Gordon keeps late scoring reputation
commerce city» First he doffed his shirt, which earned Alan Gordon an automatic yellow card, a price he was willing to pay in return for savoring the moment. For the second league game in a row, he had come off the bench late to score a game-winning goal. He tossed his shirt into the air and sprinted for the fans at the south end of Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.
They were jumping up and down in unison, so he did too. They were rejoicing over a goal in the 89th minute that lifted the Rapids to a 2-1 win over Portland on Saturday night, but also Gordon’s remarkable knack for scoring off the bench late in games.
“It was a conscious decision to go to the fans, because the connection with the fans is huge,” Gordon said. “Every time I line up on that touch line to go in, I want them to say, ‘All right, here we go, something’s going to happen.’ ”
Gordon, who is in his first season with the Rapids, entered Saturday’s game in the 80th minute. On June 2, he entered a game against Columbus in the 82nd minute and scored the gamewinner four minutes later. His knack for scoring big goals off the bench goes back to 2012 when he scored some huge goals for San Jose, which won the Supporter’s Shield that season. He did it six times, once in a playoff game.
“He’s a physical presence that’s hard to defend, and late in games, central defenders have been battling for 80-plus minutes,” said coach Pablo Mastroeni. “Now you’ve got a fresh guy that’s a huge body (6-foot-3, 190 pounds). “He does a fantastic job of getting in good positions early where he can anticipate the ball coming, and he has a great knack for goal.”
In San Jose, Chris Wondolowski was the star striker but Gordon managed to score 13 goals off only 13 starts in 2012. In 2014 he was traded to the star-studded Los Angeles Galaxy but he became the late scoring threat there, too, scoring three game-winners in 2016 with only seven starts. He’s living up to his reputation here now, too, at age 35.
“It starts when you’re not good enough to be a starter and you’re a sub,” Gordon said. “At some point I had to embrace my role. I found myself not making the 11 enough and something clicked in me that said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to figure something out here, or you’re going to be without a job.’ I had to embrace that role. I wanted to be somebody the coaches could trust to put in any sort of game, any situation. I worked really hard at becoming more efficient in my finishing because I knew I was only going to get one, maybe two chances a game, and that has to go in.”
Mastroeni has a lot of confidence in Gordon’s ability to turn around games, and so do his teammates. His latest tally gave the Rapids their fourth consecutive MLS win at home.
“I’ve had my opportunities to start,” Gordon said. “I want to start, I want to play minutes, but when you’re on a team that has good forwards ahead of you, you’ve got to find a way on the field. I like seeing the guys’ faces when I’m lining up to come in the game. They have belief in me, they get a sense of, ‘Yeah, we can do this.’ ”