REAL SALT LAKE v COLORADO RAPIDS Wednesday, August 2, 7:00pm MT Rice-Eccles Stadium, Salt Lake City, Utah The Rocky Mountain Cup rivals play for the first time ever in the U.S. Open Cup when the Colorado Rapids come to Utah to take on Real Salt Lake. Real won their first-ever game in the competition earlier this year, while the Rapids have lost their opening game in the cup the last two seasons. Is anyone else the least bit excited for this game? I started this thread because, 1) there isn't one yet and first kick is less than 19 hours away, and 2) I can't make it to the game myself so I'm hoping to experience it vicariously through you all. A good excerpt from the MLSnet match preview regarding the Colorado Rapids: "IN THE OPEN CUP: The 1999 U.S. Open Cup Finalists haven't had much success over the recent past, losing their first match in the competition in four of the last six years, including a 4-1 defeat by the USL First Division Minnesota Thunder last year. ... It was the third time in that stretch the losses came to second-tier competition." Here's to hoping the CRapids first-round struggles continue against "second-tier competition". Seriously, though, I see an RSL victory in this one. Since we played them here at the end of may, the CRapids have had a tough time finding the back of the net on the road. The have only 2 goals in their last 4 road games, all of which were losses. Conversely, RSL has a 3-2-3 record at home with 11 goals scored over the same stretch. RSL 2-1.
I'm psyched for the game. Especially since if we win this one we will host the next one at RES as well. http://www.usopencup.com/calendar/15675.html But first thing first, we must destroy the Rapids.
I hope to make it. I'm on call and might be forced to work if an emergency arises, otherwise I should be able to be there. We'll need whatever voices we can get given it's mid-week and ticket wasn't part of the season package. Sounds like RSL can make a deep run if they can defend their home turf.
Is it on tv at all?? I could hope but I doubt it. Wont be able to make it out but wish I could be there. Here is hoping we pull it off again tonight...
I think pretty much the only TV tonight of cup games is FSC showing the Crew and Wizards. You have to attend the RSL match if you want to see it.
Well, I'll be there cheering on RSL. Apparently, they don't get as many fans out to these games. According to the articles I've read though, the team is taking this quite serious and Ellinger is committing to playing the starters. I'm pretty much just hoping for some entertaining soccer tonight since this doesn't count in the MLS standings, but it would still be nice to see a good effort and a win.
That's right! I also heard you can get someone in under 10 for free. Does anybody know if that's true? Can someone validate that, please? That might be for a higher-priced ticket though.
Yes, but... Airplane - $867 Greyhound - $255 This was in response to RSL FM's post with images of the plane and greyhound. Not to mention on the greyhound, you don't have to rent a room. Plus, en route entertainment is paid for (have you ever rode the Greyhound?; the people are fascinating; just be careful where you sit).
and what you step in... When I was a kid I used to go by Greyhound to LA and back, before busses had toilets. Let me tell you, that was a challenge, with each rolling ridge crossed dashing the hopes raised on the up-slop that a rest stop was just ahead...
Been to the stadium many times. Haven't felt this excited to get up to a game in a while. Let's keep in going RSL, please, for my sanity.
Real Life™ stopped me from making it to this one! Argh! I'm at home now, listening to Scholes and Hatch on the call. Sounds like a fun match! PS - Expect a break in tradition from my usual audio posts: I'll be posting the match in its entirety. Yay!
RSL 0, Colorado 1 (Another Ellinger lifeline lost). PS: Questionable substitutions. Kreis had no business being on the pitch after '60.
Well at least we don't have to worry about that pesky US Open Cup anymore. Good grief, Charlie Brown.
Couldn't make the game, or listen, tonight. Can anyone who was there give a quick recap? I had to read through the CRapids boards to get a play by play, but they're obviously more interested in how their side looks than ours. Love to hear how we looked, how we lost, how we shouldn't have missed a couple of open nets??? From the sounds of the CRapids posts, the best thing we had going for us tonight was Scholesy's commentating. That guy really is a gem. How did Stewart do on the back line? I'm very interested to see what he can bring. Did Nolly look steady? How the heck did Chris Brown get on the field, was Klein totally exhausted or useless? Replies greatly appreciated.
I gave Fuegote my copy of the stats so I can't publish them. Where are you Fuegote??? I do remember the shots: RSL 17 COL 8. I thought we looked sluggish the first 10 minutes then we turned it on for the rest of the half. The RCB really got into the coaches head at that time (I'll let Fuegote explain if he wants to... ). We came out sluggish for the second half and never really dominated again. We played even with them the rest of the game. I liked our back line. I thought our weakness was with Andy Williams and Jason Kreis. We could've (should've) done without both of them and we would've been better (that's a lot of 've for one sentence!).
From what we heard, Stewart and Watson looked impressive...Scholes was floored that Watson was getting as little time as he did yet seemed to make a big impact (although not too lasting). Let's see...Worthen seemed to be playing well from his calls...Sequiera was more or less worthless...I think I heard Kreis mentioned once around the 55-60 minute mark and that was about it. Oh, and Scholes was upset for most of the half about the foul calls that were going our (Colorado's) way and how few fouls you were winning, accusing the ref of making up for the first half. On the other hand, he thought we came out much stronger and deserved it, whereas it sounded like you guys were DC last night; tons of chances, little from it. This is all second-hand, any one who is there would be a better source...and for anyone who was there, can you help out a Rapids fan with evals of our team?
Here's the write-up from MLSNet: Rapids Wash RSL Out of Cup And the stats: Colorado Rapids (1-0-0) vs. Real Salt Lake (0-1-0) August 02, 2006 -- Rice-Eccles Stadium Scoring Summary: COL -- Jacob Peterson 1 (Clint Mathis ) 61 Colorado Rapids -- Matt Jordan, Hunter Freeman, Aitor Karanka, Mike Petke, Eric Denton, Terry Cooke (Jacob Peterson 46), Kyle Beckerman, Nicolas Hernandez, Clint Mathis (Dan Gargan 84), Daniel Wasson, Jovan Kirovski (Fabrice Noel 77), Substitutes Not Used: Colin Clark, Bouna Coundoul, Luchi Gonzalez, Stephen Keel Real Salt Lake -- Jay Nolly, Kevin Novak, Nikolas Besagno (Jamie Watson 83), Jack Stewart, Willis Forko, Chris Klein (Chris Brown 84), Mehdi Ballouchy, Andy Williams (Joey Worthen 75), Carey Talley, Jeff Cunningham (Douglas Sequeira 75), Jason Kreis. Substitutes Not Used: Kenny Cutler, Chase Harrison, Cameron Knowles Real Salt Lake Colorado Rapids total shots: 17 (Chris Klein 4) 8 (Jacob Peterson 2) shots on goal: 7 (Chris Klein 3) 5 (Jacob Peterson 2) fouls: 11 (Carey Talley 5) 14 (Nicolas Hernandez 3, Jovan Kirovski 3) offsides: 3 (Jason Kreis 2) 3 (Jovan Kirovski 3) corner kicks: 6 (Mehdi Ballouchy 3, Andy Williams 3) 2 (Terry Cooke 1, Clint Mathis 1) saves: 4 (Jay Nolly 4) 7 (Matt Jordan 7) Misconduct Summary: COL -- Nicolas Hernandez (caution; Tackle from Behind) 54 COL -- Daniel Wasson (caution; Professional Foul) 79 referee: Ricardo Salazar Referee's Assistants: Feliciano Palomino; Mark Oliver 4th official: Tyler Ploeger time of game: 1:50 attendance: 4,546 weather: Partly Cloudy -and- 92 degrees Personally, I don't think it's fair for the Rapids to have another team's coach on the bench.
Not fuegote - it was me that you gave the stats to. Fuegote is my bro ... But yeah, we were able to get into the coach's head at the half with some well-placed South American insults (he's from Uruguay). He was terribly unhappy and at one point told one of the RSL staff that if I wasn't kicked out that he would jump into the stands and deck me. What got me was that he told someone that I was hurling racist insults. Now anyone who knows me knows that I may insult the other team, coaches, etc...but I'm not a racist by a long shot. I truly love Uruguay and have total respect for all the Uruguayos that I know, so at the end of the game I yelled through the megaphone "Yo Amo a Uruguay!" and he came over and we had a chat. Basically, he said that we have the best fans in MLS, but I didn't need to get personal with him. I told him that there was no harm meant, it was just during the heat of the battle, and he hopped over the little fence and shook my hand. He was REALLY cool about it. I went and waited for him outside the stadium and chatted with him for a while afterword. He is a totally classy guy.