Rapids to host Salt Lake

This one has been a long time coming. The Colorado Rapids will play at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park for the first time in 168 days when they host rival Real Salt Lake on Saturday night. That’s eight days longer than the period between their last home match in 2019 and their first in 2020. And it will be well worth the wait given it’s the first leg of this year’s Rocky Mountain Cup. But this weekend’s affair isn’t just a rivalry match, it’s a shot at redemption following a poor showing at the MLS is Back Tournament — one that included a dreadful 2-0 pounding at the hands of RSL. “We have a great deal of drive for this game,” head coach Robin Fraser said Thursday. “They’re a good team and they came out on the front foot against us last time. I’m not sure how long it’s been since that game, but it’s been that long that we’ve been talking about it since then.” No matter what shape it’s been in the last few years, RSL has always had the Rapids’ number. Colorado hasn’t hoisted the Rocky Mountain Cup since 2015 and hasn’t won a match against RSL since 2017. The pair of Damir Kreilach and Albert Rusnák ran roughshod on the Rapids’ backline in the teams’ meeting in Orlando. The unit hasn’t been the same since. Part of that was because of the unique circumstances of the tournament, but a bigger reason was poor play. “I don’t think they’re special, it’s us,” center back Lalas Abubakar said. “We gave them the opportunity to play like that. We didn’t have the intensity and that’s really important. We need to match the intensity to win the game.” Abubakar explained that one of the issues during the tournament was that the team’s defense became too spread out. He said the backline must remain close to not be exposed. “We’ve continued to work on things that we saw that we could do better on the attacking end as well as the defending end and really again just trying to get to that point of continuity that we had early in the year,” Fraser said. Rapids keeper Clint Irwin is now recovered from a concussion but it’s unclear if he or William Yarbrough will start against RSL. That’s a question that persists around the field as several roles have question marks. Saturday’s match will hint at what the Rapids’ identity will be in the final 18 games of the MLS slate. “The key for us is to be true to our principles and true to our game plan,” Fraser said. “We want our ideas to be so unified that we can plug guys in and the system continues the way it’s supposed to. Understanding the team philosophy and the role that any player would play in a particular position — if we do a good job of that we have guys who can jump in and play.”