After a bit of a break before Sat's match the Rapids are now back into some fixture congestion. With a S-W-S-W-S-W-S schedule including last Saturday. Obviously this will mean some squad rotation and 5 subs in this game and beyond. Like NE, the Sounders are in a playoff position but need to keep accumulating points to solidify. They are coming off a pair of draws with Portland and Dallas. I'm looking forward to seeing Navarro in person and hopefully an aggressive and confident Rapids side.
Will the hard work and actual scoring of goals against NE continue against the Sounders? Have we heard anything about Tavares' condition? Can Harris build on his performance? Can someone please give Navaro service to score in the box? I am, for the first time in a very long time, really looking forward to a Rapids game.
2-1 loss, goal by Navarro. Seattle is a much better team than us and they aren't distracted by coaching issues like New England was. The Rapids offense did look better on Wednesday so I think they might score, but they won't win. https://view-from-the-couch.blogspot.com/2023/09/busy-week-continues-with-seattle.html
Link to availability for this match. Tavares is good to go it appears. For some reason I am not able to imbed tweets.
Colorado Rapids Availability Report for Seattle: Unchanged from the weekend. As we reported, Tavares (subbed off Saturday 30') and Díaz (building fitness) are available. pic.twitter.com/IN4cQE8k0C— Burgundy Wave (@Burgundywave) September 20, 2023 My try at linking
You know it’s a rough night for player form when Luis Diaz has more impact in his first game at Altitude than your $1mil DP Winger, and Tavares makes Priso look like Sergio Busquets. Poor. Poor. Poor. At least Bassett seemed to care all game. More than what can be said for most of the team until the subs came on.
New England was a fluke because of their off-field turmoil. They would've beaten us otherwise. This game far more representative of where this team is at. Coaching doesn't fix this. It's been said a million times, but there simply aren't enough good pieces to this roster. This isn't fixed without massive turnover. Special mention for Cabral hard-quitting on a run when he had a ton of space down the wing. Gutman played the ball to where Cabral sould have been. I truly hope I never see Kevin Cabral play another minute in MLS again. It's one thing to be talentless, and it's another to be lazy. He is both.
I have tried to stay positive, but the first half last night was dreadful. No energy, no apparent plan going forward; if we won even one second ball, I must have missed it. As Quinn pointed out, Cabral was an embarassment. Tavares, perhaps coming off the mysterious health situation on Saturday, was a hindrance. Rosenberry was beaten consistently; he's been a real favorite and such a hard worker these past few years, but he seems to have lost a step or two. Gutman continues to work hard, but he became increasingly frustrated as the game wore on. For the first time in almost 20 years as a season ticket holder, I left a game early. After Rusnak's goal in the 56th minute, I couldn't take anymore. As I was driving home, I realized that with the possible exception of Maxso, Gutman, and Bassett (at least when he plays with the intensity of the last 2 games) there is not another Rapids' player who would start for other MLS teams. We are going to need that paddle because there will need to be a lot of paddling upstream against the rapids if the Rapids ever hope to turn this around.
It's what happens when you only shop for castoffs from other teams. Especially when you shop for MLS team's castoffs. It's one thing to get a guy who's fallen out of form or the managers good graces in a tougher team in a tougher league. But it's another thing entirely when your starting XI is made up of players other teams deemed 'surplus.' Speaking of 'surplus' - isn't it great to see Anthony Markanich (who was deemed surplus by Padraig et al) starting and doing rather well for Western Conference leaders St. Louis?
Richard Fleming is pounding on the Markanich thing too, but come on. Gutman is better in every way than Markanich was. And at 26 its not like we'll need to replace him soon. We desperately needed a LB after the Esteves and Gersbach failures and Markanich didn't step up and win the spot. That's the one good move Smith has made in the last year, there are bigger failures to focus on.