Burgundy Wave

Game Day Linkdump

2010-09-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

A weekly list of things to read before game time.

The Mad Genius of Gary Smith - He's like a footy scientist

MLS Power Rankings week 23 - Despite passing Seattle in the standings, the Rapids are still 7th in the rankings

Denver Bid Meets With FIFA - I doubt Denver will get the world cup, but that would be flippin' awesome regardless.

The Defense is Looking Formidable... Again

2010-09-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

The reason that the Rapids were able to keep themselves afloat earlier in the season wasn't the now new-found offense that the Rapids are currently enjoying, but one of the most stalwart defenses in the league. It's starting to look like after a bit of a hiatus, the defense might be back in business going into the late season stretch.

Drew Moor has been a solid rock at the heart of the defense all season long, along with Marvell Wynne. Both are fairly new to the team, with Wynne being added this season and Moor being brought in from Dallas for Ugo Ihemelu late in the 2009 season. Moor has yet to miss a game this season and has played all over the line when needed, showing amazing versatility while not losing any of his style even while being stopgapped around the back. Wynne has played at center and left as well, working out even better than Moor in some circumstances.

Julien Baudet's horrible start to August has been put behind him and in the past couple of games he has looked much better. New kid Anthony Wallace shut down Chivas USA in his first ever start, showing why Gary Smith brought him in for depth. Kosuke Kimura has been great ever since coming back from injury. Even Danny Earls and Scott Palguta have impressed in their short spurts from the bench in case of injury or fatigue. In short, everyone on the back line is getting hot at a good time.

The middle of the 4-4-2 that Gary Smith has been playing has been a double salvo of amazing defensive midfielders to bolster the defense. Jeff Larentowicz was good enough to grab an all-star berth this season and team captain Pablo Mastroeni hasn't lost a step in his old age and is looking primed to give himself the lead in the category of most games played as a Rapid of all time. You don't accomplish all of that by playing mediocre!

In their last three home games, the Rapids defense has given up a total of zero goals against. In the last five games counting ones on the road, they've only given up a total four. Depending on Marvell Wynne's health going into the next game, the Rapids might have the strongest line up on defense that they've had all season long. Even if Wynne is absent the Rapids defense will certainly be formidable.

They will be facing a hell of a test tomorrow as they face Thierry Henry and Juan Pablo Angel - quite possibly the best gang of forwards in the entire league - when the Rapids take on New York in the big apple.

Short Scouting Report: New York Red Bulls

2010-09-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

Few teams have been as busy as the New York Red Bulls have been this season when it comes to adding players, specifically players of the Designated variety.

Thierry Henry and Rafael Marquez have been thrown into the mix in New York to add to the already potent squad featuring strong players like Juan Pablo Angel and former Rapids keeper Bouna Coundoul. This experiment has worked like a charm, with the Red Bulls tearing up the Eastern conference since then and managing to latch on to second place. They are one of only two teams in the East with a positive Goal Differential with a +3 on their side. They only have two losses in their last seven games and only four since that July 4th game mentioned above.

Last time the Rapids met New York it was in hurricane conditions at The Dick on July 4th, before the Bulls had added all their new superstars. It'll be a whole new look RB's on Saturday in the eyes of Coloradans.

Ian Joyce and his Wife have had a baby

2010-09-08T14:56:00.001-07:00

Congratulations, Ian!

Check for a bit of history on Saturday

2010-09-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

Not the kind of history like Colorado finally bringing home its first piece of silverware not called the Rocky Mountain Cup - although they can't seem to win that either any more - but just a couple of interesting historical tidbits that you might see happen if the Rapids can snag a goal or two or even three on Saturday as the Rapids suit up for a game against the Red Bulls in New York;

*Conor Casey's score against Chivas put him only one goal away from getting 39 as a Rapid, which would tie him for the most goals ever scored by a Rapids player with Paul Bravo. Two more goals and he'll break the impressive record.

*Omar Cummings will set his own new regular season record for goals scored by himself with one more tally at some point in the season.

*A start or even an appearance against New York - and it's pretty much unthinkable that he doesn't get the start! - will give Pablo Mastroeni the all time leadership in most games played by a Colorado Rapid, passing Chris Henderson.

Hopefully we see all three of those historical events come to pass, if only because that would guarantee we've put two goals on New York!

Cummings wins MLS Player of the week

2010-09-06T12:24:00.001-07:00

Via the Rapids facebook page. Omar Cummings has been voted the MLS player of the week by the North American Soccer Reporters.

Cummings had two goals scored in the Rapids previous game against Chivas, and also caused the other goal via a ripped shot that was put in on the rebound by Conor Casey. Cummings becomes Colorado's first player of the week since way back in June of 2009 when Conor Casey won it. Cummings last got the honor of being player of the week in May of that year, this is his second time winning it overall.

Naturally when questioned on his win, he gave some credit to those magical shoes that he switched into during halftime of the game; “My touches were bad and off a little bit. So going into the second half, I thought why not change my shoes, change my attitude and be more aggressive - take some shots and try to score some goals.”

Congratulations, Omar!

The Dynamo weren't feeling helpful tonight

2010-09-06T00:26:00.001-07:00

Houston managed to get 16 shots on San Jose tonight and still couldn't score more than a goal on San Jose, falling 2-1 to the Quakes. This unfortunately gives the Quakes three humongous points to tie them with Seattle for fifth place in the West.

The Rapids are still in fourth place but the rest of the West is gonna have to start losing some games if the Rapids want to keep up with that tough rest of the month coming up.

Cummings getting into good late season form

2010-09-05T03:04:00.001-07:00

Last week after his awesome two goal, one assist game against the Dynamo I wrote about Conor Casey and how his late season form would need to be similar to his form last season if the Rapids were to make waves in the playoff race. What I didn't consider was his counterpart, Omar Cummings. After Omar's fantastic two goal game yesterday at the Dick against Chivas USA it's begun to look like one of the most feared striker duos last season in the league might be back to their feared status.

Omar had been having a bit of a slow year up until around the San Jose game a couple of weeks ago, where it was his shot that was bobbled by Busch leading to the own goal. His finishing had been a bit questionable, showing only brief glimpses of his ability like his fabulous curling shot in Seattle. Being a wide midfielder in Gary Smith's original 4-5-1 formation wasn't helping him either.

Since the switch to the 4-4-2 and particularly since the San Jose game, his confidence especially at home has been through the roof. He now has three goals in the last two games, bumping his total up to eight total on the season, threatening to overtake Conor Casey as the team leader if he can get another two goals to beat Conor's nine.

Earlier in the year we were lamenting the fact that the big striker duo up front were the only ones on the team who could score, but weren't scoring much at all. Now both are on fire during the stretch run, on course to score well over ten a piece. Andre Akpan and Quincy Amarikwa might have to wait to get some more playing time.

Omar just better keep those new shoes handy, them things are magical!

Potent Quotable 9/4/10

2010-09-04T22:38:00.001-07:00

"We want ten! We want ten!"

- The gang on the supporters terrace after scoring the third goal, hoping for seven more.

The Rapids run over some goats on the Highway, 3-0

2010-09-04T22:24:00.001-07:00

Chivas never stood a chance. Colorado put in their third straight brilliant game at the Dick, winning another one 3-0 after last week's dismantling of Houston by the same score.

The first half passed uneventfully, with both teams looking a bit tired. The Rapids kept possession most of the half and got most of the shots as well. Matt Pickens - starting after all - made a fantastic acrobatic leaping save three minutes into the half but was largely untested after that throughout the game.

Omar Cummings changed shoes during half time, citing his bad play in the first half and hoping the new boots would improve his game. Boy did they ever; Omar wound up with two goals and another shot that Conor Casey stuffed in for the first goal of the game. Omar's two goals came in the 68th and 80th minutes as he simply destroyed the hapless Chivas defense both times combined with some clinical finishing.

After waiting for several weeks, Anthony Wallace finally got his first start as a Rapid made the most of it, playing brilliantly at left back in place of Marvell Wynne. I've been waiting for him to get his chance since the Rapids picked him up because of his first round pedigree and the talent he's flashed, and if he can keep it up against teams better than Chivas I think he's got a real shot at being a future star and every day starter on the Rapids defense. Andre Akpan also got his first Rapids action late in the game.

Conor Casey and Omar Cummings have now combined for six goals in the last two games, showing everyone again why they were known as one of the most feared striking duos in all of the league last season. What a time for them to regain their form, as Colorado goes into New York next weekend to face an incredibly potent Red Bulls team. Even drawing them will be a feat.

Man of the Match: Omar Cumming's shoes. Hey, I'm not giving ALL the credit to Omar. Those magical shoes must be kept safe! Lock them away with Gary Smith's magical tie! Honorable mention goes to Anthony Wallace, who replaced Marvell Wynne without a hitch.

Goat of the Match: Mehdi Ballouchy. His shooting was bad and he seemed to fall down whenever the ball got near him in the first half. Other than that he was still pretty darn good, as everyone is in a 3-0 victory!

Chivas' Baby Goats come to town

2010-09-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

Last place Chivas USA are coming to Commerce City to try and salvage a few more points in their lost season. On the other hand, beating Chivas is incredibly important for the Rapids playoff hopes, still stuck in the logjam between 4th and 6th place in the West. The standings currently have the Pids sitting in 5th place, one point behind Seattle and two above San Jose.

Colorado is coming off of their best start of the season, a huge 3-0 victory over Houston featuring star striker Conor Casey regaining his form from last season with two assists and a goal. Chivas' fairly weak defense is ripe for the gashing with Omar Cummings' speed and Casey's re-new-found finishing. This game could just as easily be a trap game as it could a 4-0 blowout over the goats. Colorado have still only lost one game at home this season.

Starting defender Marvell Wynne has a very good chance of sitting this game out with, Matt Pickens is questionable for this game as well with the back spasms that were plaguing him during the game against Houston. Danny Earls or Anthony Wallace will probably start in the absence of Wynne at left-back, Scott Palguta could start as well if he was planning to start at center back. Ian Joyce will stand in if Pickens is absent.

Chivas' eleven losses are tied for the third most in the league, and they have only managed to get four draws as well, with a six game losing streak thrown in there in the middle of the season. Chivas lost their first game of the season to the Rapids, 1-0 at the Home Depot Center in Los Angeles.

Game Day Linkdump

2010-09-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

A weekly list of things to read before game time.

Dynamo Implode Against Rapids - I'm only posting this because of how hilariously angry the guys at Dynamo Theory are, especially because Pablo only got a Yellow on that violent collision where Lovel Palmer KICKED HIM IN THE FACE.

Adidas and MLS Extend Partnership - Hope you like those boring three-stripe-on-the-arm-every-one-is-the-same kits that the MLS uses for it's clubs, you'll probably be seeing them until 2018.

From The Pitch with Marcelo Balboa - Some lads from No Fan Alone talk Rapids with Balboa.

Rapids Century Mark Goals - Cummings scored the 600th goal in Rapids history last Saturday. Here's the story of the other '00's that have been scored.

Usain Bolt: Future Manchester United Player? - wat

Charity Golf Classic a Big Success - Yay golf!

Bob Kraft Welcomes Stan Kroenke to MLS/NFL Owners Fraternity, Spanks Him Vigorously - Title speaks for itself on this one.

McBride retires - Give the old man a round of applause.

God save us: Wynne doubtful for tomorrow

2010-09-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

Marvell Wynne was one of only three players who had played every minute of every game for the Rapids going into last week. Matt Pickens lost that streak last week as he was left off of the starting line up with back spasms. Marvell Wynne started, but left about halfway through the game, favoring his hamstring on the sideline. At the time it seemed inconsequential but it might have knocked the Rapids' best defender right out of this weeks game.

Wynne has been the most shut down defender on the Rapids squad during his first season in Colorado, playing out of his mind while starting every game. A huge chunk of the defensive mastery that got the Rapids their quick start this season can be placed on his shoulders. His hamstring injury may be keeping him out of the line up this week, according to Gary Smith;

“Marvel is a doubt for the weekend, he’s not done an awful lot this week, and the likelihood is that he may not be involved.”

Am I the only one who notices that they always butcher spelling on quotes at the Rapids website?

Assuming that Drew Moor stays in the center of the defense instead of going left like he has done in recent weeks, Wynne's most likely replacements are the still-in-waiting Anthony Wallace and his replacement on the left side from last week, Danny Earls. While neither will be able to hold the fort as awesomely as Wynne has so far this season, hopefully the Rapids newfound offense will be able to gash the weak Chivas defense for enough goals that it won't matter.

In other words, how about a repeat of last weekend, gang?!

Rugby Stars Love Our Altitude

2010-09-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

Big shot English rugby star Danny Cipriani has been joining the Rapids as a guest at training sessions recently. Don't get excited and start to assume that Danny will be changing over to football and playing for a big name club like the Rapids, shunning the game of rugby forever more. No, he's really just here to play in the altitude.

“He wanted to take advantage of training at altitude and to engage in competitive sessions with our club as we prepare for the last part of our season.” That was Gary Smith on the whole thing, being surprisingly straight-forward about him only being here for our height.

Ain't that always the way love goes?

Short Scouting Report: Chivas USA

2010-09-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

Well if ever there was a game that the Rapids should win, it's this one at home against our old friends the Goats from Los Angeles, otherwise known as the Clippers of MLS. All right, so they don't have anything close to the sordid, sad history that the Clippers have, and in fact they even made the playoffs every season since their putrid inception year. This season has been a bit of a downer for any fans of the Goats that aren't bandwagoning the Galaxy by now, though.

Chivas has only been able to peddle together 21 points at this point of the season, the lowest in the West beating Houston by a point; hilariously they'd actually be in 5th place in the East with that point total. Stay bad, Eastern conference! Anyway, their 11 losses is tied for 3rd worst in MLS, which included a particularly horrible and almost impossible to believe six game losing streak earlier in the year. Not even a draw between them, just straight losses in a row.

The Goats battled the Rapids earlier this season in their first game at the Home Depot Center. Colorado prevailed, 1-0. They're most recently coming off a loss to Seattle, 3-1.

Looking Forward: September

2010-09-01T20:50:00.001-07:00

It's September! Time for the leaves to start falling, the heat to start dying, and hopefully also time for the Rapids to start putting together a nice little string of wins to get themselves into the playoffs. Let's look ahead at this month and see what games we'll be watching - or avoiding, depending on how bad they start doing.

There are three home games and two away games to look forward to this month. Unfortunately, the two road games are some of the hardest games that the Rapids have left on the docket for the year.

Sept. 4th, vs. Chivas USA - A very winnable game at The Dick for the Rapids. The Rapids won their first meeting in the first game of the season, 1-0. Chivas is in last place in the West.

Sept. 11th, @ New York - This one is going to sting. The Red Bulls have improved markedly since the last meeting of these two teams what with all the new DP's that the Red Bulls have signed. They drew 1-1 in a torrential downpour on the 4th of July.

Sept. 18th, vs. New England - Another game against some easier opposition, drooping into 6th place in the East. The Rapids won 2-1 in

Sept. 25th, @ Salt Lake - Big rivalry game here in Salt Lake. Winning in Salt Lake is hard as it is, but this team is good. First meeting between the Rocky Mountain Cup rivals this season.

Sept. 29th, vs. Philly - They really should defeat this very weak Union team at home. Hell, they should have beat them in Philly. The two last drew 1-1.

My personal prediction for how this month will go is 2-1-2. The loss will come against New York, they'll beat Philly and Chivas and draw with New England and Salt Lake.

Bob Bradley Re-signed Until 2014

2010-08-30T18:06:00.001-07:00

Kill me now.

Last year's Casey is what we need

2010-08-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

Last season, Conor Casey played some incredible football despite the fact that Colorado wasn't able to squeak into the playoffs with their 40 total points. Casey managed to get 17 goals on the season along with a handful of assists, giving him the second most in the entire league. Not only did that earn him an ESPY nomination - you get three guesses who won it, hint; he's the only player most Americans know the name of - along with helping him grab a couple of appearances on the USMNT during last year's Confederation's Cup.

Since last year, Conor's game has taken a bit of a nose dive. He began this season with a couple of decent performances, but has had abysmal finishing for most of the year and hasn't seemed capable of putting together more than a single good looking play on the pitch all season. Up until the Rapids last game, he was stuck with seven goals and three assists - good for a paltry first and second place on the team respectively. Up until the last game Conor was in a rut, but it might be safe to say that he may have broken that rut spectacularly on Saturday.

In Commerce City on Saturday the Rapids best striker managed a three point game, getting a goal and two assists. In fact, he was close to a five point game, with a goal being robbed from him by a great save from Dynamo goalkeeper Pat Onstad and another missing the net by literally centimeters. He looked strong on the ball all evening, looked confident with his passing and shooting and started to resemble the Conor Casey of 2009 a ton more than the latest buggy model. (He's like Windows, one version is awesome and then they release Vista and you can't get it off your computer back to XP because you already paid for the new one and it won't let you reinstall the old version. I realize that extended metaphor lasted about a sentence and a half too long.)

The stretch run for the Rapids really could use the fantastic version of Conor Casey from yesteryear, so if he can keep up his performance like he did against Houston they'll be gold. They say you just have to get hot at the right time in order to win a title, Conor's picking a fine time if he can just keep it up.

Potent Quotables 8/28/10

2010-08-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

RapidsSoccer Casey's goal ties is his 37th all-time, tying John Spencer for second most in #Rapids history, he's now two away from top spot.

GCSblog @RapidsSoccer The jumbotron said he tied Bravo at 39.

RapidsSoccer @GCSblog they got ahead of themselves. The graphic was made in case it needed to be used. about 2 hours ago via web in reply to GCSblog

GCSblog @RapidsSoccer Keep it handy the way this thing is shaping up, we may need it.

A fun conversation on twitter right after Casey got his goal to make it 3-0.

Colorado blows Houston out of the Water

2010-08-28T20:26:00.001-07:00

What a time for the most explosive offensive performance of the year for Colorado to shine through. Houston got completely manhandled in pretty much every area of the field tonight in the Rapids 3-0 blowout at Dick's Sporting Goods Park. These three points put the Dynamo almost completely out of reach of the Rapids. San Jose's 2-0 loss to New York puts the Rapids ahead of them in the standings, with the Seattle-Chicago game still going. A loss or draw for Seattle will launch the Rapids ahead of them as well.

Edit: Seattle won 2-1. The Rapids are in 5th place in the West as a result.

The carnage started out only two minutes in, when Jamie Smith knocked his first ever MLS goal off of diving Houston goaltender Pat Onstad - it continued as Lovel Palmer got a horrible red card off of a violent crash with Pablo Mastroeni in the 10th minute- only 14 minutes later Omar Cummings took a perfect cross from a streaking Conor Casey and put it away for a 2-0 lead. Casey got on the board as well in the 23rd minute after heading in a rebound from a shot by Mehdi Ballouchy. The scoring stopped after that, but the domination didn't. Houston had very few chances the entire game while the Rapids kept on shooting.

Ian Joyce got his first ever start at Goalkeeper for the Rapids, Matt Pickens was out with back spasms. He got his first save on a fantastic close range diving stop on Brian Mullan. Marvell Wynne may have been injured halfway through the game as well, getting replaced by Danny Earls as he stretched his hamstring on the sideline.

The 'Pids take on Chivas USA next week at home.

Man of the Match: Conor Casey. Two assists and a goal for Captain Denthead, nice to see him getting into last season's form just in time for a playoff run. In fact, he easily could have had a hat trick along with his two assists if not for a fantastic Onstad save and a shot that went left by literally less than an inch. Honorable mention to Ian Joyce for his first start being a clean sheet.

Goat of the Match: N/A. Great game all around, except for maybe Mehdi Ballouchy's sub-par game. Even that wasn't as bad as we're used to seeing from our goats of the match.

Rapids come back home for Houston

2010-08-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

After two tough road games - a 1-1 tie in Philly and a 3-1 blowout in favor of Columbus - the Rapids finally get to come back home and try and wrangle a home win from a close division opponent. Colorado has only lost one game this season at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, but a huge chunk of those games have been draws, rather than the wins the Rapids need to be sponging points out of at this time of the season.

Houston is five points behind the Rapids in the standings, stuck in seventh place. The Rapids are currently in sixth place, but to show you how close the middle of the table is, a win and the three points that come with it will launch the Rapids up to fourth with a two point lead on Seattle and San Jose, assuming both teams lose today. (San Jose is playing New York and Seattle is taking on Chicago. In our best interests, we root for a New York victory and a draw between the latter two teams, both of whom would catch up to the Rapids playoff spot with a win.)

Houston and Colorado last met in June, the last game that the Rapids have managed to score more than a single goal. It was a 2-2 draw in Houston. Until that last game against Chicago, it was the last game that Houston had scored two or more in as well actually.

Along with the whole "Rapids not losing at home" thing, the category of meaningless, random statistics are in the Rapids favor here as the Dynamo haven't won two consecutive games in a row for well over a year; they beat the Fire 4-3 in their last league action. Go Rapids, keep that streak alive!

Game Day Linkdump

2010-08-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

A weekly list of something to read before game time.

Instant Replay - A new MLSsoccer.com feature looking at disputed calls from the previous week, two Colorado/Columbus plays included.

Real Salt Lake's Mexico City Collapse - A piece on RSL failing hilariously after taking a 3-1 lead against Cruz Azul. Any USMNT fan will appreciate the Robbie Findley trashing.

MLS' Next Imports - It's both nice to hear (we're not losing anyone!) and disheartening (we have no one worth losing) that no Rapids make that list.

Keiran Cain - The Ultimate Fan & Employee - God speed on your next job, Keiran!

Hunt: Columbus vs. Dallas will be tough to watch - OH BOO HOO YOU POOR LITTLE MAN HOW WILL YOU EVER SLEEP

U.S. Soccer, Juergen Klinsmann talking - Yes plz

Omar's playing for Jamaica after all

2010-08-27T15:20:00.000-07:00

Earlier in the season, Omar Cummings was kept out of playing for Jamaica due to the process of him getting his green card keeping him in the country until further notice. It was fairly sad considering he had to miss the first Jamaican game since the finish of the world cup. Fortunately, Omar has a loophole giving him access to a Jamaica game against Peru on September 7th. The game against Peru will be held in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Omar won't have to leave the US and can therefore join his team there.

If he plays in that game it will be his 18th cap all time for his national squad.

Short Scouting Report: Houston Dynamo

2010-08-26T11:03:00.000-07:00

Finally, the Rapids face a team that been in as bad a fit of form as they have! The historically slow-starting Dynamo have actually been faltering in the middle of the season as well this time around, with only one win since May. Of course, it can't be understated that the win was their most recent game, defeating Chicago in what passes for a slugfest in football, 4-3. They haven't had consecutive wins since way back in June of 2009 - 49 straight games without rattling off two wins in a row according to our friends at Dynamo Theory - not what you like to see from a team that had brought home a cup so recently.

Houston's poor form thus far this season has left them a place behind the Rapids in the standings, stuck five points from the nearest team to them and embedded in seventh place in the West. Brian Ching hasn't had his usual scoring touch at forward for offense-starved Houston, and a small bit of injury bug has also been plaguing the Orange boys from Houston this season.

They do have a player (backup goalkeeper) named Tally Hall though, which is a pretty awesome name no matter what sport you play.

Stan's a Ram Man

2010-08-25T23:38:00.000-07:00

So, Rapids owner Stanley E. Kroenke has officially bought the St. Louis Rams football team for reasons that still escape most fans of the multiple teams he already owns. Fortunately for us Rapids fans, it probably won't be affecting us much on our side of the matter. The outcry among the fans of the Nuggets and Avalanche involves the NFL's owner clause that basically states that you're not allowed to own a major sports team in a different city that contains an NFL team. There's really no reason for this rule to exist, especially since Pat Bowlen (Broncos owner) has basically said he doesn't care.

His son is taking over the teams and their budgets to keep him out of this rule, which has raised some fairly valid concerns over how the new guy is going to handle the teams. Tightwad spending, possible moves away from Denver, a lot of problematic ideas have come up out of the twisted and frightened Denverites minds. This is especially funny because a lot of St. Louis fans have become fairly paranoid that Stan only bought their team so that he could immediately move them to Los Angeles. (Didn't they already try that?)

Luckily if not a bit insultingly, MLS is not considered major in the world of American sports, so they can continue to be under Mr. Kroenke's rule, even if it's only because he's not actually aware that the Rapids exist or that he owns them.

Yoann Arquin on trial with the Rapids

2010-08-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

The Rapids apparently weren't kidding this time about adding new players, today they put french forward Yoann Arquin - one of the positions I was looking at in my recent article! - on Trial for the team. The former player for French side Paris St. Germain is 22 years old.

He'll play in a Rapids scrimmage against Regis University on Wednesday morning.

Edit: courtesy of Pid Army, here's a video of our new guy in action.

My completely fabricated interview with Claudio Lopez

2010-08-24T07:45:00.000-07:00

What with people like Craig of God, Country, Soccer getting interviews with pretty cool guys like Julien Baudet, Burgundy Wave felt a little bit left out. So, using completely realistic sounding means (read: Google translator, a fabricated ability to read Spanish and a sizable dose of alcohol) I concocted a wonderful interview with Claudio Lopez that I totally did in real life.

I like to think it's what he would have said anyway. Translations are below. Be warned, they're slightly NSFW if you're reading them aloud.

---
UZ: So, Mr. El Piojo-

Claudio: Por favor, llámame Claudio. *

UZ: Oh, all right, Mr. Claudio. How are you enjoying Colorado so far?

Claudio: Es la mierda toda de madera que tienen que sentarse en cada partido? Porque eso es lo que parece. Ah, y las montañas son un poco demasiado bonita, aunque un poco más difícil respirar a cabo aquí con el aire más delgado. No le digas a Gary Smith me dijo eso, me bloqueo en el sótano de nuevo como lo hizo para todos los otros juegos porque él piensa que soy demasiado viejo para jugar más de 3 minutos por partido. **

UZ: All right, I'll keep it a secret. Do you not like coach Smith then?

Claudio: Me gustaría considerar que imposible entender la cabeza Inglés de su derecho de su cuerpo poco flaca y cohetes que en la red desde 30 metros sólo para mostrarle que hay alguien en el equipo que realmente sabe cómo hacer eso sin perder la red como es la parte ancha de un granero. ¿Eso responde a tu pregunta?

UZ: Yeah, his head is pretty round so that'd probably work. How long do you think it will take before you score your first goal as a Rapid?

Claudio: Bueno, yo dudo que seguiré jugando en el 2015 por lo que probablemente nunca en la tasa va esto. ****

UZ: Sounds good, Claudio. Thanks for your time.

Claudio: Coma mi polla.*****

* Please, call me Claudio.

** Is the entire fucking thing made of wood that I have to sit on every single game? Because that's what it seems like. Oh, and the mountains are kind of pretty too, even though it's slightly harder to breathe out here with the thinner air. Don't tell Gary Smith I said that, he'll lock me in the basement again like he did for all those other games because he thinks I'm too old to play more than 3 minutes a game.

*** I would like to take that impossible to understand English head of his right off his scrawny little body and rocket it into the net from 30 yards out just to show him there's someone on the team who actually knows how to do that without missing the net like it's the broad side of a barn. Does that answer your question?

**** Well considering I probably won't be playing in 2015, probably never at this rate.

***** Eat my dick.

The Rapids Need talented Depth

2010-08-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

Part of the problem with this season is, like last season, the injury bug biting at inopportune times. It obviously hasn't been as much of a disaster as last season, or as hard-luck as Seattle has been this season etc, but it still hasn't been a walk in the park for the Rapids health-wise this season.

Just off the top of my head, Conor Casey missed several games with a bad head injury. We're still missing out on any possibilities of seeing what former first round pick Ciaren O'Brien can do, him being out all season. Colin Clark has suffered another ACL tear. Even Claudio Lopez was out for a while, not that he would have gotten any playing time anyway.

For some teams injury problems like this don't matter as much because of a wealthy talent pool of depth. Teams like Los Angeles, Chicago and New York can lose a player or two and still go strong. Not so with the Rapids. Here's the three positions that the Rapids are going to need to work on gaining some talented depth in, if not grabbing a couple of starters to eventually or immediately usurp the group of players we're already starting there.

Center Back: I'm not nearly as high on Julien Baudet as the rest of Rapids nation seems to be. I personally think he's a really cool guy and not a terrible third option, but him being our every-week starter in the middle of the defense is unacceptable. Sugar-coat it all you want, but the man has literally handed two goals to the opposition on a silver platter, both of those games eventually winding up 1-1, one of them against a very much weaker team. With an offense as anemic as ours the Rapids can't afford him as the center-back. Drew Moor is great but past him the depth in the middle of the defense is very lacking. Marvell Wynne could probably slide over in case of injury, but we'd still be stuck with Baudet starting.

Striker: Quincy Amarikwa is not a good soccer player. He seems to fall down every time the ball gets near him, he's even worse at finishing than our already questionable other strikers, and he basically can't get by anybody unless he can outrun them. And yet... he was the starter when Conor Casey went down. Andre Akpan is an unknown commodity who doesn't look like someone ready to usurp the spot of Casey or Cummings should either choose to leave. The two strikers we start on a weekly basis aren't great, but the depth behind them is even worse.

Wide Midfielders: The center of the midfield is actually the strongest part of the team, which probably helps the outside midfield look even worse. With Colin Clark out of the picture we're basically stuck with only four players ready on any given day to start on the outside. Mehdi Ballouchy, Wells Thompson, Jamie Smith and Claudio Lopez. Dismissing Lopez because he'll never start a game again, the other three are very lacking in skill. When Wells Thompson is the class of your group, you're probably in trouble. If the Rapids go out looking for another player before the roster freeze, getting a wide midfielder is probably where they'll need to go.

The Failure is Finishing

2010-08-22T06:30:00.000-07:00

Let's face it folks, the Rapids get much better press than they deserve for what they've accomplished. Every week we've hoped that the offense would improve but it hasn't happened yet. Hell, the game that I labeled their best win of the year was only a 1-0 win, the lone goal coming from a mistake by the opponent's goalkeeper who shoved it into his own net! The issue is pretty simple, it's not a failure to create chances by the players, it's not really a complete lack of creativity in passing or crosses either. The failure is in the finishing.

Just watching this team you can see easily that the Rapids are possibly the least clinical team in front of goal in the league. Every single week seems to throw us another horrible miss that any good goal-scorer would scoff at. Conor Casey's late post against Kansas City. Omar's whiff in front of goal at Seattle. Pablo's near miss in Philadelphia. Most recently, Omar beating the entire defense and then missing the net yesterday. All of these came with the goalkeeper not in the net or completely out of position, but the Rapids could never finish.

Past Conor Casey and Omar Cummings, our defensive midfielder Jeff Larentowicz probably has the best finishing on the team this season. That's right, a defensive midfielder with two goals is one of the more clinical members in front of net of this team. If you're thinking "How can he be better than anyone else, he's only got two goals," recall that the only player other than our strikers with more than two goals is Mehdi Ballouchy with a paltry three, one of which came off a PK which might as well not count.

For supposedly being one of the "top offensive pairings in MLS," our strikers and just about everyone past them sure haven't been playing like that. The Rapids could really use somebody who knows how to get the ball into the net.

And no, Claudio Lopez doesn't count because I'm still not sure he's not just a figment of our imagination caused by a mirage on the bench every week.

Potent Quotable 8/21/10

2010-08-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

#Rapids if we rely on a man in a suit to get us wins, we're more screwed than I thought. Obviously we need more. #MLS #DP #STARTLOPEZ
--- 5280Rapids' twitter

Colorado gives up 4 goals (3 of which count), lose 3-1

2010-08-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

That was quite possibly the worst Rapids performance of the season. Quite literally nothing was working correctly today for the boys in Burgundy, on any part of the pitch.

The game started out menacingly with Matt Pickens committing a stupid foul - and I consider any foul by a goalkeeper in his own box stupid - which basically handed the Crew a free goal only 6 minutes into the game. After that quick blow the Rapids never really recovered, playing badly all over the field and finishing like a crippled high school team.

Omar Cummings and Marvell Wynne had the best two chances of the half back to back, both of which had the goalkeeper beat but missed the net, Omar's especially horribly. Pablo Mastroeni finally managed to solve the Crew's defense off of a great pass from Mehdi Ballouchy, which snagged him his 6th career goal. They went into the half tied at two, but that was the only high point the Rapids would see.

The second half started with a very strange downpour, which stopped Colorado dead in their tracks but didn't seem to hurt the Crew. Columbus' Jason Garey scored two quick goals, one of which came off of a stupid play by Matt Pickens off a Wynne header, one of which was called back - although probably incorrectly - offside. His offside goal wouldn't wind up mattering because his eventual sub Steven Lenhart scored an easy goal in the 80th minute off a set piece which put the final nail into the coffin.

Colorado hasn't come back to win from behind in four seasons, and tonight's didn't help that statistic at all.

Man of the Match: Pablo Mastroeni. Netted a goal for himself and played fairly well on the defensive side, not being really involved in any of the goals scored.

Goat of the Match: Matt Pickens. Two of the goals can be directly attributed to Matt, you can't hand out free goals, especially if you're the goalKEEPER!

Colorado vs. Columbus: Rapids take on the Big Boys

2010-08-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

Probably the toughest opponent that the Rapids will be facing for the rest of the season until way up until October when they take on the Galaxy, the Rapids will face a hell of a test going into Ohio today. (Welcome to Ohio! Ha ha, now you are stuck in Ohio!)

Conor Casey will probably be the starter at striker alongside Omar Cummings, since his head appears to be fine now aside from that giant dent. Seriously, was that there before? I swear that wasn't there before. As I pointed out earlier today, Claudio Lopez may have a shot to get some major minutes or even a spot start today. Look for him either going in at striker if Casey decides he's not feeling 100% after all, or more likely at the left midfield spot opposite (I assume) Wells Thompson.

Colorado actually has a chance to sweep the 'season series' against Columbus if they can pull out a road win today, they beat them earlier in the year at The Dick 1-0 off of a late header goal by central defender Drew Moor. A win would also keep them more afloat in the playoff standings, although a loss against an Eastern team won't sting nearly as bad as it would against, say, FC Dallas or the like.

Either way, go Rapids!

Game Day Linkdump

2010-08-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

A weekly list of something to read before game time.

Owner of Colorado Rapids has no Recollection that he Owns Colorado Rapids - This would be a lot more funny if it wasn't probably true.

More Academy Player News - More youth in the Rapids system getting the eye of national clubs.

Vote For the Rapids idea for the Pepsi Refresh Project - Pablo Mastroeni wants you to help fight hunger by voting for the Rapids to win the $50K.

MLS Player Salaries: Crunching The Numbers - Some cool analysis of salary numbers in MLS.

Crew's Consistency concerns traveling Rapids - Gary Smith is concerned about taking on one of the best teams in the league, and for good reason I'd say.

More than one team was after Cummings - Apparently Mexico isn't the only place the Jamaican striker was wanted.

Claudio Lopez 'frustrated', Might Play Today

2010-08-21T07:09:00.000-07:00

Gary Smith realizes that Claudio Lopez hasn't been getting the playing time that he has wished for himself thus far this season. When asked about who will be taking over Colin Clark's position on the field, he threw out the names of three players, along with adding a bit of a footnote on our favorite Argentinian;
"It opens up the opportunity for other players to get more time, possibly in Wells, Jamie and Claudio, who himself is extremely frustrated. I fully understand [López's] position. He wants more time and more football."

Claudio has seen very little time on the pitch this season, nursing an injury for part of it and seeing only spots of time in relief late in games as an offensive spark in the games that he's been healthy for, only 129 minutes total in seven appearances out of the 19 games that the Rapids have played.

The closest thing to a Designated player on the Rapids roster - he actually was a DP salary wise for a good chunk of time in his pre-Rapids MLS career - Claudio has certainly proved throughout his very impressive career that he is worth at least 30-45 minutes per game if not a spot start at either striker or left-midfielder.

With the fanbase crying for him to see more playing time, our coach seems to have come around to that idea as well. At least, the crying fans can hope so!

Bravo Hints at a New Player?

2010-08-20T18:37:00.000-07:00

Pretty much since the day of the Anthony Wallace trade from FC Dallas, I've been fairly steadfast in my assumption that the Rapids are probably not going to be picking up anybody new before the Roster Freeze hits in just under a month. The international transfer window has already closed, leaving any chance of the Rapids snagging a designated player from outside the country - your Juan Pablo Angels and David Beckhams of the world, for instance - null and void.

Rapids Technical Director Paul Bravo has recently hinted that my assumption that we won't be seeing any new faces not named Davy Armstrong any time soon may be incorrect, though. In his own words, when asked about new players; “But we continue our search.” To be fair, this was said after he stated that he was comfortable with the group of players that the Rapids already had on the pitch on any given day, but him leaving the option open is a lot better than we can say for Jeff Plush's negative speech about designated players.

With the team sorely lacking in goals and their leading goal scorer Conor Casey barely looking at a chance to match half of his goal-scoring total from last year at the rate he is going, the Rapids are in dire need of grabbing an offensive player or two. Good to see Paul Bravo sees that. And unlike Jeff Plush, he knows that there is occasionally a need for a bit of risk-reward playing even if it threatens the bank a little bit;

“There is risk and at times you have to take risks; how long does that player take to adapt and really make an impact in the team. We have to take those things into account.”

Short Scouting Report: Columbus Crew

2010-08-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

The 2008 MLS champions might not have repeated their title run last season, being defeated in the first round by the eventual surprise champions Real Salt Lake, but they are still a more than formidable side to play against. The Crew are on a crash course to another high seeded playoff berth with just about the same talent that has kept them going for the past few years.

Their offensive leader on the pitch is veteran forward and one of the first DP's to ever enter the league Guillermo Barros Schelotto, who has netted five goals and seven assists on the season so far. Their defense ain't bad either, they are currently one of surprisingly only TWO teams in the East that have a positive goal differential with 9 along with Chicago, whose positive GD is only +1. (There's three teams if you count zero as a positive number, Toronto FC has a nil GD.)

Columbus is currently up in a six point lead with New York for the Eastern conference lead, although with Los Angeles tearing it up this season it doesn't look like the Crew will be able to get a third straight supporters shield.

The Rapids added players in saturated positions

2010-08-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

The Transfer window finally closed with not much more than a whimper of activity out of the Colorado Rapids' front office. After flat out refusing to add a designated player because of money issues and a strange seeming assumption that DP's aren't "worth it", the Rapids only wound up adding two players to the current squad during the transfer window. Left-back Anthony Wallace was traded from FC Dallas to the Rapids for a 4th round draft pick and a possible one to be named later, and central midfielder Davy Armstrong was promoted from the "Rapids Academy" to become the first homegrown player to ever join the first team.

Neither have played a minute yet for the Rapids - although Davy couldn't have since he just now joined the team - and neither may any time soon. Davy's youth and Anthony's lack of match fitness and recent experience may be keeping them from getting major minutes, but it doesn't help that the positions they play are already saturated with players, not all bad players either.

Anthony Wallace has already been on the team for several weeks now, ever since the game against his former team Dallas in fact. He has been kept off of the team though, with the recent use and success of using Kosuke Kimura as the teams new usual starter at left-back. Past him, Danny Earls had a fantastic first half of the season being backed by Scott Palguta, so it looks as though Wallace is being firmly stuck at third or so in depth at the position. With the fantastic play of Marvell Wynne it's not looking like Wallace is going to sneak over to the right side of the defense either, barring injury.

Davy Armstrong is a central midfielder, which unfortunately for the new kid is quite possibly the most well-equipped position on the pitch for Colorado. Captain Pablo Mastroeni and all-star Jeff Larentowicz have both been playing magnificently as a pair in the center of the defense this season. Unless Gary Smith goes back to a 4-5-1 or decides he doesn't want to play two defensive midfielders in the middle of the 4-4-2 any more in order to add some offense, there's very little chance that Davy is going to get in except as a substitute for one of them. If could also play on the outside of the midfield, the Rapids could certainly use the help there with Colin Clark injured and Jamie Smith not playing as well as he usually does recently.

Hopefully they both get some playing time soon, because the Rapids cannot add anything else from outside the MLS itself until the end of the season.

Omar Cummings almost played in Mexico?

2010-08-18T08:34:00.000-07:00

If the reports are to be believed, the Rapids were receiving transfer offers for Omar Cummings from Mexican first-division team Necaxa that were thankfully declined, at least partially due to the Rapids not wanting to take on the transfer fees from the deal.

Here's the story, straight from Omar's mouth;

“A week before I officially learned of the interest, one of our players, (Chris) Sharpe, said, ‘Omar I hear that you’re going to Mexico.’ I had not heard anything, and he said he’d read it on some website. I didn’t think anything of it.

“The Sunday after we played the game against Houston (June 26), when we were coming back, I was approached by a guy at the airport. He said he came to watch me from the Mexican club, and came to personally ask me specifically if I would ever want to go play in Mexico. Because they could basically make an offer, going through MLS, but then what if I still didn’t want to go? So he personally wanted to know if I would be willing to play in Mexico.

“I said, ‘yes, I would be willing to play in Mexico.’

“He told me he’s from that club (Necaxa), that they had been in contact with MLS, and they had been looking at me for some time, and that they would very much like to add me to their roster for next season. He said that’s all he wanted to know, and then said, ‘See you in the next few weeks, in Mexico.’

“The next day, I texted my agent and asked if he had heard anything about this guy that approached me. He got in touch with MLS and it was for sure. The team had made a bid to MLS and Colorado, but so far they (MLS / Rapids) didn’t think it was good enough, but it was on-going.

“They made another bid, and the process was on-going until they (Necaxa) decided to go a different way.”

Cummings is the second leading scorer on the Rapids this season and has been in just about every single game either as a forward playing midfielder in Gary Smith's 4-5-1 formation or as a striker in Smith's 4-4-2. He spent a game as the lone striker in the 4-5-1 during Conor Casey's absence as well. His five goals are second on the team, he also leads the team in shots on goal with 19.

When asked if he was disappointed at the result, he was quoted as saying "It's kind of mixed-" so I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, Omar will remain a Rapid for at least the rest of this season with the transfer window now closed. And that is most certainly a good thing.

Davy Armstrong is now a Rapid (soon)

2010-08-16T12:41:00.000-07:00

It's official, history has been made, in the Rapids version of history anyway. Davy Armstrong is the first ever youth player to graduate from the Rapids Academy to the first team. Congratulations, Davy!

Davy played his high school ball with Rangeview, winning Colorado Player of the Year in 2008 as well as leading the minor league Colorado Fusion to a title. The man - a central midfielder - knows how to score and plays good all over the field.

The Rapids academy has been running for three years now, their star student Davy joined the force in late 2007, playing for the U-17 and U-18 Rapids teams while getting slapped with the MLS-recognized title of 'homegrown', keeping him away from the MLS Superdraft and keeping him inside the Rapids organization until the day he graduated - that day being today!

Here's a quote from Gary Smith, sounds like this kid is not only legit but is going to work out great in the Rapids system;

“At 18-years of age, Davy has already proved after training with our first team for a number of weeks this summer that he not only has the physical qualities that will certainly lend itself to progression and development in MLS, but technically he is also very proficient. More importantly, for a young player he has an outstanding attitude and mental focus to get the job done. I believe now that we have Davy in this environment full-time, we will see a much more polished and professional player ready for the first team.”

Get him out there, Gary. We need that talent and how!

Davy Armstrong WILL be a Rapid soon

2010-08-15T14:55:00.001-07:00

The official Rapids twitter account let out a juicy nugget of information today, talking about "the first homegrown player" to be signed to the team officially. Considering the Rapids academy isn't exactly Arsenal or Chelsea's youth programs with tons of amazing players, I'd say there's about a one in one chance that they're talking about Davy Armstrong. The press conference to announce Davy's signing will be held tomorrow.

Congratulations to Davy and good work by the Rapids to get him to sign on the dotted line. I'll probably have more on him when that press conference occurs tomorrow.

Potent Quotables 8/14/10

2010-08-15T03:47:00.000-07:00

"Unfortunately, we're not creating as many chances as we would like..."
Gary Smith, summing up the entire season in one half sentence.

And a bonus quote:

"Dear god, he's got a giant fucking dent in his head!"
-- Me, after seeing Conor Casey's head

A bore draw, 1-1.

2010-08-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

Yes, the Rapids just struggled to draw with the second worst team in the league. Joy!

This one was pretty bad all around, the Rapids may have been lucky to even get the result they wound up with. As long as they keep getting points it's all right, but not every team is going to be as weak as the Union from now on, for sure.

The game started off slowly, with neither team getting very good chances in the first half. Matt Pickens was forced to make a couple of athletic saves but he didn't face much of anything dangerous from the Union's offense. The Rapids only managed four shots in the first half, none of which were actually on target. Both keepers could probably have taken a nap and not missed much of anything.

In the second half, a scrum in the box led to Jeff Larentowicz getting an obstructed shot on goal, which he shot through the wall of players in the box like a bullet for his second goal of the season. It was a great game all around for Jeff, who was playing a homecoming of sorts, as he is from Philadelphia. Danny Mwenga equalized as Julian Baudet missed an easy tackle on a cross from Sabastien La Toux late in the half. After that there was pretty much nothing on either side.

Player of the Game: Jeff Larentowicz. Fantastic game all around. Good challenges and a great shot.

Goat of the Game: Julian Baudet. Ugh. That's two games in the last three that he's singlehandedly given the other team a goal. At least he didn't put it in his own net this time!

Colorado vs. Philly for the first time ever!

2010-08-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

Colorado goes into this game against Philadelphia sporting a 4-11-1 record all time against teams that they're meeting for the first time. I hope to holy anything that the Rapids find some way to buck that trend today, because Philadelphia has been having one stinker of a season in their first year of MLS play. 16 points in 18 games is only good enough to beat out DC United for the anti-supporters shield. (Which they should totally make and give to the worst team in the league every year. Maybe the Rapids would have some silverware if they did that!)

Helpful for the Rapids: The Union are playing on short rest, they had a very well played game against Real Salt Lake on Wednesday. Hopefully that took all the fight out of them and the Rapids will be well-rested enough to prevent another hard fought 1-1 draw from coming out of them.

Conor Casey is back, giving the Rapids a fine 1-2 punch now at striker should Gary Smith decide to retain the 4-4-2 formation from last game that saw the Rapids play so very well. After the season-ending ACL tear, Colin Clark will most likely be replaced on the left side of the midfield with Wells Thompson or Jamie Smith. You all know I'm hoping for Thompson, of course.

It's an early one today, at 2 PM mountain time. Go Rapids!

It's an ACL, Clark.

2010-08-14T11:03:00.001-07:00

Colin Clark is the least lucky person on the planet. For the second time in just two seasons, he has suffered a torn ACL, this one during the most recent game against San Jose. Only four days after the anniversary of last season's tear as well. (Last season it happened August 3rd, this time it was the 7th.) No matter who you are, gotta feel sorry for the guy.

Clark says that he will be coming back and continuing to play soccer after his knee heals again, with surgery and rehab most likely taking another 7-8 months off of him again.

He will undergo surgery to fix the knee on Monday in California.

Davy Armstrong might be a Rapid soon

2010-08-12T19:16:00.001-07:00

The Rapids youth development corps are fairly new and Colorado homegrown players haven't been all that prevalent on the Rapids since the homegrown label first showed up. That is to say, the Rapids have yet to develop a kid on their own and watch him eventually become a member of the first team. That might all change real soon in the case of our hometown boy, Davy Armstrong.

Armstrong - a central-midfielder by trade - is a damn good goalscorer with over 50 in his high school career and has skills you don't normally see in an 18 year old. He was named the Colorado high school soccer player of the year at Rangeview in 2008 and helped lead the Colorado Fusion to a title in 2006 as well. Throughout this year he has been training with the Rapids first team and now the Rapids are approaching him to go pro right out of high school.

What's keeping him from doing so? Washington. Not the president, the state. Davy has been approached by the University of Washington to play some college ball there for a scholarship. If he chooses that, we won't see him on the Rapids - and boy could we use him - any time soon.

This quote gives me a little hope though; “My drive was always to make it and to go pro, and it’s right here in my hand, pretty much." I certainly hope you lean that way, Davy.

Short Scouting Report: Philadelphia Union

2010-08-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

It's the new kids on the block! Philly was approved for an MLS team back in 2008, which turned into the Union, and here we are in the middle of their inaugural season! Gotta tell you, not exactly a season to remember so far. They were shut out in their first game of existance in Seattle, and haven't much turned on the heat since that point. With a measly 16 points, only DC United is having a worse season than Philly.

Part of their miserable season thus far has been their defense and goalkeeping, who haven't been able to put together a clean sheet yet and boast together a 1.86 Goals Against Average, good for worst in the league. That's 33 goals given up in 18 games, also the most in the league. Even the fantastic offensive play of midfielder Sabastien Le Toux - who has nine goals AND eight assists on the season - hasn't been enough to drag them out of the losing ways they've drug themselves into in the first place.

They do have bitchin' cool kits though, so that's something!

Fire Bob Bradley

2010-08-11T00:41:00.001-07:00

Yeah I know, you've never heard that one before. "Fire Bob Bradley" is to United States soccer as "Fire Dick Jauron" was to Buffalo Bills football a few seasons ago. It's to United States soccer as "Fire George Bush" is to the Democratic party. It's to United States soccer as "Fire Dave Trembley" was to the Baltimore Orioles. It's to- well you get the point... read: I'm out of examples. (It's to United States soccer as "Fire" is to a crowded movie theater?)

That incredibly uninspired 2-0 loss to Brazil was just another of the seemingly hundreds of nails littering the coffin that many USA fans have been trying to stick Bob in for just about as long as he's been the head coach of team USA.

There's certainly no shortage of blah moves he's made with the team, over and over again. He's always seemed to utilize the overrated Jozy Altidore no matter how good or bad he has played. The world cup was just full of Altidore moments that made me cringe with the sting of failure. I hate to scream nepotism, but Michael Bradley was showing up at just about every team as well, again regardless of amount of skill he'd been showing.

Obviously something must be up with his coaching style as well, what with the teams unfortunate tendency to give up goals within the first 15 minutes of the game. If that team didn't know how to be come back kings, they wouldn't even have been in the Round of 16 - where they also gave up a goal almost immediately, I might add - in the first place. Also, two words - Ricardo Clark.

But this isn't supposed to be a list of things wrong with Bradley, that would take all day! Besides, there's entire blogs dedicated to the bashing of Mr. Bradley. I'm just here to say and pray that hopefully that game against Brazil will be Bob's last, with him being linked to a job with Aston Villa. Please?

Please?

Casey's back, Clark's... not.

2010-08-10T15:57:00.000-07:00

Conor Casey finally returned to practice after missing two games with an injury to his head. Colin Clark's scan results on his knee haven't returned yet.

Hold out hope for Colin!!

Spencer gets his first head coaching gig in Portland

2010-08-10T11:13:00.000-07:00

Congrats, Mr. Spencer! Now kindly lose to the Rapids every time you play us.

Featured Friendly: USMNT vs. Brazil

2010-08-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

I figure as long as the Rapids keep holding out and never bothering to have interntional - or hell, even national - friendlies of their own I might as well talk about some other teams that I care about's friendlies. Or not, I suppose turning this into a 100% US men's national team and Crystal Palace FC blog might be looked down upon. That and I'd have to change the blog name to "Various Shades of Red Wave" to fit the color schemes of all my teams together. Either way, I'm excited to see US men's national team football back in business after the World Cup.

Last time these teams met was way back in the final of the Confederations Cup in South Africa back in 2009. It was not a game to remember as a US fan, the Yanks got ahead 2-0 on some fantastic play by the team all-around and then managed to have one of the worse second halves I've ever seen a team play and not only blow the lead but give it up in the last few minutes as Brazil won 3-2 and left the US fans sighin' as usual. I doubt we'll see a win here for the good guys, but hopefully the States give us something exciting to cheer about. Ideally not a 2-0 lead that they proceed to blow, though.

No Rapids players are on the roster for today's match up, not that anybody expected them to be. Conor Casey and Marvell Wynne were both on the roster that almost defeated Brazil in the Confederations Cup, getting a staggering two minutes of playing time between them in that game. (wee!)

The teams kick off in New Jersey at 6 PM Mountain Time.

Citizenship strikes again

2010-08-09T15:11:00.001-07:00

Back in June we all remember the failure that happened when Mehdi Ballouchy's lack of United States citizenship kept him from traveling to Canada for a league game against Toronto FC because of the mess of paperwork it would have created. (Unsurprisingly, the Rapids wound up having no offense in Mehdi's absence and lost 1-0.) Well, the paperwork and lines of red tape of becoming a citizen of the USA have struck again, this time to our friend Omar Cummings.

Citizenship is a bitch, to be sure.

Tuesday and Wednesday mark the first days of big international friendlies since the end of the world cup, including a showdown between the USA and Brazil. The game Omar Cummings was focused on was his homeland of Jamaica taking on Trinidad & Tobago, which he was called up for duty for. Unfortunately with his green card paperwork in the process of being approved, he's not allowed to leave the country. Maybe good for the Rapids, but sad for the guy.

I'm waiting for Conor Casey to reveal he's actually from Istanbul or something and will be deported so he can't score any more goals for us, the way this season has been going for our players.

No, I have no idea why I picked Istanbul as my country of choice. Probably because I can't spell Czechoslovakia without using the spell check feature on my firefox.

Prediction: The Rapids WILL make the playoffs.

2010-08-09T03:10:00.000-07:00

Before the game against Seattle, I said that the Seattle-Dallas-SJ three game set would be the most important three of the season for Colorado. I said three wins would basically guarantee a playoff berth, three losses would basically knock us out, and any other combination would depend. Well, we're over that stretch and got four points out of it so lets see if the Rapids playoff hopes are alive and well using the schedule that remains.

There are twelve games remaining on the docket - that's just under three full months worth of games - for Colorado in the 2010 MLS schedule. Here's what they need to do if they want to finally get into the playoffs and try for that elusive MLS Cup; Real Salt Lake proved last season that all you really need to win the cup is to show up! (Having a team that isn't totally dysfunctional helps, but baby steps here.)

First of all, we have to point out that the first four spots of the playoffs - I'm talking division leaders - might as well be set in stone by this point. Columbus and New York in the East, Los Angeles and Real Salt Lake in the West. Toronto could make a run and overcome New York, but I think the Red Bulls are way too strong a team to falter like that. So this article will be assuming that the Rapids will be battling for one of the remaining "top 4 elsewhere" playoff spots available.

Last season the Rapids barely missed the playoffs with 40 points and a 10-10-10 record. Real Salt Lake wound up getting in with the same point total but better goal differential. On that note we'll assume that the Rapids will need a minimum of 42 points to get into the playoffs this season. If they started today, they would actually be the final seed to get in with their 27 points, copying last year as five teams from the West would make it in, as only three East teams have better records than Colorado. Let's see if we can get to that 42 points in the remaining games.

The games that remain for the Rapids break down like this:
* Six home games
* Six away games
* Six Western conference games
* Six Eastern conference games
* Six games against Contenders*
* Six "gimme" games*

As you can see, dead even on every front. Six of just about every category I can think of here. Frankly, the scheduling is fairly kind for the Rapids at the end of the season I think. The Rapids never have a road trip of more than two games and get shots at a bunch of weaker teams down the stretch and will also have plenty of chances to beat their Western rivals along the way as well. Whether or not that's a good thing is a wash. On one hand they can make their own destiny, on the other hand losses to Western teams could be killer. The thing that it looks like to me is that there will be at least six games that will be very winnable for the Rapids in one way or another.

So with the win against San Jose, what are the chances they make the playoffs? Here's three situations that will make it easy to see that the win against San Jose will be the final push to get the Rapids chances up.

Situation 1 (The "Rapids turn into Manchester United" situation): Let's assume they win all the "Gimme" games that I put up there; the Rapids end up with 18 more points from those games, for a total of 45. No draws, all wins. That right there is an automatic playoff berth, pretty much. Even a couple of draws and wins among the remaining six games would be enough to push their chances from in to "higher seed" in.

Situation 2 (The "Rapids play like they did all July" situation): Let's say the Rapids draw every single game from now on except for two. So 10 draws and two wins. That's STILL 43 points right there. Even substituting losses for three of the draws gets us 40 points, which is enough to sneak in as the last playoff seed most years... last year being the best example obviously. (No, I'm not bitter at all!)

Situation 3 (The "Situation" Situation): Lets say the Rapids split their final 12 games right down the middle, and go 4-4-4. That's also 43 points, easy money.

Basically, the Rapids need four more wins minimum to make the playoffs as long as they can keep their tendency to fight out tie games going. Can this team do it? I think they can. So that's my prediction after the hard-fought win at home against San Jose. The Rapids WILL make the playoffs this season.

*By "Contender" I mean everyone that I think has a legitimate shot of making the playoffs. In this case, everyone except for Philadelphia, New England, DC United, Houston and Chivas USA. Games against those five teams were labeled the "Gimme" games. Talk about parity in the league, I was surprised that only five seemed out of it to me!

Potent Quotable: 8/7/10

2010-08-07T22:53:00.000-07:00

"Maybe the players felt a little bit different around me. Maybe I felt a
little bit more relaxed and gave better information when I needed to."
-Gary Smith, snazzed up in a suit and tie

I loved it, coach!

Oh hey! Colorado wins 1-0!

2010-08-07T22:37:00.000-07:00

Who is this team and what did they do to the Rapids? This squad showed more heart and fire in their play tonight than we've seen out of the burgandy and blue lads in quite some time!

Colorado started in a 4-4-2 tonight after weeks of speculation that they would, dating back to the Kansas City game. Former Quakes player Quincy Amarikwa started at striker with Omar Cummings, Conor Casey didn't dress today as his head continued to bother him. Outside midfielder Colin Clark had the first real chance of the game for the Rapids as he rang a sliding dive-shot into the woodwork, Omar Cummings had a near-miss shortly after that.

The Rapids scored as Jon Busch took a pass off of Omar Cummings in the 25th minute and... well, remember this?

Pretty much that all over again, this time by Busch. The entire supporters terrace chanting "We all just want another Robert Green" to the tune of Yellow Submarine was a hilarious cherry on the top. That would turn out to be the only goal as the Rapids defense did an impression of themselves earlier in the season, holding San Jose to very few shots and even fewer going anywhere near Matt Pickens, who earned his first clean sheet since way back in June.

The biggest - and really only - lowlight of the game was starting midfielder Colin Clark getting knocked down with what looked like a potentially serious knee injury. He gave a clap to the crowd as he was being carted off, frustration and sadness in his eyes. Poor guy can't catch a break, get better soon Colin!

Man of the Match: Omar Cummings. Yeah, I should have gone for the Busch joke but I only put Rapids players here! Omar had the goal (technically) and was in great position to make plays and good shots all night. Way to keep the striker position dangerous out there, Omar.

Goat of the Match: Quincy Amarikwa. Everyone played well today, but Quincy seemed out of position, slow and indecisive with the ball on his foot until he was subbed for Claudio Lopez late in the game. Still, nobody really deserves to be a Goat when the team plays this well. Even Quincy with his fairly shoddy play managed a couple of neat passes now and then.

Colorado and San Jose battle in Denver for conference placement

2010-08-07T11:40:00.000-07:00

June was a pretty good month for the Rapids. They were winning, playing decent defense and scoring. Since then... well, Colorado hasn't scored more than one goal in a game since June. It's also been that long since they won a game. June was also the last time the Rapids defense and goalkeeper managed to put together a clean sheet. If the Rapids want to make the playoffs, they might want to quell all those particular droughts, starting tonight against San Jose.

This game will prove most likely to be incredibly important in determining final placements in the West, as San Jose currently sits only a single point down from the Rapids with the number of games left in the season quickly starting to dwindle. Los Angeles and Real Salt Lake seem to have the first and second spots in the West locked down, so the final two spots will require some fighting for.

Conor Casey will probably sit out again as that concussion he suffered in Seattle continues to bother him. If coach Gary Smith runs the 4-5-1 as usual, we'll most likely see Omar Cummings in the forward spot along with perhaps Anthony Wallace's first start as a Rapid in the Left-back spot on the defense. Smith could also start his version of the 4-4-2 with either Claudio Lopez or the now back from his loan Andre Akpan alongside Cummings.

Colorado hasn't beat San Jose since they came back to the league from their hiatus in 2008. They last met all the way back on May 1st, as the Quakes squeaked out a 1-0 win off a goal from Chris Wondolowski.

Must-win territory

2010-08-06T12:53:00.000-07:00

How long will it be before we get into the concept of ''every game is a must win?" Or are we there already?

Before the Dallas game last weekend I said, "I really hate the phrase 'must-win games' because it makes the games seem even worse when you inevitably lose them, but this game against FC Dallas and the following game against the San Jose Earthquakes are inching dangerously close to must win territory." Is it really that dire yet though? After the draw with Dallas, it might well be.

San Jose and Colorado go into their game tomorrow seperated by only a point between 4th and 5th place in the West. Had the Rapids beat Dallas, they would have had a comfortable lead on San Jose and a good catch-up on Dallas, leaving room for error - by error I mean another draw with SJ, losing would still hurt them - but drawing with Dallas left them in a bit of a spot. A loss for Colorado will knock them backwards into 5th place by more than a point, something they cannot afford to do if they continue to draw more games than they win or lose. The fact that they have been gaining so many points from ties is probably the only reason they're still in contention at all, actually. So is the rest of the season going to be a bite-your-nails sort of time where a loss could mean certain doom? It will really depend how the Quakes game goes.

I still hate using the term "must-win" to describe games, but considering how this Rapids team has played this season, falling down to 5th place in the West will probably spell the end for them. Yes, the San Jose game IS must-win.

(Or at least must-draw.)

Short Scouting Report: San Jose Earthquakes

2010-08-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

Finally, a game against a team that's doing just as bad as the Rapids are! While the last few games have been against teams like the red hot FC Dallas, the slowly rejuvinating Sounders and the always impossible to beat at home Toronto FC, the San Jose Earthquakes are doing just about the same thing the Rapids are doing - floundering.

The Rapids are winless in their last seven, with five of those being draws. San Jose has one win in their last eight, that win coming via a visit to a very weak Philly team. In other words, this one is a wash. Two struggling teams going neck in neck in the standings, this game should be fun. SJ is 6-5-5 right now with a game in hand on the 6-5-6 Rapids, only a point behind Colorado in the standings.

SJ does have one statistic completely on their side in this match, though. Since returning to the league in 2008 after their slight disruption away from it, the Rapids have never defeated the Quakes, at home or otherwise. All time, the Quakes also hold the advantage in record. Being at The Dick should help the Rapids out at getting their first win in who knows how long... at least I hope so.

Andre Akpan returns from his loan

2010-08-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

Colorado's first pick in the 2010 MLS Superdraft Andre Akpan returned (without his dreadlocks!) from his one month loan to Tampa Bay. The striker played five games for the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the last month as Gary Smith sent him out to get match experience and fitness under his belt with Conor Casey and Omar Cummings holding down a stranglehold on the forward positions of the team this season so far.

With Conor Casey still suffering from the head injury he suffered against the Sounders, Akpan adding depth to the team forwards couldn't have come at a better time. No word on whether or not we'll be seeing him against the Earthquakes on Saturday.

Gary Smith did say something that seemed to hint we would be seeing him soon;
“He’s an option for us again, fresh off the back of some games, he’ll be sharp and he’s match fit. Whether he’ll be involved is another question, but there’s no doubt about it, it’s great to have him back.”

And how could you not like a guy who knows the Fresh Price of Bel-Air theme song from memory, eh?

Q & A on Casey's head injury

2010-08-04T12:39:00.001-07:00

Get well soon, Conor. We won't get a free PK like the one against Dallas every week.

Plush basically says "No" when asked of Designated Players

2010-08-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

Rapids managing director Jeff Plush recently had an interview with the MLS main site, talking about the basic stuff you expect from a managing director; international friendlies and jersey sponsorships and the whole deal like that. The question that got my attention was the first one listed, about Designated Players and whether or not the Rapids would be gunning for one. His answer is below.

Plush: We have had dialogue and we are currently having dialogue. It has to make sense on two fronts. It has to be good on the pitch and good off the pitch; it has to make sense businesswise. It is hard to draw them to Denver and it is a long process but relationships are being formed.”
We made a very real, credible and frankly aggressive offer for [Jared] Borgetti in 2007. We had started that process a long time before [the offer]. [Owner Stan] Kroenke has been clear on it. He would always support what we want to do if it made good sense. He gave us the go-ahead for Borgetti. [The former Mexican National Team striker signed with Cruz Azul instead.] We would have been one of the first to have a DP. Not much has changed. There’s just more activity around it.
There is certainly more of a race to sign players in the last few weeks, it’s really accelerated. I would love to see there is enough evidence that [such moves] would be competitive. We haven’t seen that yet. RSL is a prime example of winning without a Designated Player, without necessarily the highest payroll. You win with 24 players. I think it’s interesting chatter. But the clubs who are successful in our league tend to be clubs that have a team mentality, a team spirit, a Houston or an RSL.

What really gets me is the idea that there is no "evidence" of DP's actually helping teams out. He knows Juan Pablo Angel is a DP, right? 56 goals in three and change years on the Red Bulls as well as an all-star appearance. That's not "evidence" of helping? Landon Donovan falls under the DP rule as well. You know, that guy who is leading the league in assists and has 69 goals in only 135 appearances for the Galaxy? I'd say there's plenty of evidence that a DP can be a team changer in this league.

I disagree with his idea of "winning without a designated player is possible" being a good reason to not get one as well. Sure, RSL won last season's cup without a designated player and are on a good path to winning this season as well, but look at some other top clubs. Los Angeles, New York, Seattle... You don't need a DP but it certainly does help. I understand holding steady when every other club seems to be signing one but there's a reason everyone else in the league seems to be signing one. Not signing one because you'd be bending to the popular style doesn't work.

The Rapids are not a championship team as it stands right now, in my opinion. They have a good but not great offense and a great but mistake-prone defense. That's not a championship club, that's a club that squeaks into the playoffs, maybe has a surprise upset and then gets crushed in the second round. The Rapids need goals, and goals come not from a "club mentality" but from talent. The Rapids have some talent, but not nearly enough. A DP might not be the answer, but it certainly couldn't hurt at this point, Mr. Plush.

A closer look at the Anthony Wallace trade

2010-08-02T15:27:00.000-07:00

As we all heard on Saturday, Anthony Wallace was traded to the Colorado Rapids by FC Dallas for a 4th round MLS draft pick next season and a possible pick to-be-determined in 2012. Personally, I think that's a bargain for a 21 year old former first round pick, even one who hadn't lived up to his potential so far in his career and hadn't had the playing time he perhaps has deserved.

With the stout defense being the talk of most of the Rapids coverage this season compared to the mediocre and disappointing offense, a lot of people were expecting a move for a big offensive power in the midfield or to play at striker opposite Conor Casey. Even Gary Smith seemed to spend a while hinting that he was searching for more creativity on the offense. Therefore, it was a bit of a shocker to see the only trade out of the Rapids camp being a Left back.

It makes a little more sense than you might think. The defense was indeed incredibly stout at the start of the season, but in the last month or so it has begun to sink a bit in the stoutness department, especially in the left-back position. Danny Earls had held the position down well all season, until a couple of bad plays led to him getting subbed out quickly against Toronto for Scott Palguta. The next game Palguta started, but played just as badly and got subbed out for Earls. Earls also started against Seattle but had to be pulled for Kosuke Kimura in the second half. If Earls can't hold down the position as well as he needs to, Wallace could provide an answer.

Wallace has only made 15 total MLS appearances since being drafted by Dallas after coaching changes, injuries and bad play on the pitch combined to keep him on the bench. He missed the U-20 world cup after tearing up his knee as well, which didn't help him and kept him off the football pitch even more than usual, after which he lost just about all his time in Dallas once again while other players stole his spots. The move to Colorado should provide him the first-team football he's been looking for.

Gary Smith obviously believes that the offense is due for a rejuvenation now that Claudio Lopez is back, so he's pulling a Colorado Rockies and keeping it as is at the trade deadline. Or maybe Wallace will be played as a striker!

Hey, anything could happen. :/

Oh look, it's THIS result again. Colorado 1 Dallas 1

2010-08-01T07:52:00.000-07:00

The Good News: The Rapids actually scored two goals today!
The Bad News: One of them was on the wrong net.

Defender Julien Baudet wound up scoring on the Rapids net in the 22nd minute, the only goal that the Rapids would wind up letting in and as usual, a team killer. They equalized in the 26th minute as Mehdi Ballouchy took a penalty kick after one of the most blatant handballs in the penalty area you're ever going to see by Atiba Harris, who probably should have gotten a red card for the infraction. Seriously, watch it and tell me that wasn't the most blatant on-purpose handball you've ever seen.

Not helping matters - Conor Casey didn't play yesterday with the head injury still acting up, and Jeff Larentowicz played minimal minutes after being in the All-Star game.

Apparently a boy-scout meeting made the starting time for the game earlier, causing the heat to
play a factor in the game and hurting the Rapids overall. Never did like them boy scouts!

Man of the Match: Mehdi Ballouchy. PK's are usually gimme goals, but the Rapids need all the goals they can get and Mehdi got one.
Goat of the Match: Julian Baudet. Naturally the guy who scores an own goal is a shoe-in for this.

Colorado Faces RED HOT Dallas

2010-07-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

I really hate the phrase "must-win games" because it makes the games seem even worse when you inevitably lose them, but this game against FC Dallas and the following game against the San Jose Earthquakes are inching dangerously close to must win territory. Colorado is currently tied with San Jose for 4th in the west, San Jose having a game in hand. FC Dallas has been surging with win after win recently, sitting with sole possession of 3rd place. If the Rapids want to make the playoffs, they're going to have to beat those guys tied with and in front of them; especially considering the fact that the two teams at the top of the table - LA and Real Salt Lake - don't look like they'll be dropping any time soon.

Conor Casey will probably play, his horrible looking head injury (did they really have to list it as a SCALP LACERATION? Eeew.) apparently is healing quite nicely. Good thing too, the Rapids offense needs as much help as it can get these days.

Dallas traded Colorado a former first round pick in Left-back Anthony Wallace yesterday, which should make for even more fun intrigue on the game. It starts at 2 PM Mountain Time, a time in which I will have to be at a wedding. My game recap will probably be shorter than usual as well as later than usual as a result.

Rapids Trade for Wallace

2010-07-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

The Rapids traded a couple of draft picks to future opponent FC Dallas for Left Back Anthony Wallace earlier today. Wallace was Dallas' first pick in the 2007 draft, but hasn't seen the playing time he'd prefer in Dallas recently.

The trade will send the Rapids 4th pick in the 2011 draft as well as a conditional one in 2012.

Colorado has been having offensive issues to be sure, but the defense has been breaking down recently a lot more than they were earlier in the year, Wallace should help provide competition and help to shore up the left side a bit.

Short Scouting Report: FC Dallas

2010-07-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

FC Dallas is a good example of the old adage "A team need not be fantastic, but only need to get a run going at the right time." In this case, the second half of the season would be that time for FC Dallas. In fact, you could make the argument that the Texans have had the exact opposite season as the Rapids have had.

In their first 10 games, Dallas only managed two wins, including going six straight without a win to start the season. Since that bad stretch in their first ten, FC Dallas has put together a six game unbeaten run. Combine that great stretch with their affinity for getting draws this season and they've put together a surprising 6-2-8 record which is good for third place in the West.

Dallas' secret has been having a great all around team, as opposed to a superstar with supporting cast. They don't have a Juan Pablo Angel-esque superstar to score for them every game, but they certainly don't have the only-a-couple-scorers syndrome that the Rapids have come down with. Dallas has three players with four goals, and a player with three as well. A smattering of their players have put themselves on the scoreboard in the assist column as well, leaving a great overall team with dangerous players everywhere. Can't leave any players open on Dallas' offense or you'll pay.

The Rapids face Dallas at The Dick on Saturday.

Man U wins 5-1 over the MLS "All Stars"

2010-07-28T20:20:00.000-07:00

I put "All Stars" in quote marks because I really think that wasn't the best team of players that could have been put on the field. Bruce Arena decided to stick with what he knew, which was a random smattering of Galaxy players including the one guy I thought shouldn't have been an all star at all, goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts. The same Donovan Ricketts who let in a goal 30 seconds into the game.

No, that wasn't a typo. 30 seconds in the MLS All Stars were already down. It only got worse from there, as Manchester dominated the weak "All Star" group all night long. When Brian Ching scores your only goal and you're supposed to be a showing of the best of the best, something it wrong. Either way, it's only an exhibition match and doesn't decided home field for the finals or anything - hello MLB! - so it's really water under the bridge.

Predictably, America's large smattering of Manchester United bandwagoners has been using this game as fuel for their "MLS is a garbage league" arguments. When confronted by the fact that they lost to a 10 man Kansas City team in a game where the refs were practically wearing red, they were unable to be reached for comment.

It's All Star time!

2010-07-28T10:15:00.001-07:00

Today's the day! We get to watch the best of the best in the MLS - according to fan voting and Bruce Arena, anyway - take on Manchester United. Man U just finished an around the USA tour of sorts, taking on a handful of MLS squads, defeating all excepting Kansas City.

The whole "MLS vs. Good Teams From Around The World" idea has been around several years, with the MLS all stars surprisingly winning most of the match-ups, against big clubs like Celtic FC and Chelsea. The only one they've dropped was against Everton last year, a game lost in penalty kicks of all things.

For a more home-oriented rooting interest you can tune in to see Rapids defensive midfielder Jeff Larentowicz be his usual awesome self, assuming he gets any playing time. Either way, should be an entertaining match-up. Go MLS!

You can see the game at 6:30 MT on ESPN2.

Looks like Conor Casey will be OK

2010-07-26T19:35:00.000-07:00

Per the Rapids' twitter account.

Conor Casey suffered a really bad looking head injury in the 92nd minute of the game against the Sounders, bleeding heavily out a large gash near the top of his head. Him being OK for Saturday is a big relief considering how important that game is to the Rapids' playoff hopes.

If he had hair it probably would have looked even worse!

Rapids U-17 team loses to DC United, 2-1

2010-07-26T16:59:00.000-07:00

Good to see the youth is going the way of the big boys team. (Sarcasm yay!)

Potent Quotable 7/25/10

2010-07-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

When you have "6" defenders out there and you give up 2 goals in 20 mins, somethings not working. #RapidsSoccer

- God, Country, Soccer's twitter.

It's time for Rapids Mad Libs! (also Seattle Wins 2-1)

2010-07-25T21:15:00.000-07:00

Today, the Colorado Rapids took on TEAM at STADIUM. The Rapids started out slowly, only getting NUMBER LOWER THAN FIVE shots on goal throughout the first half. TEAM on the other hand came out incredibly strong, scoring the first goal a mere MINUTE into the game.

The Rapids equalized when RAPIDS PLAYER scored a goal that made the otehr team just look silly, but couldn't get on the board after that, as the offense remained stagnant from that point on. In the MINUTE AFTER 60th/nd/rd minute, RAPIDS BENCH PLAYER subbed on, giving the Rapids a sudden offensive spark that was unseen in the first half. The Rapids got shot after shot, culminating in the worst miss of RAPIDS PLAYER's career, as he had the entire defense beat and METHOD OF MISSING THE NET rather than burying it. Despite the SYNONYM FOR "A LOT" of shots at the goal in the end, the Rapids couldn't finish any of them and wound up on the wrong end of the result once again.

Sound familiar? Yeah. I might just use this for every game recap from now on!

Oh yeah, and Seattle won 2-1 on a pair of goals from their star Zakuani. Omar Cummings managed probably the best Rapids shot this season on his goal... and Casey got severely slammed in the face at the end, his head was bleeding everywhere. Not good on pretty much all accounts, this one.

One final note - what happened to using the 4-4-2? All we heard all week was people talking about the switch to the 4-4-2 and how much offense it was going to nab the Rapids and they came out in that same old offense-less 4-5-1 after all. The hell happened there?

Man of the Match: Omar Cummings. Had a beautiful goal and a couple of other great chances, he was the only player showing much of anything today.

Goat of the Match: Matt Pickens. I love the guy, but the first goal was his bad as he dove by one that smacked the post and hit him in the back, ricocheting in. He didn't look very strong in net on the second goal either.

Colorado heads up Northwest to take on Seattle

2010-07-25T08:23:00.000-07:00

This next three game stretch is the most important set of games for the Rapids all season. In succession they take on the Seattle Sounders, the San Jose Earthquakes and FC Dallas, three Western conference rivals as well as three teams very close to the Rapids in the standings. Three losses and we're almost guaranteed to be looking at another season of no playoffs. Three wins and the playoffs are pretty much in the bag. Anything in between is debatable, but the point is points. The Rapids need them and they need them now. They'll have to start with Seattle.

The Rapids met the Sounders earlier this season, way back in May. Conor Casey netted the only goal of the game to get the 1-0 shutout in front of a sellout crowd at The Dick, but the stakes are a bit higher this time around. The Rapids are currently in a tie for 4th place - and a playoff berth - with San Jose with 23 points , holding a slight lead in goal differential as the only separation between the two. Not far behind are the Sounders and the Houston Dynamo, tied for 5th place with 19 points a piece.

So yeah, this game is pretty important. Nobody is quite sure who will start at midfield in the Rapids new 4-4-2 look, although I've thrown in my guess. As long as the Rapids can net a few goals and keep their mistakes to a minimum - how about LESS than one this time, boys? - they can come away with a win against an underperforming Sounders team. God forbid the 4-4-2 can't net any goals though. In that case we're sunk.

Jamie Smith is apparently the most popular person ever

2010-07-24T16:19:00.000-07:00

According to this poll, anyway.

Personally I already said why I don't think Lopez should get the start and it's really between Smith and Thompson... but Colin Clark? Seriously? Come on, guys.

Rapids U-17 team beats San Jose 3-2

2010-07-24T07:58:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't that be a shame if they won the SUM U-17 Cup the first year it wasn't in their stadium?

Not really, it'd still be cool to know that our youth is good enough to beat everyone else's.

Short Scouting Report: Seattle Sounders

2010-07-22T19:20:00.001-07:00

To say that this season has been a disappointment to the fans of the Seattle Sounders would be an understatement of unknowable size (we're talking godzilla size here, man). After making the semi-finals of the MLS Cup Finals and having a very respectable 12-7-11 record in their inaugural season, they've had a fairly blah sophomore year.

While still in the playoff hunt, the Sounders are stuck in 6th place of the Western conference with a 5-8-4 record and 19 points, with two more games played than the two teams above them, Colorado and San Jose. Their next two games are incredibly important, being against those two teams. If Seattle loses both their playoff chances will take a tremendous blow. An unfortunate bout of injury has struck Seattle this season; check out this injury report for Sundays game.

Despite their struggles this season, they do have a fantastic squad with big pieces like goalkeeper Kasey Keller and striker Fredy Montero. If they can add a couple more pieces, stop the injury bug from biting and get a bit more luck on their side, the Sounders could be looking at their first MLS Cup sooner rather than later.

The Sounders do have a trip to the semi-finals of the US Open Cup coming up, giving them a shot to defend their title from last year. That's right, Seattle in their first year wound up with more trophies than the Rapids have ever won. Makes ya feel good, eh?

Who will be the fourth midfielder for the Rapids this Sunday?

2010-07-22T17:58:00.001-07:00

Dave Clark from Sounder at Heart asked me recently to give him my thoughts on who would be starting for the Rapids this Sunday against Seattle, and in what formation. Obviously Gary Smith has made it clear he wants to switch it up to the 4-4-2 that netted the Rapids their goal late in the game against the Wizards, but the line-up threw me a bit. Who will be starting?

The forwards were easy, Casey and Cummings. The defense was also fairly easy, with Earls, Moor, Wynne and Kimura being the obvious selections. Palguta could easily take Earls' position as he did last game, but I happen to be a fan of Earls and think Palguta had a forgettable outing against KC so I gave Danny the nod. The real question lies in the four men we'll see in the midfield.

Back in the 5-4-1 formation that the Rapids had been using so far this season, Omar Cummings was used often as a midfielder on the wing. Most likely he will be moving up to the second forward position along with Conor Casey, removing him from the conversation. Now, the way I see it there are three midfielders who have almost no chance of being left out of the starting line-up. The captain Pablo Mastroeni, all star Jeff Larentowicz and the third-leading goal scorer on the team, - along with being tied for having the most assists - Mehdi Ballouchy. There's a few people I think could start in the left midfield spot - the one I left open on my roster - including and mostly limited to:

Claudio Lopez - I would love to see Lopez starting. He has been a fantastic presence for the Rapids offense since returning from injury every time he has stepped onto the field. Unfortunately, I see his role on the team being a role-playing substitute for the most part so I doubt he will start this one.

Wells Thompson - Good wide midfielder, can do it all, even showed a little goal-scoring ability earlier this season when he netted two against KC in an open cup qualifier.

Colin Clark - Had a horrible game against KC, but at the very least was trying to get some offensive spark going. Might start if Smith believes in giving second chances. (heheh)

Jamie Smith - Underrated midfield presence, in my opinion. Very good with the ball at his feet, can make plays happen as well. Rarely shoots himself, which leads to some assists but no goals. Might fit well with the two men forward philosophy.

Personally, I penciled in Wells Thompson to my starting XI for Dave. I wouldn't be surprised to see any of the names on that list starting on Sunday though.

Rapids can get Sal Zizzo... with a bit of luck

2010-07-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

The Rapids go into a mini draft with every other team in the MLS today to get fairly talented winger Sal Zizzo. Sal played quite a bit for the US Mens under 18 national squad, leading them to the quarterfinals of the 07 FIFA U-20 world cup. He has one cap for the senior squad as well. Any little piece could help the Rapids, so I won't complain if he ends up going to us.

The weighted draft gives the Rapids a 3.43% shot at him. The announcement of who will win his services will be made at MLS.com at 3 PM mountain time today.

EDIT: All right, so Chivas USA won the lottery for him. Number of people surprised the Rapids didn't win... zero.

Vote (read: cheat) for Matt Pickens

2010-07-21T07:56:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to get the impression that voters across the MLS fanbases just don't really like the Rapids all that much. After Conor Casey's goal got landslided for goal of the week, the NAPA Auto Parts save of the week campaign has started, with 2 great saves in a row for Pickens in the nominations. Feel free to go there and throw down a couple hundred thousand votes.

Naturally, he's getting creamed with only 3.3% of the vote as of this writing. Can't win 'em all, I guess. Or any in our case, it seems.

Around the MLS 7/20/10

2010-07-20T21:30:00.000-07:00

Today featured only Superliga action. If you want actual MLS action, you're going to have to wait until July 24th, until then it's pretty much Superliga and International friendlies.

New England 1 - Morelia 0
New England nabbed a 62nd minute goal from Marko Perovic to win group B of Superliga.

Chicago 1 - Pumas 0
Wilman Conde scored in the 35th minute and Chicago held on for the Superliga win.

Tomorrow there are a bunch of games on, including several Superliga match-ups and a friendly between Manchester United and Philadelphia.

Full Time Move to the 4-4-2?

2010-07-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

Interesting article on the Rapids website today, indicating that coach Gary Smith might be switching full time to the 4-4-2 formation that netted the goal - and should have netted two - in the second half of the Kansas City game. 4-5-1 is probably my favorite formation but it obviously hasn't been working for the Rapids, good to hear Smith keeping the changes going to get some offense into the lifeless attack.

Nobody is quite sure who will be the starting four in midfield now, but ColoradoRapidsfan.com has a poll up seeing what we all think.

I'm personally hoping for the "Diamond" formation of 4-1-2-1-2 with our all star midfielder Larentowicz as the Defensive mid, Jamie Smith and captain Pablo Mastroeni on the flanks, and Mehdi Ballouchy as the top attacking midfielder, who can be subbed for Claudio Lopez. Either way, let's see some offense against the Sounders!

Vote (read: cheat) for Conor Casey

2010-07-20T09:20:00.001-07:00

For the second time in three weeks, a Rapids player has a nomination for goal of the week.

He is currently getting creamed in the votes though, so if you plan on voting, use one of them illegal spamvotebots that will give him 1000 votes per second, m'kay?

(Note: Don't actually do that.)

Rapids mistake-filled defensive style: Breaking down the mishaps

2010-07-20T08:01:00.000-07:00

I've written about how great the Rapids defense has been this season and why it is really the only reason that the Rapids have their 6-4-5 record rather than being down in the Western conferences basement. Looking back at the past few games though, a disturbing trend occurred to me. Starting at the New York game on the 4th in that torrential downpour, the other team has been scoring a goal a game. The trend I've noticed is not just that the number of goals against has been consistant, but the fact that for some reason the defense seems to choose one point every game to completely derp out.

For the layman, I'm saying that the defense commits one god-awful mistake every game that inevitably leads to a goal for them. New York, Toronto and even Kansas City didn't have that problem, so what's up with the Rapids defense and boneheaded errors recently? Taking a closer look at the errors, they don't have much in common. It just seems that the entire defense loses each other for a split second every so often in random ways.

New York v Colorado, 7/4/10:
The Play: Juan Pablo Angel, NY's incredibly dangerous forward and DP, is set in front of the net on a corner kick late in the first half. The ball comes in well from the corner and lands right on the foot of Angel. Also, nobody is actually marking Angel. He has a good 3-5 seconds of holding onto the ball - probably thinking "Holy $#&*, am I really this open?!" - before striking the easiest goal of his career into the back of the net from only a couple of yards out.

The Mistake: Nobody was marking Angel. NOBODY. He is the most dangerous striker on the Red Bulls roster and somehow none of the several men in the box thought to cover him before the corner was taken. Mistake part two occured when he got the ball. Matt Pickens could have charged him, but didn't. Every single member of the defense froze, possibly assuming that he would charge Angel. So no communication and bad set piece team defense led to a stupidly easy goal for NY.

Colorado vs Toronto, 7/10/10
The Play: Early in the second half, Toronto is driving toward the net. Chad Barrett winds up unmarked at the side of the net, punting an easy cross to Fuad Ibrahim, also wide open inside the box. Matt Pickens can only look on as Ibrahim sticks the easiest goal of his career into the Colorado net, the deciding goal of the game.

The Mistake: First of all, a turnover in front of the box by Wells Thompson literally right onto the foot of Barrett started the carnage off. Barrett is unmarked and even unchallenged by anyone until he has already gotten the ball off his foot. Standing between Drew Moor and Danny Earls is Ibrahim, who not only gets the ball with no trouble, but basically steps between them as they both seem a second late on their reaction time, neither one coming close to touching the ball. Again, bad plays at the back and no communication in the box lead to an easy goal.

Kansas City v Colorado, 7/17/10
The Play: Davy Arnaud sneaks through the entire Rapids defense, getting a breakaway and easily beating Matt Pickens on the one on one play.

The Mistake: The entire Rapids defense decided to set up an offside trap on the play in case Arnaud or another attacker decided to try and break through. Unfortunately they all - especially Scott Palguta - were about 3 steps too far up the field and nobody appeared to see Arnaud running through as the ball was hit. There were zero people anywhere near him as he sped through the line as a result, which made the offside trap incredibly easy to exploit for KC, and exploit they did. Pickens appeared shocked that he made it through so easily and as a result charged way too late, the ball was already halfway to the goal by the time he reached Arnaud's feet.

Don't get me wrong, the offense is most certainly to blame for the current lack of fire in the Rapids play. You have to wonder though, if just one man is in position to make the play on any of those bad mishaps, do the Rapids still lose or draw all three of those games? Is it just luck? Are the defenders just not playing with their heads in the game 100% of the time? Do the coaches not cover defensive positioning or something as much as they should be?

Worth a thought.

Jeff Larentowicz is an All-Star!

2010-07-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

Well color me surprised. I wasn't expecting any Rapids to make the team at all, but Jeff Larentowicz was announced just minutes ago as a back-up midfielder and I actually did a double-take when he showed up on the screen.

Jeff has quietly had a very productive and solid year as a defensive midfielder for Colorado, nabbing a goal on 18 shots so far this season as well as playing even more minutes than players like Conor Casey and the captain Pablo Mastroeni. He is certainly part of that fantastic Rapids defense this season, and goes through just about every game without having random mental errors like the rest of the defense seems to be occasionally prone to. (More on that tomorrow)

My favorite choice to be a back-up on the team was keeper Matt Pickens, who is also quietly putting together quite a year between the pipes for the Rapids. He unfortunately was by-passed as Real Salt Lake tender Nick Rimando made the team instead.

Congratulations to Jeff, knock Man U dead for us!

Monday Linkdump: Because there's nothing to do today but read

2010-07-19T07:21:00.000-07:00

All Star Gaffer Arena Set Delicate Balancing Act - Apparently Bruce doesn't want his LA team getting tired so he might not play all four players that were voted into the starting XI. Ooh, poor baby.

Puebla Rout 10 Man Pachuca

Goats Salvage Point vs. Dynamo - A pair of recaps of the SuperLiga action yesterday.

Smith: Not Up to Standards vs. KC - Gary Smith had a much longer talk with the team after the disappointing 1-1 draw to KC than he usually does.

Thierry Henry Suffers Fools Lightly - Good for a laugh, they actually ask him "So, you just won the World Cup?" in the interview. Welcome to America, Henry!

The Morning Kickoff - Talk about the All Star rosters final selections as well as some of the recent DP additions to the league. Also a bit about Ronaldinho joining the Galaxy, ugh.

Around the MLS 7/19/10

2010-07-19T05:25:00.000-07:00

When I said yesterday was a slow day, it didn't hold a candle to today. Even on the international level, there's just nothing going on related to the sport.

Just gotta hope that a couple signings or something happens just so we have something to think about, I guess. Only real highlight of the day is that at 11 PM Mountain time, Bruce Arena will announce that he hasn't put any Rapids on the All Star team's 23 man roster.

Go watch some baseball.

Around the MLS 7/18/10

2010-07-18T19:34:00.001-07:00

Slow day today. An international friendly, a Superliga match-up and only one actual match that counted in the standings to speak of.

Celtic FC 2 - Seattle 1
Seattle couldn't handle the perennial Scottish power after losing their keeper to a red card in the first half. Celtic went up 2-0 in the 64th minute with a strike from Patrick McCourt. Seattle struck back two minutes later, but by then it was already too late and the score stayed 2-1 for the rest of the game.

Los Angeles 2 - Washington DC 1
Landon Donovan started the game off with a 34th minute goal and it was just about all LA from there. United's young gun Andy Najar scored a goal to equalize in the 54th minute, but LA's Edson Buddle struck back quickly and LA kept possession for most of the game after that, keeping DC from the draw.

Houston 1 - Chivas USA 1
The Superliga 2010 group stage game started with Houston hoping for a victory to get to the semifinals. Lovel Palmer scored a very quick goal for Houston in the 6th minute, but Chivas kept getting good chances and finally buried one in the 74th minute, holding the draw until the end.

Mark Kiszla is at it again.

2010-07-18T18:51:00.000-07:00

Shut up, Kiszla.

Nobody insults Rush and gets away with it around here!

Giggs to Colorado? Now there's an idea!

2010-07-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

So apparently Ryan Giggs might be moving to the States to play a little MLS action before he retires from the game for good. (Thanks by the way to Brotherly Game, which is where I found the article.)

Yeah, I know, it's The Sun. Still, Giggs in America is a fun thing to think about. Despite his age he still has the talent to be a good player, especially around these parts.

Personally I would be more than all right if he chose to be a Rapid at the end of his career. And why not? The Rapids don't have any DP's at the moment so even if they get one during the transfer window this season they'll still have an open spot next year for him to rest in. Plus like I said a few days ago, the Rapids could always use the scoring help in their midfield.

Is he old? Yes. But hey, Henry is only 4 years his junior. Beckham is old as well, it didn't stop either of them from coming into the league to play a little ball at the tail end of their careers. As much as I hate the idea of MLS turning into the senior circuit of the EPL, the more older world-wide players show up into the league the more chances that younger guys will follow them there... at least in theory. Either way, Giggs as a Rapid sounds good to me.

Only real problem I can see is the money issue, he might be quite expensive for a player as old as he'll be. Maybe we can lure him with a free Copper Mountain ski pass and a fruit basket?

It's DP madness out there so get us in on it, Smith!

2010-07-18T07:40:00.000-07:00

So it's starting to seem like Colorado is the only team that doesn't have any Designated Players on their team after all the DP signings recently. While that's not completely true - Real Salt Lake for instance don't have any - over half of the teams in the league have one and it's becoming the new, hip thing to do. (Do people still say 'hip'?)

So far there have been seven DP's signed by various teams in the league this season, several of them huge names;
* Landon Donovan - LA Galaxy
* Blaise Nkufo - Seattle Sounders
* Branko Bošković - DC United
* Mista - Toronto FC

And the three most recent signings from the last couple days;
* Thierry Henry - New York Red Bulls
* Omar Bravo - Kansas City Wizards
* Nery Castillo - Chicago Fire

As I said before, some of those are big names. Henry is the most prolific scorer in French national team history, Bravo is one of the best players in Mexico, etc. So why haven't the Rapids gotten in on the out-of-states action here? After watching the last couple of games I think it's obvious that if the Rapids want to avoid a summer swoon and miss the playoffs again after putting all that work in at the start of the year, they're going to need to grab somebody to boost the offense. Juan Pablo Angel has shown what bringing in a big name can do to a club, he's pretty much become the centerpiece of the Red Bulls great offense.

I'll go so far as to say that unless the Rapids can pick up another 6-10 goal player they will miss the playoffs. Conor Casey showed yet again in the KC game that he has a great finish, but frustratingly can't seem to utilize it more than once every so often. Omar Cummings is decent but will never be leading an offense to the playoffs. Claudio Lopez is getting older and can't play a full game anymore. Colin Clark seemed to be mentally stuck in that game and played horribly. The Rapids need some fire, and the only way that's happening in my opinion is with a big name DP joining the burgundy and blue very, very soon.

I don't care if you get Danny Butterfield from Crystal Palace, just get somebody!

Potent Quotable: 7/17/10

2010-07-17T23:29:00.000-07:00

There's no doubt about it, Kansas were better than us for a good period of the game, you know, and on another day might have been out of sight; but in the end we could have won it.
- Gary Smith postgame

Couldn't have said it better myself, coach.

KC 1 Colorado 1; Settling for one point AGAIN.

2010-07-17T20:13:00.000-07:00

The Rapids offense is reminding me of a quote from my favorite sitcom, the Drew Carey Show; "Is pathetisad a word?"

For the first 74 minutes of this game, the Rapids didn't deserve to win it. The offense could only get 3 shots anywhere near goal - none actually ON goal - in the first half of the game, and it took them another 15 minutes of second half play to get their fourth. If it weren't for Matt Pickens stopping the barrage of shots that KC were launching at the goal this game would have been a Wizards-oriented blowout. Fortunately he and the defensive back held their ground as well as they have all year.

KC scored on a blown offside trap by the Rapids defense where Davy Armaud just blew by everybody the second the ball was touched and scored an easy breakaway goal over a sprawling Pickens. After that the defense got more stout and only allowed a couple more easy shots, all of which Pickens was level to.

Similar to last week against Toronto, Claudio Lopez replaced Colin Clark - who had been playing borderline horribly in his first start in a while - and started to get the offense back on track all on his own... again just like last week. The Rapids finally did something when Casey got the ball in the box and had a great individual effort on his part to put the ball into the back of the net for his seventh goal of the season. After that it was really all Rapids as they started to keep the ball for long stretches in the final third and get a good number of chances.

Conor Casey unfortunately kept up his old "I'm only allowed to have one good play per game" style of play as he borked a pathetically easy chance after he had beaten both the keeper and every defender on the field, hitting it left-footed into the post. Just another game where blown finishing would up killing the Rapids in the end. It really, really sucks when your team has every chance to steal a game in the final minutes and cannot only because of horrible execution. Make that move for more offense soon, Gary!

Man of the match: Matt Pickens. Several marquee saves, he was the only reason that the Rapids had a chance to make it a draw late in the game after stopping a flurry of great shots all game long.

Goat of the match: Colin Clark. Bad execution all around and no accuracy on his passes, he couldn't make anything happen in the all important left wing spot in Gary Smith's 4-5-1 formation. Until Claudio Lopez took his spot there was literally nothing going on on the offense.

Rapids vs. Wizards preview

2010-07-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

This is the third meeting of the year between the Kansas City Wizards and the Colorado Rapids, with the season series at 1-1. On April 13th - which was actually three days after the first game they had played this year - Wells Thompson found the net twice leading the Rapids to a 2-1 win in a US Open Cup Qualifying match-up. Turns out that game really wouldn't matter as the burgundy and blue would wind up getting knocked out of the cup the next game by the New York Red Bulls.

In the game that actually wound up counting for anything on April 10th, KC won on a free kick from Kei Kamara in the 48th minute. At the time, the Wizards were at 2-0-0 and looking forward to a successful season, while the Rapids looked like they were going to stick to business as usual from last season, with a 1-1-1 record.

My how things change!

The Rapids currently sit at 6-4-4 and are establishing themselves as one of the best defensive teams in the league, especially now that Kosuke Kimura has returned to the squad. Offensively they're getting a boost with Claudio Lopez back as well and are looking toward a successful playoff run. The Wizards are now 4-8-3, stuck at fifth place in the Eastern conference and with very little chance of coming back to storm the league at the halfway point of the season.

The Rapids should have little trouble defeating the Wizards at The Dick, hopefully this game will spark some fight into the stalling offense as well since KC has the fourth worst Goal Differential in the league, a paltry -7. That combined with the stalwart defense the Rapids have put together since they and KC first met should give them more than a fighting chance to take this one. Mehdi Ballouchy is also back - if we never play in Canada again it will be too soon - which should give them a boost.

Time to start another unbeaten streak! Go Rapids!

Conor Casey didn't bring home the ESPY, The Rapids didn't send up an All Star.

2010-07-16T08:28:00.000-07:00

The ESPY awards have come and passed, and there is still no silverware to the Rapids' names, even of the stupid ESPN award variety. Conor Casey was nominated for the Best MLS Player award after scoring 16 goals last season in less appearances than any other goal-scorer nominated, but he wound up a runner-up to Landon Donovan.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure this award belonged to Donovan the second he scored that amazing goal against Algeria to win Group D for the USA in the World Cup. It's only supposed to be for MLS achievements and I think that Casey's resume last year was equal to if not slightly above Donovan's but hey - these are ESPN viewers we're talking about here. I suspect a few of them just voted for Donovan because it was the only name they recognized.

In other "things we voted for" news, there are no Rapids players on the Starting XI for the MLS All Star team. Not incredibly surprising, considering Casey has not been himself this season - 6 goals but half of them on PK's is not all that impressive for an "offensive superstar" like himself - and there are better goalkeepers than Matt Pickens out there as well. Pickens is the one I was personally spam-voting for after his impressive year so far. Former Rapid Kyle Beckerman did make the starting XI, so good on him.

The rest of the 23 man roster for the all star team will be announced on Monday, although I doubt we'll see much burgandy and blue on there.

I'm sure the Rapids players will get over it quickly when they bring home the MLS Cup!

Henry is a Red Bull, who will be a Rapid?

2010-07-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

The transfer window for MLS opened today, the only news so far being big name Thierry Henry coming to the Red Bulls. With the former Arsenal and Barcelona striker in the MLS, it leaves a ton of possibilities open for the rest of the league as to collecting players from overseas. Henry may be at the tail end of his career but he is sure to provide a spark to the men in red in New York even if he plays only a little better than he did for the French national team this last world cup. He does have the most goals scored in French history, after all!

The Rapids quite obviously are lacking goal-scoring. Coach Gary Smith has said that he's looking for some more 'umph' to the offense and that he is more than willing to pick up a new member of the team to do so. And it's hard to see why he wants more creativity on the offense, the Rapids have only scored 16 goals on the season in their 14 games, three of them coming off the PK.

The Rapids have had a stifling defense so far this year, giving up only 13 goals in 14 games, or 0.93 goals a game this season with the help of a strong back line and some inspired work by their keeper Matt Pickens. Considering how up and down the offense has been, that's a very, very good thing. So one can assume that if a move is made for the Rapids it won't be on the defense. Cummings and Casey make for a very good front line - when they're both forward, anyway - despite a bit of a lack of finishing touch. If a move is made it will most likely come in the midfield.

So who is available world-wide that the Rapids could use in the midfield? They already have decent creativity and depth there with Mehdi Ballouchy, Claudio Lopez et al. If they're going to find a man to climb the ladder and be an instant starter and instant contributor he'll have to be something special.

But as I asked - who will it be?

Raft the Burgundy Wave with me!

2010-07-11T00:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Burgundy Wave, a blog dedicated to talking about Colorado's representatives of the beautiful game, the Colorado Rapids.