April 28, 2008
Without ‘Chick magnet’ Sam ... Rapids fade fast!
Rapids vs. Fire April 26th, 2008
by Geoff MacPherson
With Kids you can discuss concepts until your burgundy and blue in the face but its only going to make a difference when they actually experience the situation and only then does light bulb go off… “Oh that’s what the old git was dribbling on about”. And that is what we are hoping happened with the Rapids kids against the Earthquake last week.
Its lad’s weekend in my household this weekend, just me and my son Sam who’s 20 months old. Sam has the energy level of Colin “I like to wear ‘Ritchie Cunningham’ cardigans for TV interviews” Clark, pushes the barriers like Kyle Beckerman (as a result is yellow carded on a daily basis) and seems to learn to adjust quickly to new situations. Yet at the same time it doesn’t seem to matter how may times he provokes the cat (often resulting in multiple scratches) he still ends up with the confused look on his face of, “dude what the hell was that for?”
We play Chicago for the second time in 6 weeks (last time was preseason in the Mecca of US Soccer, Ridgeland, Mississippi) where it ended in a 1-0 win to the Rapids. Clavijo goes with the same 4-4-1-1 formation but makes three changes from the first 4 games Mastroeni comes in for DiRaimondo, McManus replaces Cummings and Gray steps in for Kimura.
Former Mexican television reality dance competitor Cuauhtemoc Blanco weaved his magic in the first 15 minutes making our back four look very nervous and disorganized, but credit to the defense they adjusted quickly (compared to the debacle last week) and for the majority of the half shut him down.
The midfield was doing their job and looked good moving forward, Ritchie Cunningham had a great strike in the 32nd minute that just flew over the top left hand corner.
McManus was great in the first half often floating over to the right and delivering some great crosses; unfortunately the midfield did not react and crash the goal in a timely manner. Cooke played a disappearing act, I don’t know if McManus was taking up Cooke’s space on the right which threw Cooke out of sync compared to what he has been use to with Cunningham who plays a more out and out striker in a central role. Even when the bust up with Gomez happened in the 45th minute he wasn’t visible and Mastroeni seemed to be playing the captains role.
The disappointing aspect of the first half was the lack of balls won by the Rapids midfield when it was cleared from Chicago’s 18 yard box too keep the pressure on the Fire defense. We go in at the half at 0-0. The Rapids are looking solid but unfortunately ‘Chick magnet’ Sam was fading at British Bulldog but definitely a good first outing for the young fella.
For the second half I had the cultural experience of I listening to the rest of the game on the way home in Spanish waiting for Gooooooaaaaaaaalllllll Rapids, it came but all a little two late. From the brief highlights I did see we had a couple of defensive lapses which resulted in the 2-1 loss.
Yes this team is still young, they are going to get us excited about potential playoffs at the same time the kids are going to do what kids do, make mistakes, its going to frustrate us to no end as we scream from section 108 or at the TV, but in my mind its will be fun to watch these guys with a large amount of potential grow and learn in front of our eyes this season. Just as it is watching Sam learn how to ping the ball across the kitchen.