US Open Cup Match Police request: Did anyone get the license number of the bus that ran over the FSL starting line-up last night?
Read the dry report about a very wet game.
Rapids win 2-1, with the referee letting stoppage time continue for a while, hoping to spare us all from another 1/2 hour of cool, refreshing rains. It worked.
FSL goes home unhappy. The worst part for them? Salt Lake fielded their actual starting 11 lineup, including Chris Klein, Freddy Much Adu About Nothing, and Eddie Pope.
The Rapids? Essentially a complete reserve team lineup headed by Snack Thornton and excepting Ugo who's working his way back to full-game fitness.
Ouch. Our B team can beat up your A team. (not "the" A-Team, of course, they're too tough, duh-duh-duhduh, duh, duh, duhhhhh).
On the plus side for our Rocky Mountain brethren, now FSL fans can focus on losing the MLS season without the distraction of looking forward to losing any more US Open Cup matches.
A few notes... The referee's programming went a bit crazy around the 40th minute when he started handing out yellow cards to Rapids players at a One Card Per Minute clip. Someone finally slapped him upside the head and reset his hardware chip.
Overall... I felt like much of the game was spent with the Rapids B team not working very hard to prove they should be included in our starting XI.
However, they did okay against FSL's starting lineup, and pushed the attack better than Salt Lake's finest (now missing Cunningham).
The second half was a better showing by our guys, although apparently there was some locker-room truth or dare going on. Several Rapids got a one-on-one opportunities against FSL's Chris Oh Seitz! and chose to pass on scoring.
Gargan? fantastic moves into the box, about 10 yards from goal with nobody around. He passed backwards to a Salt Lake defender.
Colaluca? Lots of fancy footwork, no finishing in the box.
Omar Cummings? Great control, looked good and strong during his 25 minutes on the pitch. Had a one-on-one, totally whiffed it from 8 yards out.
Conor Casey? Ditto. I mean, he shot, but went 5+ yards wide.
Now... and here is where we separate the men from the boys... Jacob Peterson had two good looks on goal. He scored them both. That's the steady influence of a youngster who's gotten some good first-team minutes in the past.
BTW - Casey had a relatively slow-moving game, picking things up in the 2nd half, and starting to launch some killer forward passes through multiple defenders to teammates running onto the ball. Passes to Cummings and Clark were mishandled, but the final pass through to lead Peterson was sheer weighted perfected and created a beautiful spectacle of a final goal to end the game.
One note... the game was almost tied up by Snack Thornton's idiocy. With 5 seconds left (basically, the Ref was letting one play happen after Peterson's goal) Zach bobbles the ball, scuffs a kick and sends it 10 yards to an FSL player who shoots and scores.
Luckily, Zach's antics (and the driving rain) convinced the referee that someone fouled him. So... the goal didn't count, Zach took the kick and the game ended.
Phew! Next up is a US Open Cup game for us on July 10 against somebody. It will be played somewhere.
BTW -- All of us here would like to express our laughter, I mean appreciation, for the after-game scoreboard showing of Kieran Cain's birthday (his 40th!) highlighting pictures of him as a baby.
Posted by BilFish at May 24, 2007 09:55 AM