Rapids Try To Put Dark Week Behind Them

Its been a rough week for the Rapids. The Mullan incident hung over the team all week, and they're in the middle of a 3 game losing and scoreless streak. They try to right the ship tomorrow when the Chicago Fire come to town. Game time tomorrow at the Dick is 7pm. Class VI and the Pid Army are having a themed tailgate of Chicago dogs starting at 4pm in the regular spot. The game is also on Altitude.

Injury Report:

OUT: FW Macoumba Kandji (L knee ACL tear)

QUESTIONABLE: DF Eddie Ababio (R hamstring strain); FW Quincy Amarikwa (L ankle strain); FW Conor Casey (L hamstring strain)

PROBABLE: FW Caleb Folan (R quadriceps strain); GK Matt Pickens (R groin strain); DF Marvell Wynne (R hamstring strain)

Disciplinary Report:

SUSPENDED: MF Brian Mullan (10 games)

SUSPENDED AFTER 2 MORE CAUTIONS: FW Conor Casey

Wow, that's an ugly list of injuries and suspensions. The Fire have 5 players questionable or worse, including former Rapid Cory Gibbs. In today's update Smith made it sound like Casey won't go, and Folan was more likely to go than Wynne. This makes the lineup pick this week a little tricky. My best guess:

Pickens

Kimura - Moor - Marshall - Wallace

Thompson - Mastroeni - Larentowicz - Smith

Cummings - Folan

If Wynne can go I think Marshall sits. If Folan can't go I think Nyassi takes his place. Given Nyassi's play in Denver I bet that Smith keeps him coming off the bench unless he needs another forward, making Thompson the obvious pick to replace Mullan.

Key To Look For: At this point the Rapids need to rediscover the form that carried them through the last 3rd of last year, the playoffs, and the first 3 games of this year. If the can't do that the details won't matter.

Prediction: 2-1 Rapids win. Goals by Cummings and a weird goal. Could be a defender on a header, could be an own goal, could be a PK. I just feel like we're going to get one of those crazy goals out of nowhere. The shakeup in the defense will prevent us from getting a shutout but the Fire are not a good team and even with our makeshift lineup we can do enough to win.

Mullan Gets 10 Games

The league handed Mullan a 10 game suspension and a $5000 fine today. That's 9 games on top of the 1 automatic game a player gets for a red card. This ties the 10 games given to Ricardo Clark for kicking Ruiz on the ground in a dead ball situation for longest suspension in league history. Mullan has chosen not to appeal.

In my opinion, it was too much.

The only way this makes sense to me is if harsh tackles, injury or not, get more severely punished than they have in the past. The league said today that they told the players in preseason they were cracking down on preseason to protect players from injuries and to clean up the game. If Mullan had done this in week 1 or 2 then this punishment makes sense.

But Mullan made his tackle in week 6, and there have already been numerous tackles of the type MLS was supposedly cracking down on this season that went unpunished or lightly punished. Beckham has gotten yellows for a couple of tackles that could have easily hurt a player. Sounder Servando Carrasco stomped Patrick Nyarko's leg a couple of weeks ago. Live it looked like he could have broken his leg. Luckily he didn't and Nyarko was able to play the next game. He received a yellow in the game which the Disciplinary Committee upgraded to a 1 game suspension and a $500 fine, right in line with MLS precedent.

So despite their talk MLS didn't crack down on bad tackles until Mullan committed a horrendous tackle. If Carrasco has gotten 3 games and Beckham had gotten a game for his tackles, then I wouldn't complain about 10 games for Mullan. What Mullan did was horrendous and deserves to have the worst suspension in this new crackdown era.

By not cracking down on the tackles that didn't result in injury but easily could have, then cracking down on Mullan, the league is telling its players its status quo unless you really hurt somebody. Given the percentage of tackles, even bad tackles, that result in serious injury is very low, that's not much of a new deterrent for players to stop doing making them. Their odds are very good they'll still get away with it.

If MLS cracks down going forward then I'll have no problem with the 10 games. Given the league's track record so far this season and their inconsistency over the history of the league I have no expectation that they will. Because of all that I think Mullan got about 4 games more than he deserved.

Dark Day Ends With A Loss

Obviously the post game focus has been on the Mullan-Zakuani incident. I covered that in length yesterday so I won't say any more about it other than correct red card to Mullan doomed the Rapids in the game. Playing a man down for 87 minutes is too much to overcome.

I thought Colorado actually had the better play most of the game but that was partially because Seattle got an early goal. Up a man and a goal and on the road at altitude the sounders seemed happy to let the Rapids control play. I don't think they wanted to look as bad or let Colorado have as much possession as they did, but they were certainly in no hurry to take control of the game either. The Rapids took full advantage, but could never find the final pass. This was mainly due to the Sounders having an extra man to cover any lapses.

The goal was just a jailbreak with too many Rapids caught up field. Both Moor and Kimura had pushed forward on the wings and Seattle took possession and pushed the play. Moor was tracking back and Marshall tried to pressure the ball-handler, leaving Wynne to cover both forwards. Not surprisingly he was unable to. Montero was left with a wide-open shot. Surprisingly he still shouldn't have scored as he hit it right at Matt Pickens. Somehow though Pickens had a "Rob green" moment and let the ball hit his hands and go under his legs for the goal. Poor defense all the way around.

My key to the game was Folan and Cummings working together. They didn't, at all. To be fair, after the early red card Cummings shifted back into Mullan's spot in a 4-4-1, but it felt like Folan and Cummings had never played together before. Disappointing after having 9 days off to figure it out.

Other Observations:

• Its a bad sign when the player that most looks like scoring the whole game is the right back.
• Folan had a couple of chippy fouls, including one he was yellow carded for. In general he hasn't looked good since the DC game. We need Casey back.
• Where has Omar Cummings gone? He hasn't been on his game at all this season. If he keeps this up we won't have to worry about losing him in the summer transfer window.
• Shortly before half I realized the Rapids were playing schoolyard soccer with players just going wherever they felt was best. Pablo was up high on the right wing, Larentowicz was playing center back, Jamie Smith was in the center, and Moor was playing left wing. I understand formation changes are necessary after a red card, but this felt like the team had no plan.
• I'm not thrilled with the sub pattern in this game. All 3 subs were like for like. Defender for defender, d-mid for d-mid, and winger for winger. I would have liked to see more attackers put in down a goal at home.
• The refs did a great job not allowing this game to get out of hand.
• We desperately need a win against Chicago to stop this slide.

Player of the Game: Kosuke Kimura. He seemed to be the only player that looked like he wanted to tie the score.

On Mullan And The Rapids Being Thugs

My standard game review is coming tomorrow, but i wanted to get my comments on what happened to Steve Zakuani down before MLS makes its ruling. This is a long post, so settle in. Anyone who watched the game or any other MLS game this weekend has heard (or seen) what happened. In the 3rd minute Brian Mullan went in two-footed on Steve Zakuani and got his leg, breaking the tibia and fibula (both lower leg bones). He was rightfully red carded and Zakuani was taken to Rose Medical Center where he had successful surgery on his leg. He'll be able to travel home to Seattle in a few days.

Let me get this out first. Mullan was completely in the wrong, he made a tackle that has no business being in the game, and he should be heavily fined and face a long suspension.

Not surprisingly this has led to two days of extended discussions on BigSoccer about the deserved punishment, Mullan's rep, and if this was a result of the long history of the Rapids being thugs. There are many people saying that Mullan should be suspended for a great length of time. They're talking about Mullan being suspended for the rest of the year, for as long as Zakuani is injured, and there's even one idiot Sounders fan who's calling for MLS to fire Mullan and black ball him from the league (since the league controls all player contracts). All is this is knee-jerk overreaction crap.

Let's look at the history of some major fouls and suspensions in MLS;

• Dema Kovalenko broke Brandon Pollard's leg in 1999 and Ronnie O'Brien's leg in 2002 (both Dallas players), both times he served a 1 game suspension if I remember correctly
• Tyrone Marshall broke Kenny Cooper's leg in 2007 (Yeah, Dallas has been really unlucky with 3 broken legs), he got a 3 game suspension.
• Rapids fans will remember Dario Sala (Dallas again!) going bonkers after we eliminated them from the playoffs in 2006, punching Jovan Kirovski in the back of the head and dropping Hunter Freeman with a punch to the jaw before Petke and Cannon corralled him. Sala was suspended 6 games.
• Ricardo Clark kicked Carlos Ruiz (Yes, still Dallas) in the shoulder after Ruiz was on the ground from a foul and the whistle had been blown. He got a 9 game suspension, the longest in MLS history.

In another recent example from outside MLS Stoke City's Ryan Shawcross broke the leg of Arsenal's Aaron Ramsey earlier this year. Shawcross was given a 3 game suspension.

As you can see the idea of a season long (28 games) or until Zakuani returns (at least 28 games) suspension doesn't fit with the precedents set both by MLS and by other leagues. MLS and the EPL both gave 3 games for their most recent tackle that broke a leg. MLS gave 6 and 9 games for actions that took place off the ball in dead ball situations that had nothing to do with playing soccer.

There's also been a call to use this as a turning point for the league, to show how they are going to crack down on thuggish play. I understand that, and if MLS wants to do that I can understand. But that still doesn't justify a double-digit game suspension based on precedent. People point to the foul that Mullan didn't get called seconds before and the fact that he immediately went after Zakuani to show that this wasn't a soccer play, he was head-hunting. At the same time there have been Sounders fans who think he was frustrated by his poor play in losing the ball in that incident and was going to get the ball back recklessly, not head-hunting. Clearly his intent is difficult to determine. His post-game comments look bad in print but the video of him making them shows that he's remorseful for what happened. Obviously there are going to be a number of factors going in to the Disciplinary Committee's decision.

I think a suspension of 5-9 games, along with a large fine. is appropriate and I expect the Committee will end up in that area, maybe on the low side. Anything more than 9 games and the committee is saying a possible, but poorly executed, attempt to play the ball is worse that players starting fist fights and kicking players on the ground. At the same time this was a serious incident and rises above Kovalenko's 1 game and Marshall's 3 games.

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The incident has once again brought to the forefront a debate that has taken place mainly this off-season. Is Colorado a dirty team and/or filled with thugs? The general BigSoccer belief is that they are. I think they're wrong.

Let's look at the starting eleven.

• Matt Pickens - Normally goalkeepers aren't considered in the debate of dirty or thuggish teams, but MLS employs Matt Reis so I include Pickens. He has no reputation as a thuggish player.
• Kosuke Kimura - Koz actually has a pretty clean rep for being a defender.
• Marvell Wynne - His speed pretty much keeps him from needing to make any dirty plays.
• Drew Moor - For a center back he has a remarkably low number of cards.
• Anthony Wallace - He's too young to have any sort of rep, but so far he hasn't been dirty.
• Jamie Smith - Certainly a hard player, but not thuggish
• Omar Cummings - The next dirty play he makes will be his first.

That's 7 of our starting eleven with essentially no rep as thugs or dirty players. The other 4 are definitely more in question.

• Jeff Larentowicz - As a defensive-minded midfielder he's had his share of cards and bad tackles. I don't think he's been dirty, but he's been on the edge and he's gone over it from time to time.
• Brian Mullan - Before the Zakuani tackle he was a physical player that pushed the boundaries. He has a temper and that has gotten him in trouble int he past. The Zakuani tackle may push him into the thug category, but prior to that I wouldn't have labelled him as such.
• Pablo Mastroeni - Certainly the most physical player on the team, perhaps in the league. His play has never been dirty but it certainly falls into the category of thuggish. Of course all defensive midfielders have some thuggishness in their game, it goes with their position.
• Conor Casey - Probably the closest thing the Rapids have to a dirty player, but he still doesn't qualify. He's a physical player that will play like a thug if given the opportunity.

So that's somewhere between 2 and 4 players on the Rapids that could be considered thuggish. Of course I could name 2-4 players on a number of MLS teams that could be considered thuggish.

• FSL - Borchers, Olave, and Kyle "I learned d-mid from Pablo" Beckerman
• Dallas - Hernandez, Ihemelu, Shea (and last year they had Harris and Sala)
• Chivas - Braun and Conrad
• NY - Mendes and Richards
• etc.

All MLS teams have a couple of physical players that push the limits. That's the nature of the league. So the Rapids can't be considered thuggish just because they have a couple of those players.

Let's look at the "thuggish" stats for the last few years, fouls, yellows, and reds:

• 2010 - Next to last (15th) in fouls committed, 5th in yellows, 4 way tie for 11th in reds
• 2009 - 11th in fouls committed, 9th in yellow cards, next to last (14th) in reds
• 2008 - 10th in fouls committed, next to last (13th) in yellow cards, 4 way tie for 4th in reds

As we can see, the Rapids have been in the bottom half of the league in total fouls all 3 years, and the bottom half of the league in each card category 2 of the 3 years. Not the numbers you would expect from a "thuggish" team.

So why the belief that the Rapids are a thuggish team when a majority of the player reputations and the numbers don't back it up? I think its two things. First the Rapids aren't a "pretty" team, so they aren't watched on a regular basis by many neutrals. So when the Rapids play a physical game like MLS Cup, when everyone was watching, or has incidents like Brian Mullan's tackle, the reputation of Colorado gets set based on a couple of incidents instead of their whole body of work. Secondly two of the Rapids best known players are Conor Casey and Pablo Mastroeni, the two players who play the most thuggish soccer in the starting XI.

So when people think of the Rapids they think of two thuggish players, a physical MLS Cup game, and (now) Mullan's tackle. Those of us that watch the Rapids week in and week out know that its an unfair label to place on the team based on their whole body of work.

I will say that this season the Rapids have gotten more physical than in past year. I don't know if that's due to a change in the team mentality or just a temporary thing due to the number of injuries and new starters. This debate has been running since MLS Cup though, so clearly the play this season can't be the reason for the reputation, since it started prior to the season. I hope that this is a short-term thing but its something to keep an eye on this season.

My Personal Battle - 2011 Part 1

As long time readers of this blog know, the Rapids-Sounders matches always leave me in a bit of a pickle, as I was born in Seattle and raised in the Seattle-area. Every year that goes by makes it a bit easier though, especially since a couple of cousins have become die hard Sounders fans and season ticket holders. Tomorrow night the teams face off at the Dick. Kickoff is at 7:30, so the tailgate starts at 5:30. Bail out of work and start your weekend with the best tailgate in the league. For those of you that can't make it the game will be televised on FOX Soccer Channel.

Injury Report:

OUT: FW Quincy Amarikwa (L ankle strain), FW Macoumba Kandji (L knee ACL tear)

QUESTIONABLE: FW Conor Casey (L hamstring strain)

PROBABLE: MF Pablo Mastroeni (R Achilles strain); MF Sanna Nyassi (L hamstring strain)

Disciplinary Report:

SUSPENDED AFTER 2 MORE CAUTIONS: FW Conor Casey

Casey's injury is a big one obviously, but otherwise our starting XI is pretty intact. Seattle only has former Rapid Pat Noonan on their injury report, so they should be basically at full strength. My best guess at the lineup:

Pickens

Kimura - Wynne - Marshall - Moor

Mullan - Mastroeni - Larentowicz - Smith

Cummings - Folan

Gary Smith talked today about keeping Marshall on the back line due to his success against FSL. I do think Pablo will be ready to go after missing the last couple of games, but Casey won't start. Of course with the injuries and the defensive line talk this is a big guess.

Key To Look For: Folan and Cummings. They didn't have much luck working together int he last couple of games, but know they've had 9 days of practice to figure it out. We need to start scoring again.

Prediction: 2-1 Rapids win. Goals by Folan and Cummings. I think the strike duo finally get on the same page, but it takes a while. The Sounders will be able to use the lack of cohesion up front to keep enough possession to get a goal, but the altitude and the Rapids dominance at home will lead to 3 points.

Picture courtesy of the GoalSeattle archives. The Sea Dogs were a predecessor of the Sounders, coached by our old friend Fernando Clavjo.