Just saw the first two goals. Terrible Yarbrough mistake. Good goal keeper, he has to not let it get to his head. Crap result, oh well.
This game felt similar to the Broncos Super Bowl loss to Seattle Seahawks. First snap of the game goes over Manning’s head and out for a safety. After that the Broncos had everything go wrong, and lose big time. The safety took all the wind out of their sails that night and they just couldn’t pull it together. Tonight, the own goal had a similar effect on us. After that it was just a pitiful performance all around. We really need to have someone step up and be the emotional leader on the pitch. This was just a bad showing tonight and no one could get out of their own way. I’m pretty sure the only bright spot was Larraz’s interception followed by his 60 yard run to put a shot just wide of the bar. If that doesn’t tell you how this game went I’m not sure what does.
Missing Acosta, Vines, and yes, even Rubio tonight really put a damper on the game. Lewis probably could’ve done something, but as mentioned above, we barely played down the left side once Galvan came in, so hard to say since Lewis also plays on the left usually.
Whelp, that was total crap. Just seemed like after the own goal the boys couldn't get back into any sort of rhythm and Bozooka Fists didn't help. Put this behind them and move on. Hopefully they bounce back like last year.
So, last night we only used 4 subs: Beitashour for Wilson Galvan and Benezet for Mezquida and Shinyashiki Larraz for Price I was unsure of the sub for Beitashour. I understand not bringing in Moor at that moment, as FSL’s strikers were playing with speed, but I guess Ford is simply not ready to go? Beitashour isn’t exactly the fastest either, and with his sub we brought Rosenberry inside next to Abubakar? Odd. Mezquida didn’t exactly have a good game, and Shinyashiki was playing decent enough but looked gassed. But why would you play 5’4” Barrios as your center forward after that? I know we didn’t have any other true CF’s on the bench, but there’s gotta be a better use for the best Rapid on the pitch at that time then to take him out of where he had been successful. Long balls to a 5’4” winger playing in between two 6’+ center backs? Not exactly a winning strategy. Barrios is an amazing player, but a center forward he is not. And then on top of that we seemingly just ditched the left flank, essentially nullifying Galvan’s presence and creativity Larraz came in and WANTED to be there. Kids got a bright future. Price didn’t seem all that tired, but coming off injury I understand. What I didn’t understand was Bassett looked absolutely gassed around the 75th - 80th minute. Thought for sure he was coming out because his heavy legs weren’t exactly doing the work we are used to them doing. With the game 3-0 down, why not bring in Toure as well and protect either Barrios or Bassett from potential injury? And why all these weird tactical changes as well? Wasn’t a great coaching showing in my opinion, and it wasn’t a great player showing. I know it’s tough with 3 key cogs missing for Nats, our DP on injury, and our starting striker on injury. I think we’re the better team. We just didn’t act like it and our depth met a hard fight. FSL came in hungry on their 3rd game in 7 days. We came in tired on our 3rd game in 7 days. Oh well. Knock the dust off your shoes on the way out of town boys, and come back and win the next two games. We’re still the reigning RMC winners after all
We had a spot on ESPN for the Not Top 10 last week (red to translator). All signs point to a second week in the list. Bummer.
Sorry-ish for the intrusion. I was just trying to see what was up with y'all last night because this wasn't the Rapids team I had seen in previous games. I picked TheWarmBurger's post to respond to, since it encapsulated the whole game, but I was specifically looking for the bolded quote below. Barrios always ripped us up when he was with Dallas too. Great player. We weren't missing anyone. Except maybe our other 2 D-mids who are out on injury, as their pride has been dealt a terrible blow. We've lost a lot of bite since 2018 Beckerman. You are. We came in with a do-or-die after dropping lots of points after having gone up early. The last couple of weeks have been super frustrating!!! I expect that to continue for at least another couple of years. I will now go die in a fire.
I just wish if we’re going to play the worst soccer of the season it would be against someone other than RSL. #Rapids96 pic.twitter.com/v0f2zWvQBx— Duane Brown (@theduanebrown) July 25, 2021
Here's Fraser's explanation of the Beita sub: On subbing in Beita: "It was to put Keegan in a position to bring the ball out mostly. That was the reason." #Rapids96 #RSLvCOL— Matt Pollard (@LWOSMattPollard) July 25, 2021
Due to technical difficulties I messed the first half. Joined the broadcast just as the second half was about to start. Someday I will watch the first half highlights - especially curious about the own goal. Not much to say about the Rapids' play in the second half. Obviously at that point they had a really tough task. It was a bit disappointing that they weren't able to generate more chances. And agree that Galván wasn't getting more of the ball. I too thought they should have put in Touree at some point in the second half. He appears to have the ability to force defenders into mistakes. Really, after Rubio, the Rapids don't have anyone who can play the #9 role well - given what it requires in Fraser's system. This is why I have been advocating for Pádraig finding another forward. The Rapids need Rubio to be healthy soon and the same for Wilson.
I was fuming during/just after the game, but now I've had some time to think about the result a bit. We're definitely a better team than what we saw on Saturday, and it was clearly an off night...But that was still an appalling result and they really couldn't have picked a worse game to lay an egg. This team still has some issues it needs to work on. I honestly think the second goal we conceded was a lot more unforgivable than the first. The own goal was unfortunate, but I didn't think we were out of the game at that point. However, having Bobby********ingWood run half the length of the pitch with the ball and we couldn't close him down or catch him is pretty unbelievable. That really shouldn't happen. The third goal was whatever since everybody seemed to have given up by the point. I feel like a huge chuck of our attacking strategy this year has been "give Barrios or Vines the ball and hope something good happens". Take Vines out of the equation and opponents can just mark Barrios out of the game. Yes, we do get good offensive contributions from Rubio, Basset, Acosta, etc. as well, but to me their contributions are more streaky and it doesn't feel like we regularly depend on them like we do with Barrios and Vines. We also seem to rarely control the midfield unless we have both Price and Acosta on the field. We need to figure out a better alternative if one of these guys is missing. If any game this year is a poster child for the roster needing reinforcements, this is the one. We desperately need more options on attack and we need somebody in central defense or in the midfield that is more mobile and can reliably disrupt opponents pressing forward. The really frustrating part is these are pieces we've known the team has needed since last year, and it seems like the club is indifferent to addressing this. Somebody on Facebook described our roster situation pretty well, basically saying that we're built to make the playoffs but not do much else. We're not that far off from being a great team, and I really wish the club would go out and attempt to make 1 or 2 major signings during the summer to try and get us to that point.
Good stuff here, going to hack it up to respond to individual parts: I don't know what Rosenberry was doing just conceding space all the way down the field and into the box. At some point you have to step up and stop the run. I get you don't want to get beat and give Wood a 1 on 1, but when your feet cross that line at the top of the box that's the time to say "no further". Also Yarbrough should have done better. You've got Rosenberry correctly (at least he did that much) forcing Wood outside. Yarbrough can't get beat near post like that given that. Make Wood beat you with the tougher shot to the far post. Two of those were notably not available for this match. Benezet, Shinyashiki, and Mezquida are capable (and outside of Shin, overpaid) backups but we can't expect to come back from a 2 goal deficit relying on them. This has been obvious since the preseason. There's no bite in this team outside of Price/Acosta. The midfield regularly gets overrun if they're not both in it. At this point I really think its not "the club" that's indifferent, its that KSE is handcuffing them. Yes, the aforementioned overpaid Benezet is a black mark ($1.8M total between transfer fee, TFC payment, and 2 years salary) that's hurting our ability to make a move but that's not the only thing holding us back. We don't have the resource investment to find options and sign them from KSE. Not to fully let the FO off the hook, there are still moves that can be made without KSE investment, but there isn't much to work with. We either have players that are invaluable (and thus, we can't afford to trade) or players that we don't need (and thus, have little value in a trade). Winger is about the only place where we have extra resources that could get a good return. Our best bet is probably to hope we can sell some of our young players and then use that money to fill holes, but of course selling them creates more holes.
KSE isn't limited to indifference, its sheer stupidity. If KSE weren't run by a bunch of smooth-brains, they could get their teams back on TV with the majority in the Denver market. That, in turn, would actually make a company more inclined to become a shirt sponsor since people would actually be able to watch the team. If we had a shirt sponsor, we'd have more revenue available that could be used to sign big players. Instead of actually being proactive they're basically running out the clock until the League get's a streaming deal done in a couple of years, which is consistent with how they've always approached the league. KSE are a parasitic organization. I really don't know why the other owners put up with that shit considering how much money they've been pouring into MLS.