Mind the Gap: Rapids News Between Week 2 & 3

By: Jeff | April 9th, 2008

Like the name for the feature? I was leaning toward a title of “Busted Knees and Broken, Happy Hearts,” but thought I’d explain the concept behind the name for these Wednesday posts.

I rolled out my (half-blind, hence limited) thoughts on the Colorado Rapids tough loss to April’s Major League Soccer (MLS) flavor-of-the-month, the Kansas City Wizards. Fortunately, and as always, the Web restored my sight (Allelujah!) courtesy of game wraps by View From The Couch and wewantrapidman. You’ll find different formats - e.g. the former likes his bullet points and A’ing the Q’s he put to himself earlier, while the latter has a groovy stream-of-consciousness feel - but, among the names glowing on both sites, one name glows in both places: John DiRaimondo. In fact, DiRaimondo and his midfield running mate, John LaBrocca, enjoyed such a solid Saturday that they caught BigFoot-level attention: yes, Steve Davis made the duo the lead story for his Week 2 wrap for MLSnet.com. Good vibrations, Rapids fans, good vibrations…

…enough to get you wondering, by the way, why I don’t rate the Rapids higher in my Week 2 power rankings…though I think I explain it adequately.

Going back a week further - and this is where the “Busted Knee” thing snuck into the conversation - the reaction to Ciaran O’Brien’s red-card tackle on Carlos Ruiz continues to draw a little chatter; that could be down to MLS’s disciplinary committee going beyond the minimum sentence. The Black Panther Blog posted video of the tackling offense and one could imply from the copy that he’s not sold on the decision (it’s a terse comment and hard to read into; I don’t know what lev yashin actually thinks, only that his comment could be interpreted as contrarian). Not surprisingly, red cards have stirred conversation even this early in the season: The Original Winger held forth on several of individual incidents just last Tuesday…O’Brien’s among them.

To weigh in for myself, There’s no doubt, in my mind at least, that O’Brien’s tackle was dangerous. I am, however, less sold on the need for “bonus time and fines” being levied against the lad, for the reasons The Original Winger lays out. To sum up, start punishing stupid and the cards and fines will start flying.

All for now. Sorry this is a bit disjointed, but I’ve got a lot in the hopper today. I’ll get back to all y’all Friday.