Stop Me If You've Heard This Before...

Playing the worst team in MLS Colorado continued their lack-luster play, and they got burned by it. What should have been an easy won resulted in the Rapids 5th draw in a row and 6th draw in 7 games.

This game was much like last week's home game against Toronto. Lots of possession by the Rapids in the defensive third but no ability to capitalize on it. Casey took advantage of a half-hearted backpass to round the keeper and score from almost an impossible angle. KC's Smith took advantage of a Wells Thompson flailing mistake and a Kimura slip to knock a golazo past Pickens into the upper corner to level the score late.

My key to the game was just winning. Nope.

Other Observations:

• Good to see Casey finally get on the scoreboard, and on such a tough goal. Despite the defender knocking it in, it would have gone in without the assistance.
• Wells Thompson, ugh. Generally bad and on the KC goal he performed a whirling dervish spin move and managed to completely miss the ball, leaving Kimura stranded. Bad luck for Koz to slip at that moment.
• Koz generally had a bad night though. He was regularly beat and his passes weren't on target.
• Larentowicz had a 1v1 with the keeper early int he second half that should have ended the game. Instead he sent it high over the bar. A team having as much difficulty scoring as we are can't afford to miss chances like that.
• Ross LaBauex looked good for a young guy getting only his second career start. If he can I still like the looks of LaBauex. I thought he had a solid, if unspectacular, night.
• Nyassi coming off at half is not what the team needed. He's apparently still going to play for Gambia so I assume ti wasn't injury related. Not a strong sub.
• I hate to kick a guy while he's down, but Nane's 5 minutes prior to being injured were horrible. Bad touches and almost no movement.
• It was good to see Folan able to play. I only wish he had been able to play better, he didn't show much of anything in his 20 minutes.
• 7 straight games without a loss is nice, but this team is barely treading water. Part of it is the injury situation but part of it are players who just aren't getting the job done.

Player of the Game: Marvell Wynne. He broke up a number of dangerous attacks including one in the second half that I was sure was going to be a PK, but on review was a perfectly timed clean tackle. Unfortunately he re-aggravated his hamstring late in the game and is back on IR.

Colorado Gets Its First Look At The New Kansas City

Sporting KC (aka the SporKCs) makes its first trip to Denver since they renamed themselves from the Kansas City Wizards (a much better name IMO). They also took our kits as they are now the light blue team in the league while we went to the white road kits. The SporKCs are in the 9th game of a 10 game road trip before their new stadium opens next month, and they have been spectacularly unsuccessful on the road with only 1 win and 1 draw so far.

Game time tomorrow is at 7pm, but the party starts much earlier. At noon the Pid Army and Class VI are hosting a watch party for the Champions League Final at the Celtic Tavern downtown. They'll be running two free shuttles at 3:30 and 4 from the party out to the Dick for the tailgate which, in honor of our opposition, is a Kansas City BBQ theme. After the game they'll run two shuttles back to the Celtic. A whole day of soccer partying is in store!

Injury Report:

OUT: FW Macoumba Kandji (L knee ACL tear)

DOUBTFUL: FW Omar Cummings (R ankle sprain); FW Caleb Folan (R groin strain)

QUESTIONABLE: MF Jamie Smith (L calf strain)

PROBABLE: FW Quincy Amarikwa (L ankle sprain); FW Conor Casey (L hamstring strain); GK Matt Pickens (R groin strain)

Disciplinary Report:

SUSPENDED: MF Brian Mullan (4 games)

SUSPENDED AFTER 2 MORE CAUTIONS: FW Conor Casey; DF Drew Moor; DF Marvell Wynne

No change to the official injury report but there are rumors that Folan and/or Cummings might be able to make an appearance. KC only has one player out due to injury, but they have 4 others absent with their National Teams. Its hard to tell what Smith might do with our lineup, but here's my guess:

Pickens

Kimura - Wynne - Marshall - Moor

LaBauex- Mastroeni - Larentowicz - Nyassi

Casey - Akpan

LaBauex and Akpan had good games on Wednesday and I think they get the nod to fill in for some of our missing guys. I don't think we'll see the 4-5-1 again, we should win this game despite the injuries and I expect to see our normal 4-4-2 because of it.

Key To Look For: Just win baby. Toronto should have been an easy win, but KC should be even easier. There's no reason, even with our injuries, that we should give the worst team in MLS a shot in this game.

Prediction: 2-0 win, goals by Casey and Nyassi. Nobody has given up more goals in the league than KC and they're in the bottom half in offense as well. They played a big USOC qualifier on Wednesday in KC so both teams had to travel after a game to Denver so they should be equally tired. With the home field advantage and the altitude Colorado should win this one.

6 Minute Shootout In NY Leads To Draw

The Rapids started the game with only 2 offensive players hoping just to battle to a low-scoring draw. That worked for about 25 minutes. Between minute 27 and 33 all hell broke loose, then they went back to the plan for the remaining 57 minutes of the game. In the end they got the draw they wanted, but it was a much higher scoring 2-2 draw than what they expected.

In the 27th minute Akpan was knocked down outside the box and fell into the box. The referee missed the call and awarded a PK, which Larentowicz took and had saved, only to have the rebound come straight to him so he could finish it off. NY took the ball right back down the field though and sliced the Rapids defense open so an unmarked(!) Henry could level the score.

After a couple of minutes to catch our breaths it happened again. Henry took down Thompson outside the box getting a card and a free kick for the Rapids. They rolled the ball outside to Ginger Ninja who blasted it through the wall to re-take the lead. Again it only lasted a minute though as NY came right back down the field. This time Rogers got behind the defense and chipped the ball over an on-rushing Pickens to finish the night's scoring.

Both teams had decent chances after that, though the Rapids actually had the better shots. In 2nd half stoppage time both Casey and Amarikwa had a chance to beat the NY keeper who had come out but they couldn't finish the job. It was 3 points we could have had, but nobody should complain about getting a point given our injury situation.

My key to the game was attacking pressure to prevent NY from opening up a shooting gallery. The Rapids actually did a better job of this than I expected. Early in both halves NY was pushing hard but Colorado managed to re-balance the field with some good attacks.

Other Observations:

• Interesting lineup decision by Smith to rest Casey and go with a 4-5-1. It seemed to work, though its not something I want to go back to when two top forwards are healthy.
• On goal 1 Wynne, Kimura, and Pablo lost their men. On goal 2 Drew Moor found out that Rogers was faster than he realized.
• Adventures In Goalkeeping last night, and Bouna didn't play for NY. Pickens made a lot of great saves, but he was forced into some of those due to bad positioning or decision making. The second rule of goalkeeping (after Don't Get Beat Near Post) is If You Come Out, You Must Get The Ball, which he failed to do on the second goal.
• Nyassi is a case of "you take the good with the bad". He had a "shot" that barely went out for a corner instead of a throw-in. 2 minutes later he took another shot from almost the same spot that slammed off the crossbar. He continued that pattern of lousy and great balls all night. Still he'll be missed for the Philly and possibly the Portland game when he goes to Gabon to play for Gambia.
• Ross LaBauex looked good for a young guy getting only his second career start. If he can keep that up he'll replace Thompson.
• I hate to say this, but Thompson has become the new Ballouchy. He just kills any ball movement that goes through him.
• Akpan is starting to take a commanding lead in the battle with Amarikwa. He's still 4th choice behind C+C Goal Factory and Folan though (and possibly 5th once Kandji comes back).
• Nane had possibly the best pass we've seen all season late int he game. A perfectly weighted through ball that put Casey in 1v1 with the GK and only a great save and a further clearance from the NY defense kept Colorado form scoring.
• You could see the level of play from front rise when Casey came in. He's clearly missed.
• 6 straight without a loss! Too bad 5 of them have been draws.
• Draws are great on the road, we need to win at home, starting this weekend against the SporKC's.

Player of the Game: Jeff Larentowicz. Yes he got a goal off a PK that shouldn't have been given, but he kept his head on the save and calmly tapped the ball back in, then followed it up woith a great free kick goal.

Rapids Attempt To Raid New York For A Point

On May 25th, 1778 British-led forces raided the Rhode Island towns of Bristol and Warren. They took prisoners and supplies before withdrawing. On May 25th, 2011 the British-led Rapids will try to raid another Northeast town, this time Harrison, NJ. They hope to take points and confidence with them when they withdraw.

It won't be easy though, as the injury report keeps growing and the amount of rest keeps lessening. Game time tomorrow is 6pm MDT and the game will be on Altitude. A small group of supporters will be watching the game at the Streets of London.

Injury Report:

OUT: FW Macoumba Kandji (L knee ACL tear)

DOUBTFUL: FW Omar Cummings (R ankle sprain); FW Caleb Folan (R groin strain)

QUESTIONABLE: MF Jamie Smith (L calf strain)

PROBABLE: FW Quincy Amarikwa (L ankle sprain); FW Conor Casey (L hamstring strain); GK Matt Pickens (R groin strain)

Disciplinary Report:

SUSPENDED: MF Brian Mullan (5 games)

SUSPENDED AFTER 2 MORE CAUTIONS: FW Conor Casey; DF Drew Moor; DF Marvell Wynne

Jamie Smith's addition tot he injury report is not what we needed right now. That's now 7 forwards or midfielders that are either on the injury report or suspended. NY only has 3 players questionable or worse, but one is Rafa Marquez so that's a bit of a help. My guess at an ugly lineup:

Pickens

Wynne- Moor- Marshall - Wallace

Kimura- Mastroeni - Larentowicz - Nyassi

Casey - Amarikwa

I think Smith will stick with the lineup he used on Sunday, with Nyassi filling in for the injured Jamie Smith. I think Akpan is a better start based on Amarikwa's play, but Smith seems to like Quincy. Its almost a guarantee that the first two subs will be Akpan and Thompson.

Key To Look For: Attacking pressure. Can the Rapids mount any sort of an attack or will it be a shooting gallery for NY all night? The only chance Colorado has to get any points out of this game is to keep possession and keep NY at least somewhat concerned about defending.

Prediction: 1-0 loss. Both teams are coming off weekend games with another game next weekend so neither team will be able to go 100%. The fact that we'll be lucky to have more than 3 attacking players on the pitch at once leads me to believe we'll get shutout again. NY is much better than Toronto, so I expect our defense will crack at least once.

Visit Of Former Rapids Brings Former Rapids Play

Toronto came to town with 4 former Rapids on their roster, 2 of them from the Clavijo era. As part of their return to Denver they returned Clavijo-era ball to the Rapids. An ugly 0-0 game then played out.

The closest the Rapids got to a goal was right before halftime when Quincy Amarikwa was tripped up in the corner of the box, but didn't get the PK call. In their continuing attempt to turn fans off of watching Rapids games, Altitude was in a replay at the time and apparently didn't catch the incident so I have no idea how valid or not the call would have been. The closest Toronto got was off a Rapids corner kick that they raced up field with, hitting the crossbar over Pickens. Sadly those were the extent of highlights in this game.

My key to the game was taking control of the game early. Needless to say, that didn't happen and not surprisingly Toronto got a point.

Other Observations:

• How unimpressed must Smith be with Nyassi and Thompson to choose to start Kimura out of position at right mid instead of one of them?
• The defensive line (and Pickens, see below) were solid this game. The 6 players in front of them? Crap.
• This was 2007 era Clavijo-ball. Kick it long, hope somebody runs onto it for a cross, repeat.
• Anytime we did get the ball in or around the box, nobody could complete a pass. There were easily half a dozen decent chances if the pass was actually put where the oncoming player could get it.
• The best shot we got all night was Anthony Wallace from 25 yards out, and that didn't even force a save.
• I'm assuming Smith and Casey were subbed out to rest them in a week where we have 3 games. If it was due to injury or strategy we're in trouble.
• Amarikwa couldn't find a chance he couldn't destroy last night.
• Thompson has regressed this season. Putting him in a game where we aren't leading is tantamount to raising the white flag of surrender.
• We ended the game with a midfield of Kimura, Mastroeni, Larentowicz, and Thompson. I realize that's somewhat due to injuries and suspensions but there's no way we're scoring off of anything but a set piece with that midfield.
• Marshall was honored before the game for becoming the 13th player in league history to have 300 appearances (his appearance in New England two weeks ago was #300). His first appearance was also as a Rapid.
• He followed that up today with a call-up to the Jamaican Gold Cup squad. He'll leave after Saturday's game with KC.

Player of the Game: Matt Pickens. He had one big save and one save that may or may not have been necessary, but better safe than sorry. Honorable mention to Marvell Wynne who played lock-down defense on Newcomer of the Year Candidate Plata.