Last night the Colorado Rapids played, well, a rather poor game against the Los Angeles Cosmos Galaxy. The Rapids took the lead in the 60th minute though a goal by Colin Clark. Colin had drifted over the right side of the field, got a nice pass from Omar Cummings, and found himself with some time and space in the box to slot the ball past the Galaxy's keeper Rohan Ricketts.
But as the game was winding down the Rapids defense, which had already been saved once by the crossbar, pulled a bit of keystone cops and allowed Landon Donovan to put the ball in the back of the net off a rebound.
Colorado Soccer Now (ColoradoSoccerNow.com) has a good look at the game, especially the controversial 74th minute which saw referee Alex Prus first issue a red card and then rescind it. Was it the right call? More details here.
Examiner.com's Deron White has up player ratings for the game. Was Deron right to give Pablo a 4 but a 5's for the backline?
For myself, Blogs By Dave has the best look at the game in calling out the Rapids for the performance they gave and how the team has changed but it still seems to be the same ol' Rapids.
The Colorado Rapids woes continued as they lost Toronto FC at Dicks Sporting Goods Park. Toronto hadn't won a game in 2 months. The Rapids had only won once in their last 10. But Toronto was missing players (Amando Guevara, Laurent Robert, Marco Velez, Carmelo Lobo) forcing them to start some reserves. Plus they were going to be on the road playing in the afternoon heat at elevation.
Toronto clearly came out looking to do little other than prevent the Rapids from scoring. Rohan Ricketts was slid into the middle of the park with revent arrival Chad Barrett roaming alone up top. Despite this Toronto was the first to get on the scoreboard with Chad Barrett scoring right before half-time with a perfectly taken free kick (see video below).
The game went downhill after that. The Rapids did have good chances in the first half and the second half. Overall though it wasn't a good showing by the team. Terry Cooke looked uninterested. Clark on the left wasn't much better. Cummings and Casey again squandered their opportunities. Christian had a few long range shots but nothing too dangerous.
The most confusing moment of the game came in the 60th minute when Fernando Clavijo chose to sub Christian Gomez in favor of Nick LaBrocca. At that point Gomez was arguably the best offensive spark the Rapids had on the pitch. Given Cooke's lack of performance on the day, he should've been first choice for coming off. But there it was, one of the most skilled players in the league being subbed for a defensive midfielder while the Rapids were down a goal at home.
In the end the Rapids took a whopping 21 shots with 10 of those on frame. Unlike the Columbus game it's hard to argue that Sutton stood on his head to prevent scoring. There was a lack of quality with their choices. This is a team that doesn't move the ball quickly nor take their chances on net soon enough. I don't expect this to change until a new coach is brought in.
I forgot to post awhile back about Bruno Guarda. Guarda decided to ditch SMU and go pro in the MLS. The Colorado Rapids beat the odds and won his rights in the MLS lottery (more on him at College To Pros here and here). Soon after that the Rapids traded him to FC Dallas. The Rapids got 2nd round and 3rd round picks in the 2009 MLS draft along with a partial allocation. A nice piece of business for a player the Rapids didn't need nor had to give anything to get.
