Rapids Try To Salve The Burn

OK, so they're FC Dallas now, but they'll always be the Burn. The Rapids are back home with a 6 game winless streak and a opponent that they like to see in the playoffs. Game time is an unusual 2pm at the Dick, so the tailgate starts at noon.

Injury Report:

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

PROBABLE: DF Julien Baudet (L knee strain), FWD Conor Casey (scalp laceration)

Discipline Report:

TWO CAUTIONS FROM SUSPENSION: Conor Casey, Omar Cummings, Pablo Mastroeni

Dallas only has two players injured and heavyweight Dario Sala suspended (again) so they're close to full strength. I'm guessing on the following lineup:

Pickens

Wynne - Baudet - Moor - Earls

Larentowicz - Pablo

Cummings - Ballouchy - Smith

Casey

I realize that's not much of a stretch. That's just the regular XI Gary Smith likes to trot out. Kimura is a possible starter, but I'm not seeing it.

Key To Look For: Can we score more than one goal? In the last ten games we've only scored more that one twice. I don't think a 1-0 win is likely, so we'll need 2 to get the 3 points we need.

Prediction: 1-1 draw, goal by Conor Casey. The Rapids are going to have to prove to me they can win again before I predict a win. I don't see anything that leads me to believe they can play a solid 90 minutes at this point.

Rapids Acquire Wallace From Dallas

The Rapids have just announced a trade with Dallas for Anthony Wallace. In return Dallas gets our natural 4th round draft pick next year and a conditional pick in 2012. Wallace has played in 15 games in 4 seasons for Dallas.

Yeah, the phrase "rearranging the deck chairs" comes to mind on this one. 2 draft picks for a defender who couldn't get on the field for a pretty bad Dallas team in the last 4 years? On a team that doesn't really need defensive help since we have 5-6 MLS-level defenders already (Moor, Wynne, Baudet, Earls, Palguta, and Kimura). Not sure what the goal on this move is, other taht to do something for the sake of doing something.

British Side Loses In Puget Sound, Again

The eventual resolution of the dispute that led to the Pig War gave control of the San Juan islands to the United States. The eventual resolution of the game in Seattle yesterday gave the 3 points to the American-led team over the British one. The Rapids played a better game, but were outclassed over the first 25 minutes by Seattle and that's all it took.

For the first time all season Colorado gave up a goal in the first 15 minutes. Due to replays there was no good look at the lead-up to the gaol, but the Rapids had a couple of chances to clear the ball and failed to do so. Then Zakuani blasted a ball past a diving Matt Pickens. The ball hit the post, and in a turn of bad luck, bounced off the post and into the back of Pickens' arm, deflecting off of him and into the net.

There wasn't even time to analyze what went wrong. Practically off the kickoff Cummings took the ball down the right, cut inside, and unleashed a shot into the upper corner of the far post to level the score. Great goal. Unfortunately just 10 minutes later Danny Earls would get beat on the right and shoddy defending inside allowed Zakuani to get goal side with the ball to get his second goal in 10 minutes.

The Rapids pushed for most of the rest of the game, but couldn't find another goal. Their best chance came from Cummings, who got behind the defense to go 1v1 with Keller, but somehow couldn't even get the shot on target and went over the top. Claudio Lopez had a back heel that would have beat most keepers but not Kasey Keller, who somehow dove backwards to get a hand on it.

My key to the game was playing for 90 minutes. The Rapids played a better game this week, but they were outplayed for the first 25 minutes. They were clearly the second best team on the field to start the game and paid for it.

Other Observations:

• 6 games with out a win and its July. Welcome to the annual summer swoon.
  
• I'm not sure I like the sub of Amarikwa for Ballouchy. Mehdi isn't my favorite player, but the Rapids had something working and that sub seemed to kill things.
• Good to see Baudet back in the lineup.
• Brutal collision between Casey and Ianni to end the game. No malice from either side, but the head-to-head contact was one of the worst I've seen.
• Cummings missed ruined a pretty good game for him. Like Casey last week, that's a goal you have to get, or at the very least put it on target.
• Larentowicz had a good game going into the All-Star break.
• Danny Earls is still struggling to find the balance between offense and defense. He's not bad at either one, but he's poor at doing both of them in the same game.
• And a note to my hometown fans. Guys, shut up. Pablo and Casey both went down with legitimate injuries in the first 15 minutes, only to be booed by the Qwest Field crowd. Cummings got yanked back on a breakaway, a textbook yellow, and the crowd booed when the card was given. For as "good" as a fanbase that Seattle likes to claim they have, it wasn't a very classy one last night.

Player of the Game: Pablo Mastroeni. He broke up a number of attacks like normal, but it was his passing that really stood out. He had a number of good decisions with the ball that kept the team's momentum going.

Pig War 2010

The last time Great Britain and the U.S. fought it was over the San Juan Islands north of Seattle in what's commonly referred to as the Pig War. A Sounder is a group of wild pigs. Tomorrow the Rapids, led by a British coach, play the Sounders, led by a top candidate for the next U.S. National Team coach, in Seattle. Con incidence? Game time on Sunday is at 8:30pm MDT and the game is on FOX Soccer Channel. As many readers know, Seattle is my home town, in fact on the map at left I grew up right where "WHIDBEY" is written. Still no split loyalties on this one, Rapids till I die!

Injury Report:

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

PROBABLE: DF Julien Baudet (L knee strain)

Discipline Report:

TWO CAUTIONS FROM SUSPENSION: Conor Casey, Omar Cummings, Pablo Mastroeni

Seattle has 6 players on their injury report, so they're a bit beat up. I don't expect Julian Baudet to jump right back into the starting XI, but I could see him coming off the bench. My guess on the starting lineup:

Pickens

Kimura - Wynne - Moor - Earls

Larentowicz - Pablo

Cummings - Ballouchy - Smith

Casey

Palguta was a disaster last week, so I'm assuming Earls will get his starting spot back. I'd like to see Lopez start in place of Ballouchy, but I don't think Gary Smith is ready to make that move..

Key To Look For: Can we play for 90 minutes? The last two games we've played for about 20, and managed to get a loss and a draw. Seattle is weak enough that we can win this game on the road, if we show up to play for the full time.

Prediction: 1-1 draw, goal by Conor Casey. Honestly the way the team's been playing I think I'm being optimistic predicting a draw, but Seattle really isn't a good team right now. If we have any hope of making the playoffs we need to get at least a point out of this game.

Not the Midseason Review

We're at the midpoint of the season and normally I'd do a position-by-position report card. Honestly though, I'm not up for it. As you can probably tell from the lack of posting here, the last couple of weeks have really sapped my energy for the Rapids.

It's very deflating to be a Rapids fan right now. Its not hard to look around the league and go "what about us?". We see signings like Henry, Bravo, Marquez, N'kufo, and Castillo. We see major international friendlies against teams like Manchester United, Inter Milan, and Real Madrid. In Colorado? No friendlies, no signings, and no word of anything from the Rapids Front Office.

Here's an interesting note. Since the end of the Rapids season last year every MLS team except for Colorado and Chivas has either won a major trophy, hosted a major international friendly, or made a major international signing. And Chivas signed Giacarlo Maldonado, so they've had some headlines.

Add to that the way the team appears to be entering its "summer swoon" phase based on their play in the last couple of games and their 5 game winless streak and its very hard to be anything but depressed about the current state of the team. I appear to not be alone in this feeling as the Rapids attendance isn't anything to write home about. It's up about 1200 from last year, but still down from 2007 and 2008. This year, like 2008, there's been 2 sellouts but both of those are in the past and I'm not sure we can expect to see another one.

Right now I get the impression that KSE doesn't care about the Rapids. The people in the Front Office seem to want to do a good job, but they're not being given the resources to do that. They don't seem to have the budget to sign a DP or to entice a big-name team to come to Colorado (meanwhile the Portland Timbers of USSF D-II played Manchester City in a 5,000 seat stadium). We know that the budget for the new coach was limited at best, and our play is suffering from that.

At the end of the day, why should I care about the team when its clear the team doesn't care about its fans? The website still lists 2 tickets in the season tickets package for USOC/exhibition/international matches but I've been told that at this point they won't host any games for us to use our bonus tickets on. The team can't even be bothered to honor the advertising they created. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not going to stop rooting for them or anything, but its hard to be somebody that wants to spread the word about the Rapids and get more fans interested in the team when the Rapids don't seem to want to keep the fans they have interested.