Kaye optimistic: Rapids down, not out
Mark-anthony Kaye was adamant in his post-game press conference Saturday night that his team can turn things around.
The Colorado Rapids (2-2-3, 8 points) dropped its second successive game in a 3-1 loss to Minnesota United and have earned just two points out of 12 in its last four games. Colorado again created sizable chances and hit the woodwork twice in the second half but in a late twist for the second week in a row, the home team found a higher gear in the final quarter hour to snatch the points away from Colorado.
“We just gotta stick together,” Kaye said. “It’s so early in the season, It’s so early in the season. You can’t start thinking ‘ah, we can’t come out of this.’ We’re six, seven games in, we’ll be fine.”
With Kaye’s belief in the team made abundantly clear, here are three takeaways from Saturday’s loss:
Defensive lapses costs Colorado three valuable points. The Rapids were so dominant for large stretches of the second half, particularly in the midfield. Jonathan Lewis got in brilliant spaces, Andre Shinyashiki and Diego Rubio had golden opportunities and the scoreline could have been different if not for Minnesota United goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair. From the 50th to 75th minute it was all Colorado.
When teams dominate for long periods and create numerous chances, defenses can lose focus and can be caught flatfooted when the game eventually shifts back the other way. That’s exactly what happened and it really didn’t have to.
On the go-ahead goal, Emanuel Reynoso, Minnesota’s talisman, was allowed to create. He found Hassani Dotson who was unmarked, as Lucas Esteves attempted to double-up Reynoso with Michael Barrios after Esteves was beaten by him in the Loons’ first-half goal. A hard, low-driven cross from Dotson and Robin Lod put it away. It was really poor goal to concede after such a strong period of play with no goals to show for.
The second goal came two minutes later as Colorado tried to push up for a second equalizer. Similar to last week at Dallas, the home team struck again as substitute Abu Danladi scored to put the game out of reach on a counterattack.
Yellow card party proves frustrating for Rapids. In the first half, Colorado soaked up a lot of pressure, but, when under the cosh, things got heated in a hurry. The Rapids were shown four yellow cards, three yellow cards and a red card initially shown to Jack Price which was rescinded thanks to VAR and changed to a yellow, in just nine minutes.
Lucas Esteves got a silly yellow in the 27th minute by kicking the ball away after St. Clair wanted to quickly restart play. Rubio fouled Reynoso in a “professional” way to prevent a counterattack. Then, oddly, William Yarbrough was shown one for time wasting while searching for options on a goal kick. Lastly, Price was shown yellow after video review saw he fouled Luis Amarillo from the side, not from behind like referee Chris Penso initially saw and gave a red, which was rescinded.
The whole experience rattled Colorado enough to concede the opener five minutes later.
“Listen, we’re pros, right? At soccer we try and do our job every day (to) the best of our abilities, same with the refs,” Kaye said. “Some days they have good games and some days they have bad games. That’s not a knock on the referees and I have a lot of respect for a lot of them. It’s just sometimes I feel like it gets out of hand.”
Colorado has 18 yellow cards on the year, the 15th-most in the league.
Hope still springs eternal as Colorado prepares for home.
Despite the frustrating loss, Colorado will have a chance to end the rut next Saturday against expansion side Charlotte FC (3-5-0, 9 points, eighth in the East), followed by a big game against Portland Timbers.
Head coach Robin Fraser knows his task at hand. Find a way to steady the ship after going through an early-season storm.
“We have to have that self belief that we are doing a number of things well,” Fraser said. “… We know that we have to be better and have to know when to capitalize in those moments when we are on top of teams and have got ’em pushed back.”