Month: February 2019

Veteran Left Back – Note the very important qualifying word here of 'Veteran'. The Rapids still have a very promising player with the 22 year old international prospect

that plays on the left, but Gary Smith has obviously lost faith in the young man as the season has gone along for whatever reason. Meanwhile,

and

have played some of the worst football that we've seen out of a Rapids player since 2009. The Rapids need a player to stabilize the position – and hopefully make the team release Danny Earls if we're being hopeful – and they need him now. The guy doesn't have to be a great player technically, but he does need to be better than Palguta and/or Earls and ideally a great communicator on the field, something the two of them are most certainly not.

That's actually it, two players and no more. Colorado's depth situation is good enough in other areas – minus perhaps defensive midfield where only Ross LaBeaux and Nane are there to provide substitutions – except for that infamously terrible left side. If Anthony Wallace and Brian Mullan are playing it should be a lot easier to handle, but in case anything happens, having two new guys to replace them will be very important.

The Rapids will be playing seven games in July, a loaded schedule that includes a full week of rest only once and three games away at some of the hardest places to play in the entire league. Join me after the jump for a short look at the seven games we'll be seeing the Rapids play in July.

July 9th vs. Vancouver – Probably the second most winnable game next to the Houston match this month. Vancouver has been fairly easy to defeat on the road, although Colorado will be at the tail end of one of them "three games in nine days" jobs. Vancouver will be coming off a similar thing with ten days substituted for nine, but it will still probably be hard fought. Vancouver may not have enough to win on the road often but they have gotten some results like that brilliant 2-2 draw in Seattle.

July 20th vs. New York – NYRB are a tough nut to crack anywhere, but the Rapids held their own against them earlier in the season. Doing it at home with no De Rosario to worry about – he was the one who kept torturing the Rapids during that last match – will be slightly easier. Still, a draw is probably what we can expect out of this one if the Rapids keep up their form as predictably as the season has gone.

July 23rd vs. New England – This should turn out better than the last time these two teams met when it was a Revs dominated 0-0 draw. NE seem to have somehow gotten worse as the season has gone along; it's probably a good thing that most of the home games in this July stretch are against the weaker teams in the league because the Rapids will need ideally to get all 12 points out of DSGP if they can with the tough road matches.

July 29th @ Philly – And the month ends on another doozy. The Rapids have only played once in Philly before and drew that match but that was against the very weak Philly team from last year. This year will be a lot more tough on the legs of the away side. On the bright side, Philly games do tend to be low scoring so maybe the Rapids will get lucky, eh?

I'm getting a potential record of 3-2-2 out of the month if the Rapids are healthy the entire time and coach Smith figures out this discipline and roster problem that's been plaguing them. Even then, that's mostly because of the three easier home games. Considering the fact that the later months of the year contain no more than four games for the Rapids each, July is pretty much going to be the make or break month for this team's playoff hopes. Good time to go on such a terrible run of form, eh?

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.

First, you have to understand what kind of a player Brian is supposed to be. Mullan's best attributes have always been his defensive ability, his fantastic distribution and his ability to be all over the pitch, extending from box to box and contributing to both the attack and defense all over the pitch. And even on his off days, he is almost always at the very least a neutral force on the field when he's not playing well. We saw absolutely none of that from Brian yesterday and he if anything was actually hurting the team a hell of a lot more than he was helping it.

With Brian staying on the right side for almost the entirety of his 70 or so minutes of play, you would assume that he would at least do something useful over there. You would unfortunately be wrong again. After a week of speculation about how the Zakuani incident would affect Mullan's usually strong and hard-nosed defense, Mullan unfortunately showed that the speculation may be true; throughout the entire game he only made a single tackle to win the ball along with one block – a block that was right along the byline, but a block nonetheless – all in the first half after the two goals had already been conceded.

Down to 10 men, the Rapids lost any hope of a comeback as the second half despite Omar Cummings finally coming into the match as Andres Mendoza completed his brace and Tommy Heinemann scored his first ever MLS goal. The Rapids were probably lucky that Jeff Cunningham didn't score the goal to give him the MLS all time lead in them, considering how the game was going for them. The score may have ended 4-1 but it very easily could have been – and probably should have been – 8-1.

There's really nothing else to say.

After that United States-Mexico debacle we all witnessed yesterday, I think we could all use some good news. Unfortunately, the news is that we're facing the very home-steady Columbus Crew today in Columbus. Who knows though, the Rapids are certainly hungry for a win after dropping that bomb against the LA Galaxy.

Here's your gamethread to discuss the match before, during and after it's gone down. Go Rapids!

Colorado needs these three points so this is a huge match for the Rapids.

Let's just all forget about what happened yesterday, shall we? …Yeah. Here's a gang of links for you to read before game-time against the Crew tonight.

Gold Cup: Costa Rica's Marshall dies in car accident | MLSsoccer.com – Sad news out of Costa Rica last week.

In Support of the Fort – We all know about what happened to Revolution fans in Gillette Stadium with the security debacle. Supporters groups across MLS created a group to 'Support the Fort'.

U-17 MNT starts off World Cup in style – Hot Time In Old Town – Well at least the U-17 team isn't completely terrible, right guys? Right? …Guys?

Germans to hold oracle octopus competition during Women’s WC – Dirty Tackle – World Soccer Blog – Yahoo! Sports – This is pretty much the greatest thing ever. Not only are they buying into the Octopus thing again, but they're extending it to other sects of the footballing world.

Let's just all forget about what happened yesterday, shall we? …Yeah. Here's a gang of links for you to read before game-time against the Crew tonight.

Gold Cup: Costa Rica's Marshall dies in car accident | MLSsoccer.com – Sad news out of Costa Rica last week.

In Support of the Fort – We all know about what happened to Revolution fans in Gillette Stadium with the security debacle. Supporters groups across MLS created a group to 'Support the Fort'.

U-17 MNT starts off World Cup in style – Hot Time In Old Town – Well at least the U-17 team isn't completely terrible, right guys? Right? …Guys?

Germans to hold oracle octopus competition during Women’s WC – Dirty Tackle – World Soccer Blog – Yahoo! Sports – This is pretty much the greatest thing ever. Not only are they buying into the Octopus thing again, but they're extending it to other sects of the footballing world.

Here we go, USA! It's finally time for the biggest game that the US will see for a long time. I'm throwing up a gamethread just in case anybody wants to talk about the USA vs. Mexico Gold Cup final before, during or after the events of the final have occurred.

This game will certainly be a close match between two good teams, and Mexico being forced to play an extra 30 minutes last match with only two days rest might give the United States the advantage but I can't look past the incredible offensive talent that Mexico will be trotting out and compared to the comparatively weak United States offense that will be missing Jozy Altidore.

Go United States, take home the cup for the first time since 2007! A spot in the Confederation's Cup is at stake, and silverware for a national team is never a bad thing.

UZ'S PREDICTION – 2-1 Mexico (Albeit in extra time)

It's been a problem circulating the circuits around various MLS fanbases since Wednesday. The United States and Mexico are playing in the Gold Cup final on Saturday, which is the usual day that you'll see football matches played world-wide. MLS is no exception, and nine matches will be held mostly in the afternoon tomorrow, which will unfortunately clash with the final, being played at 7 PM Mountain Time. Fans of teams like Portland, Dallas and Kansas City will be forced to choose between club and country, or be forced to watch two games at once as the very best scenario.

Fortunately for us, the Rapids/Crew game is on Sunday. We will be free to take in the Gold Cup final with no worries about our MLS squad until the next day, a small bit of luck in the scheduling for the Yank faithful in Colorado.

So for once, MLS scheduling has given the Rapids something to cheer about – or at least those of us who are from the United States and Mexico! Eat, drink and be merry tomorrow everyone; you'll have a full night to sleep off that Gold Cup hangover before watching the Rapids take on the Columbus Crew at Crew Stadium on Sunday.