Colorado Rapids July Preview: Hell Month 2 – Electric Boogaloo

Remember when I said April was Hell Month? Well, that was just the warm up, my friends. July is almost certainly going to make or break the Rapids' season. There are six games in the month, five of which are against Western rivals — four of those games are against teams ahead of the Rapids in the West, too. The other is against an Eastern team that the Rapids have never once beaten on the road.

Oh, and did we mention that a friendly with an EPL team is scheduled smack dab in between two of the toughest looking games on the schedule?

Sound tough? Well, it's going to be. If the Rapids have another mediocre month like they did in the first 29 days of June, they might play themselves out of the playoff race before we can even think of August. If they do well, they can put themselves right in the drivers seat in the West.

Let's take a look at the month ahead:

– We don't talk about what happened the last time these two teams met around here. Fortunately for us, it's a July 4th game and the Rapids always seem to bring their A-Game when it comes to fireworks games. Right now they're 11-2-3 all time on July 4th — or whatever game happens to be closest, seeing as how last year's game was on the 3rd — though two of them in a row now have been rather boring draws.

July 21st at Real Salt Lake – What else is there to say about the Rapids-Real rivalry at this point? RSL has managed to keep the Rapids from recording a victory for quite a while, with Colorado's last win over Salt Lake back in May of 2009. Since then it's been frustrating loss after frustrating loss, and the Rapids absolutely need to win at Rio Tinto on the 21st if they want to get the Rocky Mountain Cup back after losing 2-0 in their first meeting this year.

Oh yeah, did we mention that Rio Tinto is another stadium they've never won a game in? Yep, every single road game this month is happening in a stadium that we've never won in. (As with the others though, they've come close…)

July 24th vs. Swansea City – Friendly! I don't know how much I like the location of this on the schedule though. The last thing we need after a surely hard fought game against RSL is a game against an EPL opponent to tire the team out before the next all important game against the Sounders. Ah well, still going to be fun!

As said before, a good run in July could get the Rapids right into the thick of the top three seeds in the West. With the team now healthy and looking good, we can have a bit of hope in that regard. If they fall back into the slog that lost them the San Jose and Vancouver games though, we might be in for a very tough last few months of the season as the team is forced to scratch and claw themselves into the playoff spots.