By the time the Colorado Rapids arrived in Frisco for their match against FC Dallas last week, it had been more than eight months since they last won a game. By the time they left, a comprehensive 4-0 victory in their wake, they’d completely re-routed the discussion about the direction their season was headed.
The Rapids sulked off into the last offseason with a disappointing string of four consecutive losses. They hadn’t scored since Oct. 11, 2014 in a 2-1 loss to Chivas USA, a span of more than 600 scoreless minutes. They hadn’t won an away match in a calendar year. They’d lost or tied 18 consecutive matches since last winning on July 25, 2014. Anything but a win over FC Dallas would have tied the MLS winless record at 19 currently owned by the 1999 MetroStars, considered arguably the worst MLS team of all time.
But the Rapids didn’t merely win. They obliterated an FC Dallas team some considered the best in the league through the first month of the season. They stamped out their scoreless streak via a Dominique Badji goal in the second minute, which set a frantic tone the Rapids were somehow able to maintain for much of the match.
That muddies the water significantly ahead of Sounders FC’s trip to Commerce City, Colorado this weekend. Is Seattle walking into an ambush, or was the explosive performance against FCD merely a blip on an otherwise under-the-radar season?
Statistically, the Rapids had been extraordinarily unlucky through the first few scoreless weeks of the season. They’ve managed to out-shoot their opponents in almost every match this season, and through their first six games they currently rank a solid eighth in MLS with 4.2 shots on target per match (Sounders FC is third with 4.8). But they failed to break down the door until last week. In a 2-0 loss to New England on April 4, for instance, the Rapids out-shot the Revolution 17-9 and hit the woodwork three times.
Above all, even with the FC Dallas game taken into consideration, Colorado needs an out-and-out lead striker after Deshorn Brown was sold to Valerenga in the offseason. They’ve rotated several players into that spot up top in a shifting formation that often resembles a 4-2-3-1, notably Badji and Gabriel Torres. But until recently announced Designated Player signing Kevin Doyle arrives from Wolverhampton this summer, they’ll have to make do with an inconsistent committee approach up top.
The Rapids have been notably wide this season, as evidenced by their staggering 35 crosses in their loss to New England. While that increased their volume of total chances, it decreased their number of good ones. While they continued pumping in crosses against FC Dallas, the Rapids did so at a lesser rate and instead leaned on more dangerous areas in the middle of the field.
The continued emergence of Dillon Powers in the middle has been a boon for the Rapids when he isn’t closed down. He made four passes against FC Dallas in the critical area down the middle of the field just outside the box. He completed three of them, and two led directly to shots. While Marcelo Sarvas is the ticking clock in the heart of the midfield, Powers is a more creative force looking to push up and provide the connective tissue between the midfield and the attack.
In fact, 97-percent of Powers’ 29 passes against FC Dallas were of the shorter variety. If Sounders FC is to cope with the Rapids up the gut, it’ll have to cut down Powers’ influence and ability to weasel in between the defensive midfielders and test the center backs.
Under Pablo Mastroeni this year, the Rapids have been largely content to pick longer, riskier passing routes over the build-up. Only four MLS teams have completed fewer short passes this season, and the Rapids’ ratio of 19-percent long balls is in the league’s top five. While that’s proven to be an erratic scoring formula so far this season, it can also lead to enormously productive outbursts like the one in Frisco last week.
Fortunately for Sounders FC, the team boasts one of the most aerially capable center backs in the league in Chad Marshall, whose 4.5 won headers per game puts him in the league’s top 10 among defenders. With Osvaldo Alonso squeezing off attacks from the interior and re-routing the Rapids toward the flanks, Sounders FC will likely be forced to cope with a bevy of attacking crosses. It should only help that keeper Stefan Frei is one of the league’s best attacking balls in the air.
The Rapids are still an enigma Sounders FC will have to solve on Saturday. And Colorado’s blinding performance in Texas only heightens the stakes for a Seattle side that could use the points. But if Sounders FC can close down on the Rapids on the wings and stay compact aerially, it should have every opportunity to break down one of the league’s most suddenly perplexing teams.
