Month: February 2019

Regardless of all of that, I'm curious. Would you rather see Brian Mullan play in the game on Saturday or would you rather not have to deal with the storylines and possible distractions that Mullan being on the pitch may bring out? Personally I'm of the mind that the best XI should always start and at present that does include Brian.

Note that this poll is meant for the Rapids fans around here, but it's most certainly open to Seattle fans as well. Leave a comment if you're a voting Seattle fan, I'm interested in your opinion on the situation.

It was a year ago today – July 11th 2010 – that I made the first ever post on my old Blogspot blog that would eventually be moved up onto SBnation and become Burgundy Wave two months to the day later. (Strangely, I waited another four days until the Kansas City Wizards game to actually make a real content post on it!) Since then, the blog has seen well over 450 posts on it, gained two new staff members and gained a still pretty small but I like to think fairly decent following.

As for statistics, we recently eclipsed 52,000 total views in the year – though obviously that only covers the time we've been on SBnation – gained over 200 members in that time and have eclipsed my at the time meager expectations for what we would turn into by now. We may not be the most widely read blog on SBnation soccer – in fact, I still have a sneaking suspicion that we're the least read – but the steady growth that we've seen is enough to make even an old pessimist like myself grin.

Thanks to my friends Ben and Jed for being a part of this and helping me through some of the harder times running this thing, thanks to Russ Oates from SBnation Denver who gave me my first ever writing gig on SBnation covering the Rapids over there (and sorry for being more of a lacrosse only provider over there since things around here picked up!) and thanks to Dave Clark from Sounder at Heart for giving me the chance to run this thing in the first place, I'm glad you gave me the opportunity and I hope you've all enjoyed me so far.

Most of all, thanks to everyone who's read the blog and encouraged me along the way to keep at it, you guys are awesome. It's been a whirlwind of a year as the Rapids won their first ever MLS Cup, I got to travel to Baltimore to liveblog the MLS draft and I've met all sorts of awesome people both with the Rapids and otherwise. Here's to another year just as exciting on this little corner of the internet that I and other Rapids fans can call home.

And for laughs, my internet buddy who goes by the name SeriousSirrus decided to write us a sea shanty.

All right, enough of that. Now back to the Rapids. 🙂

God speed to the guy if that happens, I certainly wouldn't want to be out there in his position… especially with Seattle fans already threatening to throw things at him! (And let's not get into the death threats.)

With Pablo Mastroeni missing the match against the Vancouver Whitecaps, not only his spot on the pitch had to be dealt with but also the question of the captain's armband. Rapids leading striker Conor Casey was the obvious first choice for the captain-ship and was given the opportunity, and quite frankly shined in the role during the night.

The goal that Casey scored was a vintage one for him – in fact I'm considering just calling a hard run to the near post a 'Conor Casey goal' from now on – and he dictated the pace of the game for the Rapids all game long. He even created the second goal with another of his famous flick-on headers which needed a tremendous effort from Joe Cannon to stop.

"Well, it's always difficult," said coach Gary Smith when asked about Pablo missing the match and how the Rapids responded to it. "You know, Pablo dictates an awful lot with his quality. I think that the guys dealt with that tonight very well. There were moments where maybe his experience would have come in handy, but the guys that filled in the slots and were asked to perform tonight did their job, and they did it well."

Conor Casey performing as the captain is an experiment worth repeating if Pablo Mastroeni ever misses another match, as they did indeed do their job well.

With Pablo Mastroeni missing the match against the Vancouver Whitecaps, not only his spot on the pitch had to be dealt with but also the question of the captain's armband. Rapids leading striker Conor Casey was the obvious first choice for the captain-ship and was given the opportunity, and quite frankly shined in the role during the night.

The goal that Casey scored was a vintage one for him – in fact I'm considering just calling a hard run to the near post a 'Conor Casey goal' from now on – and he dictated the pace of the game for the Rapids all game long. He even created the second goal with another of his famous flick-on headers which needed a tremendous effort from Joe Cannon to stop.

"Well, it's always difficult," said coach Gary Smith when asked about Pablo missing the match and how the Rapids responded to it. "You know, Pablo dictates an awful lot with his quality. I think that the guys dealt with that tonight very well. There were moments where maybe his experience would have come in handy, but the guys that filled in the slots and were asked to perform tonight did their job, and they did it well."

Conor Casey performing as the captain is an experiment worth repeating if Pablo Mastroeni ever misses another match, as they did indeed do their job well.

Here's the starting lineup that has been presented so far and the teams that the players are from;

MLS recently introduced a wonderful new feature called the Chalkboard, brought to you by OptaSports. After every game we will be dissecting a player or two from the Rapids using the Chalkboard from the previous game.

Checking Wells' heat map, you might as well see a giant block of red and yellow across both sides of the mid-field, the guy was roaming everywhere. He even dropped all the way back to a defender's role – a place that he has indeed played before when he started at left back last season – when turnovers took over and gave Vancouver a rare counter attack opportunity.

Wells gets a bad rap on occasion for being a ball-loser who can't seem to hold on and get good plays out of his area, but he might have had the best game of his career in that regard yesterday. Checking his distribution, you see a whopping 26/4 successful to unsuccessful pass ratio, with all of the failed ones being either head passes – something that Wells has never been particularly good at – and a launch about 50 yards downfield. Wells' tendency to pass back worked in the Rapids favor in this instance as well.

While his back-passing can occasionally get frustrating when he's playing the wing position, he spent yesterdays game settling the attack and setting up plays through others. Dictating the play is something Pablo does impeccably, and Wells was a bit less successful than your average Mastroeni game but still did surprisingly well at keeping the ball at the feet of his teammates. Speaking of losing the ball, he only did so a single time on a non-passing play last night, where he was dispossessed a mere three minutes into the match in his own end.

This might not be an experiment to re-try more than once, but at least for a night, Wells Thompson gets a salute for replacing our team captain to a degree that most of us would never have imagined he could.

At the end of the half, a lightning storm hit Commerce City and caused a very long rain delay as lightning began to strike dangerously close to the stadium. All in all, the halftime break lasted an extra 25 minutes before the severe weather finally quelled and the play restarted. The weather break seemed to affect both teams as the play after the elongated break started slow and tentative from both sides before the passing and shots started again.

Casey almost got a brace in the 53rd minute as his shot from the six yard box missed the net by inches and smashed into the backside of the net. Quite literally everybody in the stadium was fooled into thinking it was a goal as the cannon went off and the stadium erupted, taking a couple of minutes to realize that there wasn't actually a second on the board for Colorado.

Of course, it being Scott Palguta, the reason why both of his goals have been game winners is because he's singlehandedly allowed a goal of his own to pass through the Rapids net both times that he's scored one. It took less than ten minutes for Vancouver to finally break down the defense as Vancouver forward Camilo took a pass that went right by an unmoving Palguta and slotted it past Matt Pickens after expertly rounding him. Fortunately for the Rapids, that would be the final goal of the night as they controlled the tempo for the rest of the match even through four minutes of stoppage time.

All in all, it's a win that the Rapids really needed, as I called it the first 'must win' game of the season. The Rapids need to take every point that they can get right now and these games against 'easy' teams need to translate into that. Home form is going to be – as it was last season – the key to the Rapids playoff hopes. The Rapids have two road wins, and in all honesty we can't expect them to get that many more. Right now, the Rapids have 5 out of the suggested 11 points in July and four more games to get the remaining six points. to guarantee that, they're going to need two more wins and the momentum from this game will have to do some of the carrying in that regard.

MAN OF THE MATCH: Conor Casey. The man is on an unbelievable run of form right now and continues to be the best striker on the Rapids. Six goals in seven games is just amazing form for the guy, and he was unlucky to not have two tonight. Add on an assist and you have a brilliant performance by Casey filling in the Captains role and filling it well.