Pablo and the USA vs. Guatemala
By: Kyle |
Add Comments
Hey, long time, no post. Sorry about that. I promise both of my loyal readers that I will mention something about our club’s much needed win over KC, especially after Connor proved my previous post completely wrong.
In the meantime, switch on ESPN2 tonight, because Pablo is going to be down south helping the US qualify for the World Cup tonight. Gotta love him and Bradley in the central defense and Donovan up front playing for a team who doesn’t hate one another right now. And of course the US has Dempsey. ‘Nuff said.
What’s the line in Vegas on three points for the US tonight? Because I’ll take it whatever it is.
Category: Team News
Colorado Rapids 0-1 Toronto
By: Kyle | 1 Comment
Oh no.
Not a good outing for the Rapids on Saturday. The bad news is the Rapids seem to be falling back into their old habit of choking on great scoring opportunities. Our midfield is still class, but the goals just aren’t coming. When the midfield has to resort to 30 yard blasts, you know there’s a problem.
And here’s where I depart from my usual supportive manner and start pointing the finger of blame: Casey. To quote Bob, “What, exactly, would you say…you do here?” He’s supposed to have been good in Germany. Great. That doesn’t seem to be doing a lot of good for us now. Casey doesn’t really do much for this club other than eat up opportunities. With such a quality midfield, we just can’t afford a forward who can’t finish. Tom and Omar (or Herculez when Omar is in Jamaica), need to be our starting forwards. Tom is great at setting up the final stages of the attack and if need be can blast it from the top of the box instead. And Omar is a quality trigger man if I’ve ever seen one, a role Casey is severely unable to fulfill. Add to that Omar’s skill as a late-game breakaway artist, and there’s really no excuse for benching one of them for Casey, who, when the rubber meets the road, can’t score.
The good news is that for a home loss while six points back, it wasn’t that bad. Our lot hasn’t worsened that much thanks to Real Salt Lake’s bye week. Relative to first place, Colorado is still two games back, no worse than the week before.
So, we’ve got one more home game left in this home stretch, and it’s against the Wizards. So, come on Rapids. You guys are four games winless, and you’re fans are starting to lose faith. We saw how good you guys can be earlier in the season. We really need a win from you next week. And I bet the club could use one, too.
Category: Team NewsColorado 1-2 Everton; Slipping in the West
By: Kyle | 2 Comments
The Toffees pulled of a win in the 87th beating the Rapids on Sunday and leaving the US with a 1-1 record. They looked much fitter then they (reportedly) did against Chicago, so I guess they adapted to the air quicker than I hoped they would.
The turnout was good (about the same as any other midseason Rapids game) and was surprisingly non-Everton. In fact, it was kind of nice having the hardcore soccer fans near exclusively in attendance. Don’t get me wrong; God bless anyone who comes to a Rapids game, but it was a nice change of pace.
It was also good to see Tim Howard play, actually making some great saves and defensive plays on the ball. That was the first and last time I will cheer against that guy, and a very small part of me took a tiny bit of satisfaction in every goal he saved as he will likely be in goal for the US in 2010.
All in all it was a disappointment that the Rapids couldn’t hold on to a draw, but they are an EPL club.
So, back to MLS. The Rapids week off combined with their marginal performance as of late has caused them to fall a bit farther behind than desired: 6 points back of first with a game in hand. That’s not a huge deficit with 14 games left in the season, but it does make the rest of this home series very important, as games in hand are games to be won. Considering the first game of this home series was a loss, the next two are a very appealing place to pick those six back up. If watching the Everton match or any of the Rapids’ better games has taught us anything, it’s that no accomplishment is too out of reach for these Rapids; they’re very capable of going all the way (even though this would probably come as a surprise to a fan of any other team), but we’re running out of season, so they have to start now. Will they? I don’t know, but there hasn’t been a Colorado Rapids club with a better shot at it than this in a long time.
COMPLETELY UNRELATED UPDATE: The Salt Lake Offside is back! It’s written by the surprisingly literate and insightful Akeem. Go and get acquainted so we are all well informed when the Rocky Mountain Cup trash-talking returns in a few weeks (and it’s ours in four weeks by the way).
Category: Team NewsSunday: Colorado Rapids – Everton Toffees
By: Kyle | 1 Comment
Man, it’s been a slow week; kind of a downer, really. Between that and the loss against Columbus which was more of a fist fight than a soccer game, if this were a bye week like originally scheduled, the only thing keeping me going would be the knowledge that the first football game of the year is Sunday (if you are reading from outside the US, just don’t bother asking).
But I’ll gladly miss an exhibition game between two teams I hardly care about in order to see the match the Rapids managed to put together this weekend: vs. Everton. I still don’t think it will be real to me until I see them take the field, but our Rapids are playing a EUFA-Cup-class team (or is it Europa Cup or whatever that thing is called now?).
There are two stories around this game that I find interesting: first is seeing Tim Howard back here. Any US fan loves the guy, but I’ve never had the chance to see him play in person. He played in the Chicago – Everton game a few days ago, so I do hope he’s their keeper on Sunday.
The other interesting dynamic is the Terry Cooke – Phil Neville story. They go way back to when Terry was on pace to be the next big thing in English soccer while in the Man Yoo youth club in 1995. He and Neville were both in the club and were roommates. I can’t imagine that you can room with someone, become English youth national champions with him, and not have it be odd to play against him 13 years later, especially under circumstances that must seem odd to English sensibilities.
As for the match itself, the Premiership first kick is two weeks away now, and Everton is clearly not fit yet, having lost to Chicago 2-0 on Thursday (Chicago’s shutting out EPL teams now, too? Good lord). This won’t be a gimme for either side, but I am sure that watching the Colorado midfield do its thing against a club like Everton is going to be something pretty incredible to watch.
It’s just an exhibition match, so there’s no TV or anything (maybe there is somewhere on the Everton side of things, but I don’t know). So if you only go to a few games a year, this is one to go to. I’m surprised there are any tickets left, but there are so if you like soccer and you live in Colorado, this is a must see match.
Category: Team NewsChristian scores for the All-Stars
By: Kyle | 1 Comment
Not a lot to say other than: that’s why we love Christian here in Colorado. The other good news is that Stevie seemed to know a bit better than the voters and started Christian AND Pablo. So the midfield started with Beckham, Gomez, Mastroeni, and Joseph. That gives any club in the world a run for its money.
I will say this: the All-Star game is a lot of fun. It is the best All-Star game in the country because it is actually more appropriate for MLS than any other American league. MLS has made the All-Star game their own, and have done so in a way that acknowledges exactly what this league is and celebrates the best of it. Other sports don’t really need to do this.
The end result: one thought kept popping into my mind as I watched the All-Stars take care of West Ham tonight, “There are some really good players in MLS.” Christian, Angel, Blanco, DeRo, Beckham, Joseph, Cooper, Reis. There is some real quality soccer in the US. And if we keep beating the rest of the world’s clubs, they’re going to have to start noticing sooner or later.
Category: Team NewsDallas 2-2 Colorado Rapids
By: Kyle | 2 Comments
Man, what a week: Great league games, SuperLiga, the All-Star game, and the U-23 – Senior Team match on Wednesday. The Rapids in fourth place isn’t quite as nice as I would like it to be going into the unofficial halfway point of the season, but at only three points back, it’s about the comfiest fourth place there can be (three points back from Salt Lake: even more inspiring).
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.
Category: Team NewsAll-Star Game to Have a Real Midfield
By: Kyle | 4 Comments
I could beat the dead horse of coastal bias, but that’s just the way the sports world works, so let’s skip to the good news: Pablo Mastroeni and Christian Gomez are officially All-Stars. Neither of them will start, but that’s how it is every year even though they are arguably the best central mids in soccer. Even sadder, this is the first time in 13 seasons that the Rapids have two players in the All-Star game.
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.
Category: Team NewsSan Jose Earthquakes 1-1 Colorado Rapids
By: Kyle | Add Comments
First off, I don’t want to hear any complaining from San Jose fans about Connor’s game tying goal. If we want to start talking about fouls, there were two or three goal preventing fouls by San Jose that weren’t even called. The Connor Casey non-call was perfectly consistent with the rest of the calls by the ref throughout the game.
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.
Category: Team NewsColorado Rapids 0-0 UANL Tigres (Unofficial: 6-5 pens)
By: Kyle | Add Comments
The Rapids – Tigres friendly went into the books as a scoreless draw, but apparently this whole match was put together by Tecate and they wanted to give a trophy to the winner, so they handed the trophy to the winner of an unofficial penalty shootout, which was the Rapids.
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.
Category: Team NewsThird Kit Out
By: Kyle | 7 Comments
“Hey, how should we display the new kit?”
“Beautiful women in skimpier versions of it?”
“Brilliant!”
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.
Category: Team News
Home 
