As for the game itself, the first half went to the Rapids, the second to Dallas. I have an inclination to start a “was it / wasn’t it” penalty argument, but I don’t really have the energy. Let’s just say that Oduro was exaggerating, but Facundo should have known better than to use his elbows like that in the box.

On the bright side, it’s always nice to see the Rapids scoring early, and they are still undefeated when they do it first. That’s not to say that I’m worried that they don’t always score quickly. It’s just not their style. They score plenty of goals; they just do it by tiring out their opponent a bit. But I’ll never complain about a fifth minuter either.

Bouna looked even better than usual, too. He had a few stops that single-handedly saved the tie.

All-in-all, we had two road games and two ties, which is average, plenty goad enough to get back into playoff contention in the West. Now, the Rapids have a three game home stand (vs. Columbus, Toronto, and Kansas City), which means we need wins, lots of ‘em. After the All-Star break, this stretch is the best shot at climbing up the table significantly they have for the rest of the season, so their return to peak form should probably start here.

So, the All-Stars have Mastroeni, Gomez, and Beckham in the midfield with Donovan and Cooper to finish it off vs…West Ham? If the All-Stars can take out Celtic and Chelsea, my money is going on an All-Star win. Watching Gomez and Beckham work together is going to be a treat, and I’ll admit that I’m looking forward to the one game a year I get to cheer for Beckham. It would take an act of God for me to support LA or England.

UPDATE: More good news about the All-Star Roster: Not a single member of Real Salt Lake. Hm, the system does work.

On our side of the ball, even though you’re supposed to try to draw your road games, if there’s any road game that the Rapids should have taken, it was this. The Earthquakes still don’t have it together, but even so, they did win the season series against our club. No matter how successful the Rapids are at the end of the year, this is a serious blemish on our record.

The Rapids’ performance was actually quite good compared to San Jose, but that probably means the Rapids would have been beat by an average club. Their 3-5-2 was back again from the 4th of July, which hopefully means it’s sticking around. The only change I would make would be to give Omar or Jacob the other forward spot next to Tom.

Now, the Rapids are tied for third in the West, which is a decent recovery from their short winless streak of a few weeks ago. This makes the next game against Dallas a must win if the we want first back by the All-Star break, which is possible if Salt Lake loses versus Chicago, and LA draws or loses versus New York. With some luck we’ll take RSL out of first soon enough. In fact even if the Rapids don’t do it, the “RSL in first place” thing needs to stop now.

As for the match itself, it was nothing too spectacular. It was pure man on man for 90 minutes, with both sides just trying to make a good run towards goal.

The turnout for the game was a little disappointing, but my only real frame of reference recently was the New York – Chivas match. Chivas probably has a bit more draw, especially in Arizona. All in all, it was a fun match to see, but as far as freindies this year go, I would expect the Everton match to be a little more of a draw to the fans.

Apparently that’s the kind of conversation that goes on over at Rapids’ headquarters. On the other hand, if my friends and I were in charge of this, we probably would have come up with the exact same idea.

Picture of the new kit (slightly modified) here.
The actual kit here.

Have you ever seen the And1 basketball competitions? They’re games of basketball with virtually no rules so that everyone can just do all kinds of basketball tricks. The game really isn’t the point. Well, watching the Rapids on the Fourth felt like And1 soccer (And Booking?). All four goals were absolutely filthy (I never thought I would say that about soccer until after last night).

The Red Bulls must be down in the dumps right now. They lost one of their best players to injury, another to Spain, get knocked out of the Open Cup by Crystal Palace Baltimore, and then get “completely destroyed” on the Fourth of July. Not good times.

As for the Rapids on the other hand, how about that 3-5-2? I say we keep it. In the past when Pablo was in the backfield, it was an act of desperation. Now it was a stroke of genius by Fernando (whom coincidently I saw stuck in traffic in the parking lot like everyone else on the way out of the stadium. Only in MLS). Look at our backfield: Facundo, Pablo, Ugo. Combine those three guys with having our right winger play back a little like they did with Terry last night, and we just don’t need that fourth defender. That allows for a five man midfield which results in the Rapids dominating the field. And think about that midfield: Mehdi to set it up, Colin and Terry to take it around the defense on the wings, and Christian and Nick between them to serve it up to the forwards (one of whom happens to be Tom McManus). Put Bouna between the posts (less then a goal a game allowed), and we’ve got one heck of a soccer club in Colorado. It’s kind of amazing that the Rapids are as low on the table as they are, but I guess four games winless will do that.

But that’s probably not something we’re going to have to worry about much longer from the looks of things last night. At this rate, how can the Rapids not take the West this year? This is the first time after a game where I’ve been high-fiving other fans and saying “all the way this year!” and was actually serious about it.

So now, thanks to a few other games going our way, the Rapids are back in the Western conference race, two points back from first place. Since the Rapids play the ‘Quakes next week, if Chivas come through against the Galaxy, we might have first place back sooner than we thought.

UPDATE: Upon further inspection of the standings, it would actually be impossible for the Rapids to get first place back next week. The best we can hope for after next week is a three way tie for first with a Rapids win and a Galaxy - Chivas draw. The good news though, is that there is a very real possibility of the Rapids holding first going into the All-Star break.

So why go to Dick’s and watch soccer, the game which at first glance has as little to do with America as possible, in order to celebrate the United States? Because if you do, you’ll be going to see an American soccer game. This is no small difference.

You and I happen to be Americans who enjoy the sport of soccer. You and I are in the minority, for whatever reason. So, given that we like soccer, we have a choice to make. Which is more important to you: that you support the most popular club in the world or the club which has your city’s name on the crest? If you answer the same way I do, you see the significance of an American soccer game to celebrate America. You know the universality of soccer, and still identify with the American facet of it, whether you are in the minority or not.

If it does matter to you that your clubs are American clubs, I’ll see you Friday. If, you care that Spain won Euro 2008 because it means that the US might get a competitive rematch against them in the Confederation Cup, I’ll see you Friday. If you do a double take every time someone calls it “football”, I’ll see you Friday. Because on Friday, there will be a soccer game between two clubs with the names of American states on their shirts.

So, now let’s talk soccer. First off, it has to be noted that the Rapids are 10-1-1 on the Fourth, which is way too good to be a coincidence. As for the Red Bulls themselves, they are currently making huge signings left and right, but beyond that are having a worse then expected season thus far. While many expected them to be major MLS Cup contenders this year, they are currently in second to last place in their conference (man, I’d hate to be…oh, yeah). Even more of a downer, they got shut out and knocked out of the Open Cup by mighty Crystal Palace Baltimore of the USL-2 (for those who don’t know, this is the minor league’s second division. This is would be the equivalent the Yankees losing to the Bowie Baysox) while playing one man up past the 34′ (on a side note, which is more embarrassing: losing to Crystal Palace or Crystal Palace Baltimore?). I actually watched that game over the interweb to scout their depth and it was a confidence booster to be sure.

And depth is important right now with Angel and Reyna injured. As for the Rapids, the injury situation is still a problem, at the center of which is Christian still listed as doubtful. Pablo and Jacob are both also listed as probable, so hopefully that means we’ll see 90 minutes from Pablo at least. The Rapids are projecting that Pablo will pull back to defender (which, while bad for the team overall can be fun to see), with DiRaimando and LaBrocca in the midfield. The good news is we get to see Colin and Terry on the wings, which is my preference to begin with. As for defense, there’s Ugo, Facundo, Pablo, and Jordan. There’s a back four you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.

I’m going to wrap up by emphasizing how awesome the Rapids Fourth of July celebration is. The fireworks alone are unbelievable. You might have heard the Rapids say they have the best fireworks show in Colorado. Trust me, that is not hyperbole. If you have never been to this show, you literally cannot yet conceive of a fireworks show as incredible as this. Before I saw one it was simply beyond my imagination. If you are planning on watching on TV, don’t. Get over to Dick’s on Friday. I’ll see you there.

In an effort to find out more, I even delved into the depths of the Big Soccer message boards (I’m not going to link there. If you want to read a bunch of complaining, do a Google search at your own risk). Despite their apparent alarming amount of free time, even they hadn’t found anything out yet, but they did take time to complain about the team they claim to revere.

I do hope it’s not the shirt that Jorge el Mapache wears. It looks fine on a raccoon, but that’s probably as far as it goes.

UPDATE: Don’t believe me when I make fun of Big Soccer? Here is a three page thread discussing stadium food at MLS games.

The Rapids looked a lot like they wanted to use this home game as an opportunity to reverse their recent bad luck on the road. But it wasn’t to be. Now Colorado sits at a win percentage of 0.410. The worst part about this slump is the Rapids are now five points back from first. It could be worse, though (come to think of it they might be closer to first place than they were last week, so it’s not a total loss).

But three games winless is no fun to dwell on, so let’s look ahead. Next week the Rapids have what amounts to probably the hardest game of the season: The Crew in Columbus. I’ll have more to say about it latter, but I will say that I have been looking forward to that one for a while. It will be about the best test of how far the Rapids have really come so far this year. They also have one more home game before the All-Star break and it comes on July 4th, so that should help.

Canada on the other hand, is taking its second leg match seriously, and has called up both Houston’s midfield star, Dwayne De Rosario, and goalkeeper, Pat Onstad. The bad news: they’ve also nabbed our best defender, Ugo, who, it turns out, is Canadian after all. He played one game for the US in 2006 against Norway, but has apparently changed his mind and wants to go back to the country of his birth to play at the international level (and more often, probably).