COMMERCE CITY, Colo. - The Colorado Rapids played a tight-wire act of a match against Seattle Sounders FC on Saturday night, dazzling their hometown crowd with some of their best soccer of the season before crashing to earth and leaving a lingering air of disappointment in their wake.
Unfortunately, the wire the Rapids walked turned out to be only 75 minutes long, and the match called for a 90-minute performance. The final 15 minutes saw Colorado's focus go cross-eyed, resulting in a stumble in execution and a lapse resulting in an equalizer from Seattle and a letdown from a match that left the team feeling they deserved more.
"It was a very quick game," Rapids head coach Gary Smith said. "Seattle pressed the ball as well. There was a heck of a lot of work put into that first hour of the game, and we should have really put it to bed. Then we can maybe feel a little bit more confident about our possession and just seeing the game out. But when you put so much into the opening period, there's always a tendency to get done with a sucker punch. We have tonight."
Colorado came from behind after a 17th-minute header from Seattle's Fredy Montero off his own rebound from the right post found the net. The Rapids tied the match in the 25th minute on a beautiful play culminating in Colin Clark's unstoppable shot from 10 yards.
"It was a great ball," Clark said of the feed from Omar Cummings on the wing. "The ball just came to me and went in the back of the net, so I got to take it."
Clark was given man of the match honors for his goal, his assist to Conor Casey on the go-ahead goal two minutes into the second half, and his aggressive play throughout the match.
"I felt I created a few chances," Clark said. "Good crosses at least, going at [defender James] Riley. The second half, I settled for an early delivery when I was clearly one-on-one, and I know I'm going to have some words with Gary and [assistant coach Steve] Guppy about that. But it's something I'm progressing and getting better at. Hopefully in the next three or four games, if not sooner, I'll be able every single time I find myself one-on-one I'll be able to take it at him and do what I'm working on rather than just settle for an early cross."
Up by a goal, the Rapids found themselves on divergent paths, with much of the team eager to pad the lead and put Sounders FC away, while others, particular in the back third, saw an increasingly apparent need to focus on protecting the lead they had. With so much energy moving forward, the home side left itself vulnerable to quick counters putting them on the defensive.
In the 76th minute, everything that could go wrong did, as Nate Jaqua slipped a bounding ball past Colorado 'keeper Matt Pickens.
"Everything shut down," defender Cory Gibbs said. "Scott [Palguta] went down with cramps. Kosuke [Kimura] got beat on the header. The ball was behind me goalside. And then Jaqua scored. Everything broke down. It's just a disappointing loss."
As good as the Rapids looked for the first 75 minutes, the final 15 highlighted the distance the team still has to cover to secure the full three points out of their matches. Their play against Seattle showed dramatic improvements in possession and in their ability to create opportunities and play with a sense of clinical precision and their four-match unbeaten streak is nothing to sneeze at. But knowing what they're capable of only makes the Rapids that much more frustrated when they don't achieve it in full.
"Up 2-1, there's a fine line between getting a third goal and really putting it out of their reach and leaving yourself vulnerable," Smith said. "We got that line slightly wrong tonight. There was half of the group trying to win the game outright, and the other half of the group thinking we should just hold onto it. And it gave [Seattle] an opportunity to get a little bit of a foothold in the game. It's very disappointing. The players have put a tremendous amount of effort into the game. But you don't always get what you deserve, and we didn't tonight."
Seattle's equalizer came five minutes after Colorado's first substitution, bringing Kimura in on the back line for Ugo Ihemelu, and after Palguta went down with a cramp on the play, Ty Harden took to the field following the goal.
"Changes don't help us," Smith conceded. "Whenever you've got to make changes in the back four - it's not nice for any player to come off the bench and get to the pace of the game. But for a defender on a greasy surface, it's that much more difficult. I thought we took a little bit of time to accustomize ourselves to a change and then two. I have to be honest, at the end Matt Pickens makes an unbelievable save to earn us a point, when really and truly it should have just been a consolation for them."
The Pickens play was a diving save to stop a ball from 71st-minute substitution Patrick Ianni, letting loose a cannon of a shot at close range that Pickens miraculously stopped and deflected out of the area to preserve the tie.
Ultimately, the Rapids remain frustrated at continuing to amass shots on goal, particularly at home, without the three points to show for it. They outshot Seattle 12-7, including 7-4 on target, with Casey taking four shots himself, three on goal, and one in."
"When you have that many chances and you don't finish them, you leave teams in the game," Casey summed up. "Unfortunately that's what we did, and we got punished for it."
Owen Perkins is a contributor to MLSnet.com
