Colorado Over LA - Yeah, It Was That Bad

By: Jeff | March 30th, 2008

I think this gets it about right:

The Kid Had a Better Chance than LA.

Things didn’t look so bleak for the Los Angeles Galaxy by the end of the first half. And, yeah, one could argue Omar Cummings picked up a soft penalty kick; as Max Bretos noted in his commentary Cummings popped back to his feet to continue the play after Abel Xavier’s challenge. But a couple other phrases by Bretos - these came on either side of Colorado’s 4th goal, a particularly humiliating poke that, again, victimized Xavier and added LA ‘keeper Steve Cronin for good measure - speaks to how the game played out after that PK:

“Like lambs to the slaughter….”

“Like a hot knife through butter.”

So, the Rapids beat Los Angeles 4-0, a grim score in any part of the world. But it’s particularly grim from LA’s perspective: the Rapids haven’t beaten a team this badly since…nope, not 2007…there’s the 5-4 playoff win over FC Dallas in the 2006 playoffs, but that’s a close game, unlike last night; you have to go back to July 23, 2005 in order to see Colorado knock 4 past another team while also dominating - in this case, the Chicago Fire (archived results are available here). And, for the record, they had let in four goals on a couple occasions during that period - including the 5-0 pounding in last year’s U.S. Open Cup against the USL-1 Seattle Sounders. Even if I fudged the details, the larger point holds: the Rapids don’t very often do what they did last night. Nice way to start the season.

At the same time, how much of this was LA? I hinted at how badly LA played over on Center Holds It. Let’s just say such was LA’s defending that I’d wager the J.V. squad from the nearby high school could find a way through. Sure, it’s possible I’m wrong about LA, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Getting back to Colorado, though, a couple things stood out. In spite of an entirely competent night - and scoring on a PK to top it off - Christian Gomez didn’t mean as much to the game as Terry Cooke and, in the late going, Colin Clark. The team so far seems wed to last year’s formula of flying down the flanks - with the difference being it worked like gangbusters last night. It’s possible Cooke benefited from facing off against LA’s Michael Gavin, not to mention having the support of Kosuke Kimura for overlapping runs (he also shut Landon Donovan down; nice bonus, that); suffice to say, Colorado’s right laid open like a freeway at midnight. The left only opened up later, when being behind forced LA to chase the game, hence Clark’s “punking” of Xavier (it’s a Hollywood thing, Abel; get ready for more). All that said, though, having the flanks work should allow Gomez some room to operate in future.

If there’s one thing I’m uneasy about where Colorado is concerned it’s the somewhat random feel to their game. At times, it reminded me of basketball - e.g. isolating one flank player against one of LA’s defenders and putting it on them to beat them and make the opening. In other words, I saw fewer complicated build-ups and spells of possession than I saw a series of good, but opportunistic, plays. That’s not bad so much as it’s something you may not want to rely on for offense.

All in all, however, what’s not to like about a 4-0 win for your side? If you’re fishing for a bottom line, I’d dub this an encouraging performance with an asterisk stamped on the end of it: Colorado hasn’t won like this in forever, but *do keep the opposition in mind. Whether LA will be this awful in a couple months isn’t really the issue: they were frankin’ awful last night, bad enough that I’d recommend taking at least two of those goals with a grain of salt. I think next week - the Kansas City Wizards away, who are fresh off a decent win over DC United - will give a better measure of where the Rapids are these days.