7:30pm • Apple TV St. Louis CITY is 14th in the Western Conference on 6 points while the Rapids are 9th on 13 points. It’s been a revolving door for head coaches at SLCSC with the latest being Yoann Damet who, like Matt Wells is young and in his first head coaching job. Demet is 36 and started on the coaching track at a very young age (just as Wells did). His recent assistant coaching positions have been at MLS sides. SLCSC is searching for their second win of the season, with the first coming on March 21 v New England. Matt Wells has stated that they want to press high and build through a complex series of passes. Thus far they’ve struggled to score goals putting in nine in 10 games played. Veteran Marcel Hartel leads them in scoring with 3 goals and an assist. Once again the Rapids are coming into a match having to deal with fixture congestion and injuries. It’s probably not a coincidence that the goals have been hard to come by in recent matches given these issues combined with travel. For this match it will again be the midfield taking the biggest hit with Josh Atencio and Wayne Frederick out. Connor Ronan isn’t on the injured list, but hasn’t played since the beginning of the season. In his press conference yesterday Wells stated that they will be playing a new formation tonight given the lack of depth in the midfield. Quite possibly it will be a 4-4-2 with Yapi and Rafa up top with Rafa playing a facilitating role like a #10. Look for Paxten Aaronson and Hamzat Ojediran in the center of the midfield flanked by wingers. This is a must win for the Rapids as they have been dropping points in matches that were there for the taking in the last month or so. To do so they are going to have to figure out how to score goals again. They’ve had a number of matches recently where they’ve had a lot of possession without creating quality chances. Both teams have midweek MLS matches next Wednesday with the Rapids traveling to Minnesota United. Weather: Upper 60s falling to upper 50s with winds gusting to 15mph. Chance of a shower just below 50%
2-0 win, goals by Navarro and Minoungou. St. Louis is a bad team with only 9 goals scored in 10 games. This is a 'get healthy' sort of game and we need to treat it that way. Put them away early, maybe rotate some players in the second half, and don't struggle too much to get the three points. https://view-from-the-couch.blogspot.com/2026/05/time-to-turn-things-around.html
2-1 win. Navarro is due and I abused Aaronson last week, so there is motivation to make me look bad. I can live with that.
The only game that matched last night's inept performance was the first half of the first game. But that was against a real team and not the woeful St. Louis City. I have to say that not a single Rapids player performed well: Aaronson was played out of position and MIA for the first half; Rafa worked hard as usual but was never in a position to be a threat; Ojediran picked up yet another pointless yellow; Georgi deked and danced but never made a threatening cross into the box; Hansen went on a foolish "walk about" in the first half that should have cost us a goal; even Herrington got beat on their goal. Yes, the fierce winds made things very difficult and the ref was horrible and lost control of the game--the red on Holding was a ridiculous call--but from the opening whistle the Rapids were never competitive, A crucial 3 points squandered.
Real questions to be asked now. Can Wells adjust from his favored system which clearly is no longer working? 12 shots on target across the last 5 games shows that the league has figured out how to shut us down. Can we settled on a best XI and are there enough MLS quality players in it? Late last night I asked "how many Rapids on the field right now start for a good MLS team? Rafa and Herrington yes. Aaronson maybe? Other than that? Anyone else?
On a windy night at DSGP two huge moments sent the Rapids to an 0-1 loss to St. Louis CITY. In the 26’ a goal kick from Roman Bürki (against the wind) found the head of Simon Becher who flicked it forward to Jeong Sang-Bin. Sang-Bin had gotten behind Lucas Herrington who had lost track of him when watching the ball come off Becher’s head. He easily rounded Nico Hansen (who started in place of an injured Zach Steffen) to score. Going into the half the Rapids had created a couple of decent chances from Yapi and Georgi, but failed to capitalize. This would prove to be deadly as Rob Holding took a straight red in the 51’ for denying an obvious goal scoring activity. After the match Matt Wells stated that he wasn’t worried as he believed it would be overturned by VAR. It wasn’t and once again the Rapids were faced with trying to get points while down a man. Playing with ten men the Rapids continued to hunt for goals while twice they were closing to conceding more when CITY was able to get 2 v 1 against the back line. Ironically, the SLCSC went down to ten men in the 87’ when Christopher Durkin picked up his second yellow. The Rapids couldn’t take advantage, even with seven minutes of added time. The Rapids are now in a serious goal scoring drought. In their last four MLS matches they’ve scored one goal, at Vancouver. Wells stated in his last press conference that they are working on it everyday in practice and said an analogy is building a house where the walls are finished but there’s a lot of work to do on the interior to get the house completed. Going into the match, Matt Wells was forced to juggle roles and positions due to injuries. The biggest change was having Rafa Navarro play the #8 role which took him away from the goal. This put Darren Yapi up top in more of a #9 position flanked by Georgi Minoungou and Dante Sealy. The hill stays steep for the Rapids with road trips to conference rivals Minnesota United (this Wednesday) and Real Salt Lake (Saturday). They will go into Wednesday’s match with both Rob Holding and Hamzat Ojediran suspended.
MLS fined the Colorado Rapids and coach Matt Wells for violating the mass confrontation policy after Rob Holding was issued a red card in the 50th minute last weekend against St. Louis CITY. pic.twitter.com/Pg0KbKk4ql— Braidon Nourse (@BraidonNourse) May 12, 2026