Do We Know The Way to (Beat) San Jose?

The Colorado Rapids traveled to California yesterday to prepare for tonight's game against San Jose before, bizarrely, playing the same team again next Wednesday at DSG Park. What an important game tonight's game is. After losing at Toronto to record their fourth straight away defeat, the Rapids know that a point tonight against a struggling team will be the least they can come away with before, hopefully, picking up three points at home next week. If they can manage all three tonight plus a win next week, that would take them to 42 points, a figure that Gary Smith thinks now is the benchmark for reaching the playoffs.
If, if, if. The trouble with the MLS is that you can never tell what the results are going to be. If a contending team in the Premier League played a basement team, you are pretty much going to know the result, Burnley v Man U gloriously excepted. In the MLS, who knows? Yes, San Jose may be poor but they did beat Seattle 4-0 at home this season and I seem to remember the Rapids losing 2-0 to them at DSG Park last year. A point would be good, a win even better and a loss very disappointing. Point to me for stating the bleeding obvious.
My best guess on the line-up would be pretty similar to how the second half against Toronto started. Scott Palguta, who came on for a poor Pat Noonan after 45 minutes last week, is fully recovered from injury and illness and looks likely to start at left back. That would mean Jordan Harvey moving up more to left midfield as he did in the second half in Canada. Mehdi Ballouchy is back and will take a central midfield role with Greg Dalby whom Smith has praised on www.mlsnet.com for last week's performance. I think Noonan will pay the price for his form last week and drop to the bench. That's my guess, anyway. All I know is that Smith wasn't happy with Noonan's form and he doesn't have all that much patience with poor performances. Matt Pickens and Cory Gibbs continue to rehab from their injuries and will be out for at least the next two weeks.
The key to tonight may be how clinical the strike pairing is upfront. Conor Casey has been incredibly consistent all season and, if he can be at his bullish best, he could give a fragile San Jose back four all sorts of problems. So could speedster, Omar Cummings. We just need Omar to be on the type of finishing form he showed in Chicago rather than last week. I don't know how Omar gets into some positions to score. He is one of the best in the league at doing that. The downside is that he can still miss seemingly certain goals once he gets in those positions. He is so close to being a complete player. Let's hope he bangs them in tonight if he gets himself into scoring positions.
Kickoff is at 9pm Mountain Time with the official viewing party at Fado's.

Don't Forget Your Passport; Rapids Head North

Players can be a little forgetful of the details and the Colorado Rapids are no different. On a whiteboard in the locker room, they are this week being urged not to forget their passports as they travel to Canada. More tellingly, there is also a note on that same board that reads "If you are healthy and not suspended, you are traveling." Just like Toronto last year on the road, the Rapids are down to bare bones in terms of bodies to put on the field.
Last year, a very inexperienced defense (Keel, Zambrano and others) were thrown into the fire that is BMO Field and did creditably enough but it was too much to ask and the Rapids lost easily. This year, thankfully, the defense for Toronto tomorrow looks a lot more solid. Expect an unchanged backline from last week. Minus the goalkeeper. Matt Pickens has injured his knee in practice and is out for at least two weeks. Preston Burpo, so patient all season long, will therefore get an opportunity tomorrow. The Rapids will also have the tandem of Conor Casey and Omar Cummings upfront. The availability problems are in midfield. Pablo Mastroeni will be curling up on the sofa at home watching the game because he is the suspended one. Gary Smith told me yesterday that Jamie Smith is out for the season to join Colin Clark on the dreaded season-ending DL. Take a look at the Rapids' website link on projected line-ups and you will see that Greg Dalby will get the start tomorrow. Mehdi Ballouchy is not listed as starting.
http://www.coloradorapids.com/TheMatch/Matchup.aspx
So, it may not be all that pretty tomorrow. Service will have to come from Jacob Peterson and assist king Cummings, it looks like. Maybe the big fella can get his pate on another couple of crosses and we could escape with something. Toronto will be a very different proposition at home tomorrow after being so poor last week. They will have internationals such as Guevara back after the World Cup qualifying schedule and they have a certain Canadian DP announced this week. Gary Smith has reiterated his desire to get to the magic 40 points and is looking at tomorrow's game plus the home and away series against San Jose to reach that. It would then leave four games to secure a playoff position.
Kick off tomorrow is at 2pm Mountain Time. The official viewing party is at GB Fish and Chips. See you there.

Unsettled Cooke Facing Uncertain Future

It will be interesting to see if Terry Cooke laces up this weekend against DC United. With Colin Clark still absent on US national team duty and the team more likely to shift back to a 4-4-2 formation now that Omar Cummings is back to play upfront with Conor Casey, it would appear as if the veteran winger may get the nod. But Cooke is unsettled. He was frustrated after the Dallas game last weekend and a large part of that appears to be linked with the imminent arrival of midfielder/winger, Jamie Smith. Gary Smith and Steve Guppy like wingers who will take on people. Smith will do that, Jacob Peterson does it, Colin Clark makes his living doing it. Even Kosuke Kimura is increasingly doing it. Cooke is your classic delivery man, not a dribbler per se. He is very good at what he does but it may just be that he does not fit into the overall plans of the coaching staff. His relative age and his salary also count against him.

I can't say much as all the conversations I have had with various people about Cooke's future at the club, including with the man himself, are off the record. What I can say is that I don't think the incident involving his child in England earlier this year will have much to do with any decision he makes or is made for him. I thought for a long time that an incident so serious could make you reconsider where you need to be and, with his career coming into the twilight years, a move back to England may be in the offing. I don't think that is the case, however. Cooke just wants to play more and he doesn't appear to mind where that would be if it has to be away from Colorado.
The facts are these. The Rapids have to part with one senior player to make room for Smith and Facundo Diz. Smith's presence puts further pressure on Cooke. If you look at the roster, there aren't that many obvious choices that could be made. The defense is overloaded but it is hard to see anybody leaving from there. There could be an argument that, with the signing of Julien Baudet, Cory Gibbs could make way but that is hard to imagine. Greg Dalby could be another player but he is hardly in the same mold as Cooke and the team is not overloaded with defensive midfielders. Cooke does appear to be the obvious choice for the sacrifical slab. Gary Smith, who did say to me that there are one or two players that have attracted interest from other clubs, knows it will come down to a very hard decision. Many people will be very upset if Cooke does go, including me, but we all have to remember this is a business like any other. It will be a decision made with a heavy heart, that's for sure. There's little doubt that next week's announcements will be the biggest trades of the season so far.

Confidence is Key as Rapids Trump LA Again

Gary Smith said on Fox Television's Football Fone-In program Monday night that the key to the Colorado Rapids doing well this season was true self-belief. Something obvious, you might say, but Smith's style and own self-belief seem to be working well on the players as witness an incredibly hard-fought victory over the LA Galaxy last night in the US Open Cup. Consider this. The team played practically a whole normal length game with ten players after Greg Dalby was dismissed for an apparently questionable offense in the 36th minute. There was no corner kick won until late in the second period of overtime. The Rapids also sustained increasing pressure from the closing minutes of normal time right through the first period of overtime. I was following the game on a match tracker supplied through the Rapids' blog via LA and it seemed that Chris Klein or Alan Gordon had the ball in the Rapids' penalty area for a consecutive 30 minutes or so. Then, with the LA players tiring and frustrated, momentum began to change and the Rapids gained, if not dominance, then at least the upper hand. They took that into the penalty kick stage and the belief came shining through. Not only a heroic peformance from Preston Burpo in goal, who apparently guessed right on all four LA spot kicks, saving two of them, but also the penalty takers. Colin Clark, Mehdi Ballouchy, Ugo Ihemelu and Omar Cummings all notched their kicks and the game was over. Now, you would expect a Rapids' press release to say they all calmly and confidently scored those kicks. But I had an LA-based friend at the game (the same friend who called into the Fox show and asked Smith what the key for the Rapids was) and he said there was something about the self-belief with which the players accepted their task. Ihemelu took just two steps to bury his chance for example. By contrast, Chris Klein looked like a deer in the headlights and his body language just shouted out that the LA Galaxy would be letting their fans down. He duly missed as Burpo saved. Real self-belief, so lacking in the Rapids of recent years, may be the key to success going forward. It can't replace talent and organization but it can carry you through difficult times and this is what the Rapids will have to face in a gruelling season.

Rapids Confident Ahead of Texas Trip; Dalby Signs

There's a growing sense that the Colorado Rapids may be able to take advantage of a weakened Dallas side this weekend and further consolidate the good momentum which started with the July 4 victory against the New York Red Bulls. Contrary to the doubters out there, last weekend's 1-1 draw with San Jose was a point well won. For the first time this season, the Rapids saved a game in which they had gone a goal down. That is very welcome. If they can get something out of the trip to Texas, the team would be unbeaten in four games, including the Tigres match, and this would be followed by three games in a row at home. Good performances in those games and the season will turn around. It's a big if but the players are doing well in training, the team looks settled and Dallas, for one, are not the team they have been. Some of that may be down to the recent coaching change but there may be deeper reasons. Rapids' coach, Fernando Clavijo, talked on the From The Pitch show last night about how a second season may have found out the Dallas midfielder, Juan Toja, who was in the All-Star team last year. "They also have not been playing well for the past two to three seasons," he told me at training today. Let us hope that Colorado can get over their historically poor record against Dallas in the Lone Star state and come out with at least a point.
One player relishing his time in the starting XI is Mehdi Ballouchy. The team's good form in recent games does coincide with his presence in the line-up. Maybe Clavijo has found a way of playing Christian Gomez and Ballouchy together, not to mention Terry Cooke? "It is obviously great to be back in the team again," he said. "I think the coach was wary about playing so many attacking players together but he has found his faith in me and I think the three-man midfield of me, Christian and Nick LaBrocca is working well right now." As for his celebration with his hands tied/untied behind his back after scoring the second goal against New York? "I want to keep that personal," he said. It must have felt a great release to find the net in his first MLS start of the season.
In other news, the Rapids confirmed the signing of midfielder, Greg Dalby. Dalby, who played in the friendly against Tigres, could only sign officially with the Rapids after July 15. The Californian was a draft pick in 2007 and played last season in Belgium with FC Charleroi. Having driven through Charleroi once, he must know he has made the right choice when he trains at DSG Park every day.