The final home match of a six game May sees the Rapids hosting St. Louis CITY Saturday night. St. Louis comes in on the heels of two consecutive losses at Minnesota United, 0-3 and 2-3, the second of which was a US Open Cup match midweek. The last MLS wins for CITY came in March and their only win since then was v Omaha Union in the Open Cup. They aren’t a goal scoring machine thus far with nine goals in 14 matches led by Cederic Teuchert with three goals and one assist. The Rapids are in 7th in the West on 19 points while St. Louis are in 14th on 11 points. The first meeting this season between the two sides took place Feb. 22 and ended in a 0-0 draw in which the Rapids’ defense was often blocking shots and Zach Steffen was credited with five saves. In this match the burgundy boys managed zero shots on goal. Again, the injury list has gotten large for the Rapids: Chidozie Awaziem (not due to injury) Cole Bassett (ankle) Ali Fadal (knee) Rafael Navarro (ankle) Zack Steffen (oblique) Given the above, look for Ian Murphy to start at CB with Andreas Maxsø, Darren Yapi up top and Ted Ku-DiPietro wide in place of Bassett. Of course Nico Hansen will start again in goal. What formation will Armas deploy? He started the season with a 4-3-3 then went to a 4-2-2-2 to get Cole Bassett more involved and last Saturday went with a 4-2-3-1. Will the injuries impact the formation? Olof Mellberg has regularly gone with a 4-3-3 this season for St. Louis. With St. Louis playing their third consecutive road match, having played midweek and having to play at altitude it would seem that a high press right from the beginning of the match would be effective. This very well could be the first home match of the season that sees a weather delay - hail the most likely culprit given the NWS forecast. Wednesday night the Rapids are in Portland, but don’t have a match the following Saturday with the LAFC match having been rescheduled to July 9th.
2-1 win, with Mahailovic (of course) and Cabral (of course not) scoring. I feel confidant St. Louis hates playing in hail,
I’ll go 2-1 with 45 minute pre match hail delay. God, Navarro and Basset out is grim. We are not deep. But they are bad.
2-1 win, goals by Mihailovic and Cannon. St. Louis is not a good team and their manager's seat is blistering hot. I think even with the missing players the Rapids have enough to take the 3 points at home and quite possibly force a coaching change for City. It would be disappointing to get anything less than a draw, even with our availability issues. https://view-from-the-couch.blogspot.com/2025/05/next-man-up.html
Even tho we're playing another weak team I can't see us getting another win with Rafa and Steffen both out, and Cole out for this week as well. But hoping I'll be wrong. Guessing at the lineup.... ...............................................Hansen ........Cannon..............Maxso..................Murphy..................Travis ..............................Larraz.............................Atencio .......Basset......................................................................Ku .............................................................Mihailovic .....................................Yapi Weak in midfield and especially on the bench. Really don't know what Bassett can do - he hasn't shown much yet but he's had very few minutes - can he provide some of the energy and defensive work Cole does? If not City might just run through us all night. Hope Ku can provide some spark in attack and last at least 60'. We need a goal threat besides DM.
Doubt the Rapids score a goal without the play of KDP. He keeps the ball moving quickly in the attacking half and is a threat to score. Lots of one touches put the defense on their heels. Pass to Yapi that lead to the goal wasn’t easy to deal with but good enough. Play of the game, Hansen’s 1v1 save after an egregious giveaway. Lightening that caused the delay was mainly in the clouds and didn’t seem likely to strike the stadium.
There were 6 lightning strikes within 10 miles of the stadium and then nothing between 10 and 30 miles before you got to the storms SE of the city. That's typical Rapids bad weather luck.
Looking at the overall flow of play, the victory was deserved. Rapids had more possession and shots, therefore had more chances for a lucky bounce, which led to their goal. (I wonder if there are statistics on how many goals are from straight shots versus deflections off of other players?) Hansen came up big on the breakaway. They go up 1-0 and it's an entirely different game. Terrible turnover, by the way. This team has confounded me all year. Really a crazy year. But it's been interesting.
Soccer can be capricious. In the 36’ of the match St. Louis’ Cedric Teuchart was coming in clean on goal following an egregious turnover by the Rapids near midfield. He was 1 v 1 with Nico Hansen, a 23 year old keeper playing in his third MLS match. Hansen didn’t blink as parried Teuchart’s right footed shot with the ball evading an onrushing João Klauss who was in position to follow up. Five minutes later, Darren Yapi scored after collecting a chipped cross from Ted Ku-DiPietro and making a quick turn. His shot took a slight deflection and it seemed to wrong foot Roman Bürki. After only six minutes the match was delayed for an hour and a half delay due to “severe” weather - meaning lightning in the area. Rain continued for the rest of the match along with a wind out of the north. This might explain both teams having trouble consistently connecting passes. It was slick, although water was not pooling on the pitch. Although St. Louis had a higher xG (due to the breakaway), the Rapids were in control much of the match and managed six shots on goal to three for SLCSC. The Rapids were minus four key contributors - Rafa Navarro, Cole Bassett, Chidozie Awaziem and Zach Steffen. And for the second straight match Chris Armas went with a 4-2-3-1 starting Ku-DiPietro and Sam Bassett on the wings - the first start this season for both. Ian Murphy slotted in for Awaziem and Hansen for Steffen. This was Hansen’s third start and his second shutout. He has conceded one goal thus far. Look for him to continue to start with Steffen dealing with an injury and slated for national team duty in June. Oli Larraz continues to be the Rapids’ midfield dynamo. He is all over the pitch working to muck up the opposition’s attack and looking to get the ball moving up the pitch. In this match he completed 65 of 70 passes for a 92% completion rate while recording two interceptions and three tackles. Ted Ku-DiPietro has looked very effective in the Rapids’ attack for two matches in a row. He keeps the ball moving quickly, at times using accurate one touch passes. Now that he has got some quality minutes and demonstrated his technical and tactical ability he is going to force Armas to make him a regular starter. Without him, the Rapids likely don’t score in this match. On Wednesday night the Rapids are in Portland facing the Timbers.