Colorado Rapids 0-2 San Jose Earthquakes

By: Kyle | April 19th, 2008

I don’t know who it was that wore the burgundy at Dick’s on Saturday, but it wasn’t the 2008 Colorado Rapids. The 2008 Rapids dominate the midfield. The Rapids that took the field Saturday were beat in near every significant midfield battle of the night. To be honest, it looked like we all took a trip back in time to 2007, where the midfield plan was “kick it over the midfield and hope their defenders make a mistake”. Watching the game, you would think that it was 22 vs. 11. Every time there was a battle in the air or a scramble for a loose ball there was always a white shirt right there to win it. So, congratulations to San Jose, because clearly they’ve managed to string something pretty good together for an expansion team.

If you missed it, the first half of the game featured a Glinton goal-that-wasn’t called back on a hand-ball and several pretty bad misses by Ronnie O’Brian. But O’Brian made up for it with the game winner in the 43rd. In the second half, the Rapids had one real opportunity at the start, but failed to control the ball much thereafter. In 61st, O’Brian got an assist to go with his goal when he slotted the ball past Erpen to Kei Kamara who scored to put the game away.

Last week during San Jose - Chicago, when there was that monstrosity of a miss by Shea Salinas of San Jose in stoppage time, the announcer said, “San Jose just can’t score. Everything else is good, but the scoring gets away.” I think that was a good description of their first two games, but bad news for the rest of MLS: they can score now. San Jose didn’t look like an expansion team tonight.

So, what do the Rapids take from this? Mainly, the 4-4-2 just isn’t for them. We tried to make it work all of last year and apparently this match, moving Colin up to forward. I really hope the team moves back to the 4-5-1. They have no trouble scoring IF they dominate the midfield. From left to right: Cooke, DiRaimondo, Gomez, LaBrocca, Clark. When Pablo gets healthy, put him in LaBrocca’s place.

One thing worth noting though is that the Rapids played defense very well, despite the two goals. It would have been three or four for most defenses. If you watch the extended highlights over at Quick Kicks, especially in the first half, it’s is mostly the Rapids back four breaking up San Jose’s attacks. Before tonight, the Rapids averaged only one goal allowed per game, and that same defense was there despite the shoddy midfield work.

So, let’s stay optimistic Rapids fans. Talent like we saw in the first three games doesn’t just disappear. I am fairly sure the Rapids will take the west back, (maybe not next week, they play Chicago at Toyota Park; yikes) and are still very capable of having an incredible year. One game in thirty is a shame to loose but not the end of the season. Worst case scenario (depending on how tomorrow’s games go): is that the Rapids are in second place in the west, 2 pts. back. I’m going to be cheering for a draw in the Chivas USA – Dallas game tomorrow. If the draw happens, the Rapids will still be tied for first place.

So, in summary, I guess it’s fair to stay that this was a disheartening loss, but not a decimating one. This should just be a single error in an otherwise great season.

Box Score
Highlights

4/21 UPDATE: I’m reading something strange (by my reckoning) on the Rapids blog row (i.e. Black Panther, a fine Rapids fan blog). Even over at The MLS Offside, there is an insistence that the Rapids played poor defense on Saturday. I think that’s a bit off. If they mean that the team as a whole did a poor job preventing opportunities by the ‘Quakes, then they might have a point, but that happened in the midfield, and those mistakes (mostly) were made by midfielders. If they were talking about the back four themselves, I couldn’t disagree more. The defense’s (as in defenders’) job is break down attacks by the other squad. In the game I watched, the back four did a fine job doing that. As I said, most defenses would have allowed three or four against that attack. The fatal errors were in the midfield, not the backfield; things like battles for lose balls, heading contests, and simple maintaining of possession.