Twelve games, twelve defeats, one pattern
Colorado have conceded the first goal twelve times in MLS this season. They have lost all twelve. No draw, no comeback, nothing salvaged. That number travels with the Rapids to Austin on Wednesday night, where the hosts are trying to drag themselves back into the Western Conference play-in race.
Matt Wells has stopped dressing it up. “In what team sport can you be successful if you can’t perform when there’s a little bit of adversity, or you’re behind in a game?” the Rapids coach said. “It’s my biggest frustration. Seeing zero points in those games where we go down a goal.”
The flip side is just as absolute. Colorado (10-12-1, 31 points) have taken five wins since the World Cup break, every one of them at home, every one of them a clean sheet. All three defeats in that stretch came on the road, and in each of them the Rapids failed to score. Saturday’s 3-0 loss at Columbus fit the file exactly.
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Austin’s slow climb
Austin (6-10-7, 25 points) sit 14th in the West, five points behind ninth-place San Diego with eleven matches left. That gap looked considerably worse a month ago. The Verde are unbeaten in four, the latest a 1-1 draw with San Jose on Saturday that Guilherme Biro rescued with the final kick of the match, seven minutes into second-half stoppage time.
Biro is also the player interim coach Davy Arnaud spends the most time explaining. “I have a hard time telling players to dial back their intensity,” Arnaud said. “This is a competitive game, and when you’re driven to win, you have a desire to win, you have to flirt with that line and sometimes you know it leads to cards or something else. You can’t cross the line and be undisciplined.”
A rematch with one name missing
These two met on Aug. 1 in Colorado, a 1-0 home win settled by Rafael Navarro’s penalty in second-half stoppage time. Navarro is now a St. Louis City player, sold for $12 million in the largest cash-for-player trade in MLS history. The Rapids have won three of the last five meetings between the clubs. They will have to manage this one without the striker who decided the previous meeting, and against a side that has stopped losing.
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