Another midweek match for the Rapids which will be followed by a weekend trip to Vancouver. Fortunately, there will be a couple of weeks between the Vancouver and Austin matches which I assume is an international break. The Rapids lost 0-1 to Houston back on March 23 on a Brad Smith goal. In its last 5 matches the Dynamo have 1 win which was back on Mar. 23 2-1 over FC. Last weekend they lost to the Galaxy 1-2 in Carson, CA. In the West standing the Rapids come in sitting 6th with 22 pts in 15 matches while Houston is in 8th on 18 pts in 14 matches.
Tomorrow's player availability report for our game against Houston.#Rapids96 pic.twitter.com/WGP09rNByK— Colorado Rapids (@ColoradoRapids) May 28, 2024
Another Wednesday night game? Try another Wednesday night win! We’re bound to improve defensively, so I’ll say 2-1. Goals by Navarro and…Yappi getting his first MLS goal. Excuse me. I’m late taking my meds.
1-1 draw, goal by Navarro. Houston has a much better defense but a much worse offense than we do (and that seems weird to type) and I think its more likely on the road and short rest we play to their typical low-scoring game (2 gpg combined average) than our high-scoring ones (3.53 gpg combined). Houston was the only team to shut us out so far this season, but I think now that Navarro has heated up we can get one. https://view-from-the-couch.blogspot.com/2024/05/rapids-head-to-houston-looking-to-get.html
At least we cleaned up and scored. Time to give Navarro a break from PKs or help him develop a different PK shot (nobody is falling for the pause/stutter step anymore).
He’s definitely starting to become predictable . I gave a little sigh….. when Bassett handed the ball off to him. Luckily Milhailovic was Johnny on the spot to follow it up.
With that goal Djordje is on pace for 25 goal involvements this year (goals+assists), which would beat Rubio's club record of 23 from 2022.
What's the count of goals given up so far where Steffen put the ball back out in front of goal? Bad luck?
The second half started so promising and we had Houston on the back foot. Man…. how that’s changed since the 70th minute. All Houston now but we’ve had some chances….. 3-1 Houston
Sooner or later, you have to score. Someone has to make a good shot. I thought we outplayed them much of the game, but someone has to finish. Today, Houston finished.
14 goals allowed in 5 games, and we shut out Vancouver in 1 of them. As much as our lack of offense appears to be a problem, the defense is the real issue
Scored once on a missed PK. It was a total team breakdown. Shame too, because they did some good things today.
At 1-1, I thought that if the Rapids score Houston would roll over for the rest of the game. H looked down, but a goal changed everything. The Rapids were the ones to roll over instead.
Man, Lamine Diack must be terrible. This team needs a stabilizing presence on the defense. For some reason someone like Julien Baudet in 2009-2010 keeps coming to mind as such a presence but that could be rose colored hindsight glasses. The slack in offense after the three subs was remarkable. Also, no thanks on Lewis. At least Cabral adds speed that works well with Navarro. Not sure what Jonathan Lewis adds.
Steffen was really poor tonight, and has been poor for a number of games. That needs to get sorted. That aside, the subs killed our momentum (again) which points to a thin bench (duh). Larraz and Ronan, for example, really shouldn't be on the field at the same time. They make the midfield a wet paper bag on defense. It's clear this team needs to have an active transfer window this summer. That's pretty much going to make or break the season at this point.
How many of the shots we make are actually good quality/high probability shots? It seems like we can only score on the easiest of garbage while other teams actually seem to be able to convert difficult/low-probability shots.
Interesting point. We had a number of chances where the backs got behind the defense. Struggled to make a back pass for a shot. At the same time, Navarro has missed two PKs. Can’t get a better shot than that.
The team is much better than last year but each game is like a box of chocolates. It’s frustrating, I was never convinced tonight, but hopeful. I never felt like we were gonna get a shot except what the H defense was happy to risk. I see the progress but it’s not steady growth.