rapids lose. The FSL hated Beckerman as much as Pablo, claiming that they never wanted to see him play for FSL, but a soon as the trade happened they flip-flopped and started supporting him. You'll never see me supporting Carlos Ruiz (My least favorite MLS player), even if he pulled on a Rapids jersey. FSL fans are a joke, no wonder they root for the team they do.

FSL's good season is a mirage built on playing on that concrete mess they call a field. Too bad for them that the Rapids have a winning record in RES, going 3-1-2 (W/D/L) over the last 3 seasons in SLC, so they can't expect that to help them this week. Meanwhile they are worse than the Rapids on the road, an impressive achievement, getting only 4 points in 10 games away from Utah. So even if they get a miracle draw on Friday there's no way they'll get the 2 goal win they need in the Dick in October. Might as well just give us the Rocky Mountain Cup now guys, and save yourselves the effort of hauling it to Denver for us at the end of the season.