Colorado played with bad defense, bad offense and a game filled to the brim with mistakes today, leading to very few moments of doubt that the Red Bulls would romp. Romp they did, 3-1.
The defense missed couldn’t have missed Marvell Wynne more, with only Anthony Wallace playing anything close to a respectable game on the back end of the pitch. Julien Baudet stood staring blankly with his hand in the air in the 17th minute as Thierry Henry blasted a ball past Pickens to give the Red Bulls their early and never relinquished lead. Mehdi Ballouchy gave a good example of the rest of the team not stepping up on the defensive end either as Tim Ream collected a cross from an unmarked man – Ballouchy should have been on him but instead lept up in the air several yards away – to collect his first career goal.
The Rapids only goal came during a very short spurt of dominance for them in the second half where Omar Cummings drove through the NY defense and crushed a perfect shot into the top corner from 25 yards out. Omar set his season high total for goals played with that blast with nine. After that short bit of competency the Rapids defensive failures showed up again. Anthony Wallace stopped a shot but the bouncing ball off of Wallace was completely whiffed by Jamie Smith and picked up by Dane Richards, scoring the final goal of the game easily as the defense had fallen behind after Wallace stopped the original shot.
Wells Thompson subbed in for Jamie Smith late in the half and immediately started to play the dirtiest I’ve ever seen him play. He started by getting a quick foul against him near his own box, and then injured Rafael Marquez with a very hard tackle, getting a yellow card. Marquez was pulled off the field with what appeared to be a leg injury.
This keeps the Rapids road winless streak going, they haven’t gotten a win in their last six games away from home, going 0-3-3 in that span. Their last road win was against a reeling DC United team way back in May. The Rapids have to keep their home winning streak going next Saturday against another very weak team, New England.