If you’ve ever wanted to see what a team looks like that is bunkering for a point, this would be the game to watch. The Colorado Rapids came into this one seemingly hell bent on keeping their promise of taking the home games seriously and working for a point on the road and they performed pretty well… in that regard only.
Right from the lineup announcement you could tell that this one was going to be a frustrating game to watch – only Omar Cummings, Jeff Larentowicz and Kosuke Kimura were from the regular A team on the field. Guys like Danny Earls, Scott Palguta and Ross LaBauex combined for a true B team out of Gary Smith, especially in the defensive side. The forward selection looked promising to start with Andre Akpan and Omar Cummings on the field, but it wouldn’t turn out to matter very much.
Colorado actually looked fairly bright early on, getting their fair share of chances out of the match and a couple of shots off, though most of them missed the net. After a bright 10 minutes to start it quickly devolved into a 10 man back sort of game, with the possession staying almost entirely on Espana feet and the majority of the shots going toward the Rapids net, where Stewart Ceus was recieving his first ever time in a league or competition with the Rapids first team.
Jeff Larentowicz managed to score for the Rapids against the run of play late in the first half as Ross LaBauex sent a nice cross to him at the edge of the 18 and he snapped a blast right into the low corner of the net. Unfortunately after the goal the bunkering got even worse as the Rapids desperately tried to hold the lead. It took until the 86th minute, but Espana eventually prevailed as midfielder Julio Rodriguez got his foot to a deflected header to draw the match and get the Rapids the point they were looking for.
With the lineup they put out there it’s actually pretty hard to complain.