Ups and downs. Every season has them. Every game has them. The Colorado Rapids are stuck at Elitch Gardens on the Tower of Doom right now.
A 3-2 loss at LA Galaxy had it all: forgettable moments defending in transition, making the most of limited offensive chances, and even some Troy Polamalu flashbacks.
Winger Kévin Cabral opened the Rapids’ scoring in the 32nd minute when fellow winger Jonathan Lewis found him with a nice low cross. Cabral had to adjust to get a foot far back enough to guide the ball past Galaxy goalkeeper John McCarthy.
Though he scored, he paid the price, losing his balance and injuring his arm trying to brace himself for a fall right into a metal pole on the ground. He grabbed his arm in obvious pain for minutes before being taken off the field.
After some time, he was allowed to go back in but was subbed off at halftime. After the match, Rapids coach Chris Armas said he wasn’t sure about the extent of the injury, but that it could be a sprain or contusion of the elbow. There’s no official word on his status or a timetable for his return.
In first-half stoppage time, midfielder Cole Bassett added to his career high for single-season goals following a missed penalty by forward Rafael Navarro.
Bassett typically sits alone on the left side of the box to follow up penalties, but this time could be found on the right. And like Polamalu did in his heyday with the Pittsburgh Steelers, he ran up and split two defenders at the exact right moment to get himself in good position to steer the saved penalty in with his head. It was his eighth goal of the year.
“You have to be ready,” Bassett said. “You never know when it’s going to fall to you. I wanted the penalty, but we wanted to give (Navarro) the confidence to continue to score goals. … It’s unfortunate that he missed it, but you always have to be ready.”
Here are three takeaways from a disappointing result in Los Angeles:
First-half transition troubles, second-half adjustments
The Galaxy’s three goals came directly off transition moments that caught the Rapids sleeping. First was the opening goal of the game in the 12th minute, when Gabriel Pec found Diego Fagundez on a teasing ball over the top of the Rapids’ defense after some nifty interplay in the midfield third.
Fagundez, with basically nobody around him, took a touch and buried it past Zack Steffen on a volley.
The second goal, which came just six minutes after Cabral tied it at 1-1, was an individual display of excellence from Pec, who dribbled past two defenders before setting up Joseph Paintsil for an easy tap-in.
The winner was orchestrated and finished by Riqui Puig, who knifed through the entire Rapids defense with give-and-goes and had a ball laid off by Paintsil just inside the box, which he smashed across goal.
Coming out of the locker room, Armas went from a 4-2-3-1 to a wider and more structurally sound 4-1-4-1. For the coach, the key to limiting the Galaxy was to take away space out wide for them to attack on the counter. And for the most part, it worked.
“It’s a game of moments, and when they overload the wide areas, you can see that it’s tricky,” Armas said. “This is a really wide pitch, one of the widest in the league, so that’s why we changed at halftime to give us more width, more of a 4-1-4-1. … We liked the response in the second half and I thought we pushed the tempo.”
Depth being tested out wide
Because of knocks to wingers Calvin Harris and Omir Fernández, the position was already thin heading into the match. In a perfect world, Cabral wouldn’t have gotten hurt, and Fernández — who subbed in and played 33 minutes — would have gotten the extra rest, but that wasn’t the case.
The depth at wing is getting tight and is in jeopardy for this Saturday’s matchup against Real Salt Lake. Kimani Stewart-Baynes, who played 15 minutes as a sub against L.A., was supposed to be with the Canadian Youth National Team but stayed to supplement the position group.
If Stewart-Baynes, Cabral and Harris are all missing Saturday, life in the attack could be tough. But Armas is more focused on what is than what isn’t, particularly with Lewis’ three goal contributions in his last three games.
“I don’t harp too much on what we don’t have, but we’ll get back and we’ll recover, reload and then throw everything at Salt Lake on the weekend,” Armas said. “We’ll have some guys getting healthy, Omir is back, so we’ll be ready to go. It’s good to see Johnny have a strong performance. We’ll have enough to cause Salt Lake some problems.”
All eyes on the Rocky Mountain Cup
In many ways, winning the Rocky Mountain Cup for just the sixth time ever and first time since 2020 would vanquish the sour taste of a home draw to New York Red Bulls and loss to L.A., and would at least temporarily exorcise the demons of the rivalry.
Both teams will be without arguably their best players, with Rapids midfielder Djordje Mihailovic off with the U.S. Olympic team and RSL forward Cristian Arango suspended for violating the MLS anti-harassment policy. Another interesting wrinkle? Both teams have Olympic snubs in Bassett and RSL midfielder Diego Luna.
Bassett, who has been with Colorado his entire career, knows every bit of the rivalry’s significance.
Historically, the Rapids have been the better team on paper and still lost the Cup. This year, both teams are of top quality. All the Rapids need is a win on home turf Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
“Every player knows this is going to be a big game for us, for the club and for the fans. Hopefully, Omir and Calvin are ready to go and rested for Saturday,” Bassett said. “I don’t think this is one that you have to motivate us. We know the importance.”
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Originally Published: July 18, 2024 at 9:52 a.m.
