What was with the end of that match? Calling the game in the middle of a breakaway? Next to just before a PK, that is the most absurd time a ref could possibly call a game in soccer. If you watched the game from your home (at least the part that made it on the air), you heard a lot of complaining about inconsistent officiating, but over all, it seemed pretty normal for MLS.

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The Colorado Rapids grinded this one out against one of the league's top teams and were unlucky in the end to only get a 1-1 draw. With Chivas beating Salt Lake, the Rapids are now third in the Western Conference with just five games to go. Gary Smith, head coach, now has one of the nine points he said he wanted from six games but this conference remains so tight, especially with Dallas' surprise victory over Chicago, that it looks impossible to predict what will happen. Click to continue reading...

So, I did manage to get up to training today but I am probably not able to add too many insights into who will start tomorrow for the Colorado Rapids against RSL. That was because I got involved in a good conversation with club captain, Pablo Mastroeni. By the time we finished talking, the boys were off in the bus to take them to the airport for tomorrow night's game. Click to continue reading...

Today's goalscorer for USL-1 side Puerto Rico Islanders Osei Telesford against England in May/Reuters Photo

Can you believe that headline? After seeing MLS sides lose in all eight attempts to even get so much as a draw in a CONCACAF Champions Cup match on Costa Rican soil, tonight in the new CONCACAF Champions League USL-1 side Puerto Rico Islanders got a shock 1-1 draw at Alajuelense.

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The Colorado Rapids go into Friday night's Rocky Mountain Cup showdown against Real Salt Lake with what amounts to a mini injury crisis. Pablo Mastroeni and Terry Cooke, two of the most influential players in the team, will not make the trip due to hamstring injuries. Click to continue reading...

If you look at the Colorado Rapids website, you'll see this weekend's projected formation lined up looking like some Roman gladiators. The formation is listed as basically two lines of four and five in defense and midfield with lone striker,Conor Casey, up front. Here is the link to the website. Click to continue reading...

It's probably not the way anyone wanted his tenure to end but Fernando Clavijo's days with the Colorado Rapids are over.

Clavijo resigned due to personal reasons as he and the Rapids reached some sort of mutual agreement that allowed the two to part ways.

Still, Clavijo probably shouldn't have been around this long to being with. Click to continue reading...

Bouna Coundoul, Pablo Mastroeni and Omar Cummings have all been called up for their respective national teams for international fixtures next week. Bouna will be off to Tripoli for a Senegal friendly against Libya while Cummings and Mastroeni will represent their countries in World Cup qualifiers against Canada and Guatemala respectively. Click to continue reading...

With all the shenanigans going on at the troubled LA Galaxy organization, there have also been stirrings this week surrounding the Colorado Rapids. Rumors of coaching changes at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, new players coming in, supporters clubs airing their grievances with the organization. Click to continue reading...

The Colorado Rapids' press office must be working off a template for their post-match releases. My worst fears were realized when I again read that the Rapids had outshot their opponents for the tenth week in a row but had still lost. Just like the Rockies baseball team, a loss over the weekend finally nails it home what most have been thinking for a while. Click to continue reading...

What. A. Goal. from TFC newb Chad Barrett. A sublime strike sees Toronto's six-game winless streak come to an end in the sweltering Colorado heat. The game saw a total of eight cautions including a second yellow for Rapid's Colin Clark in the 70th minute. Next up, away to NY Red Bulls next Sunday. Click to continue reading...

Once again, the Colorado Rapids outshot their opposition but there is only one statistic that matters in soccer and that is how many goals you score and how many goals you let in, well two statistics then. Everton scored twice, once at the beginning of the game and once right at the end. Click to continue reading...

The Colorado Rapids have signed Brazilian midfielder, Bruno Guarda, through the league's lottery system. Guarda will take the roster position of the unfortunate Justin Hughes who has been placed on the season-ending injury list. Get better soon Justin! The Rapids have not had the best of luck with Brazilians. Click to continue reading...

The Colorado Rapids claimed the Tecate Cup in pks after a scoreless 90 minutes against UANL Tigres, the same club that won the "World Series of Football" last year that marked David Beckham's debut with the LA Galaxy. Colin Clark's... Click to continue reading...

Goal.com USA's Kyle McCarthy hit on several topics in this week's Monday MLS Breakdown, including the dismal display of the Red Bulls, Pat Noonan's rumored return to MLS and the strong play of Colorado's Colin Clark. Click to continue reading...

Well, the logistics department of the Colorado Rapids probably knows how to get the team there but do the team know how to win aginst the struggling Earthquakes? Thoughts must now turn to a vital game next weekend in California after yesterday's dismantling of a poor New York Red Bulls side. Click to continue reading...

The relatively inexperienced midfield for the Colorado Rapids may have to inject a little more cynicism into its play to avoid making the kinds of mistakes that saw the team allow a similarly inexperienced Columbus player last week waltz through it and score the winning goal. Goalkeeper, Bouna Coundoul, said in this week's radio show, "From The Pitch", that Emmanuel Ekpo should have been fouled further up the field. Click to continue reading...

One mistake and it ended up costing us the game. The Colorado Rapids competed well with the Columbus Crew for the entirety of this match but where were the midfield and defense to stop Emmanuel Ekpo's marauding run in the 70th minute? The young Nigerian basically walked through the Rapids' back line and midfield before unleashing a powerful shot that Bouna Coundoul could only parry into the net. Click to continue reading...

OK, bit of a corny headline but there is a good opportunity for the Rapids to vent all their frustrations of the past two weeks on the Dynamo this weekend. Coach, Fernando Clavijo, is very confident he will have the squad to roll the Texans over. Back comes a very solid defense with Ugo Ihemelu returning from pseudo international duty with Canada and Facundo Erpen returning from suspension. Click to continue reading...

Rohan Ricketts' performance Saturday night was a wonderful treat. He turned those recent flashes of potential and promise into the real deal in a dazzling night at BMO Field. His two second half goals were the difference as he sparked a victory over the visiting Colorado Rapids.
TFC has been a revolving international duty door lately, as the team was missing Maurice Edu, Greg Sutton, Jim Brennan, Amado Guevara and Tyrone Marshall as they were with their respective national teams. Click to continue reading...

Top XI

G: Kevin Hartman Matt Reis
D: Ramiro Corrales
D: Richard Mulrooney Sean Franklin
D: Jeff Parke
M: Steve Ralston
M: Ronnie O'Brien
M: Dwayne De Rosario
M: Colin Clark
F: Brian Ching
F: Edson Buddle Juan Pablo Angel
F: Luciano Emilio

Top coach: Tom Soehn. Click to continue reading...

Chivas USA is not a bad club. At least they're not a bad club like Houston and San Jose are bad clubs. They are superbly average. When Chicago's or even Houston's midfield is setting up an attack, I get nervous, but not so with Chivas USA. That is, with one exception: Kljestan. That kid is the only part of the Chivas lineup that's dangerous.

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Throw all the trash you like, Salt Lakers. The Rocky Mountain Cup is coming back to Colorado.

Let me start by offering a formal apology for predicting yesterday that Salt Lake would score a goal. That was shameful and, in retrospect, I don't know what I was thinking. I will put forth great effort to avoid saying such hideous things in the future.

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One of the best problems a soccer team can have is having too many good players to field them all. That, and the ability to adapt the line-up to different opponents, is a sign of a good soccer team. The Rapids have both.

The biggest question on my mind as we await the game against Houston (with much anticipation, by the way) is who will be starting.

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How good are the Rapids? On Sunday, the Rapids outplayed DC United by any measure, and I still think they underperformed. I really think they could have scored three or four if they had just finished on a few of the opportunities they had in the first half. That's how good they are.

The match on Sunday was a great way to get back into the swing of things.

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Chicago that is. I'm sure Chicago is a great city but when you are at Dick's Sporting Goods Park looking at the snow-capped mountains on a sunny morning and playing soccer for a living, Denver sure looks good. I watched the squad in training yesterday and what I would give to be 25, fit and playing on the carpet that is the Rapids' training ground. Click to continue reading...

For those of you local to Colorado, I just saw an interview with Colin Clark on One-on-One, Altitude's interview show. The interview was okay, but it wasn't particularly informative or earth-shattering, so really this is just an excuse to talk about how awesome Colin Clark is, how he would ...

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Much has already been written about the recent release of MLS players' salaries so I'm not going to add all that much. I'm also not going to say that certain players deserve less than they are actually geting, which some have commented on already. All I want to say is how can a professional sportsman, or anybody else for that matter, live on less than $18,000 a year (Kosuke Kimura, weekend goalscorer John DiRaimondo) and how come merit isn't exactly rewarded (Bouna and Colin Clark on a paltry $33,000 a year)? Click to continue reading...

Just when I thought I could get away with one post today, the Major League Soccer Players' Union goes and releases the salary numbers...commie bastards...

Having rambled way down below - they say people resort to verbosity to cloak ignorance, y'know - I'll keep things short here. I can handle .

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I think this gets it about right:

Things didn't look so bleak for the Los Angeles Galaxy by the end of the first half. And, yeah, one could argue Omar Cummings picked up a soft penalty kick; as Max Bretos noted in his commentary Cummings popped back to his feet ...

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...hmm, that title isn't quite what I'm going for...and I can't link to some of the statistical stuff cited below because MLSnet.com was gummed up and lame at time of typing.
Today, we get to the failing that doomed the Colorado Rapids's 2007: namely, the ever-sputtering offense. If Toronto FC hadn't suffered eternities of incompetence in front of goal, the Rapids 29 goals scored would have set the all-time low-scoring mark for the 30-game era in Major League Soccer (MLS).

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For those unfamiliar with it, I have dedicated myself to follow and, to some degree, conflate the relatively separate fates of the Columbus Crew and the Colorado Rapids for the 2008 Major League Soccer (MLS) season.� The idea is to see which of these long-struggling MLS original clubs make progress this season. Click to continue reading...

Colorado Rapids Record (W-L-T): 9-13-8; 29 GF; 34 GA Source Material: Schedule/match reports Overview It seems fitting somehow that I should approach a review of the Colorado Rapids 2007 in the same almost aggressively feckless manner in which that team's front office runs the team - e.g. not reading the match reports, but operating from memory. Click to continue reading...

� (* The title gets explained all the way down at the bottom.� I bury leads with the best of 'em.) Not even a late goal could retrieve the game that struck me as the snoozer of Week 26.� Only the most rabid of partisans would call New England's win over the Rapids anything like just or [...] Click to continue reading...

1. Sacha Kljestan - a somewhat surprising first pick - I know - but his sophomore season has not been one of ups and downs; instead the Seton Hall product has already outdone his rookie season of 0 g, 7 a, by striking for 4 g this year and adding 7 assists; he put the [...] Click to continue reading...