Rapids 1-2 San Jose Earthquakes (Preseason)

There's the result, and I wish there was more to tell, but due to technical difficulties the video feed was cut out early on in the game after Jaime Castrillon opened his account with a great interplay from trialist Jefferson Angulo. Which was a pleasure to see, but things didn't start well for the Rapids as San Jose enjoyed a majority of early possession, though the better chances were falling to the Burgundy and Blue.

San Jose's goals were from Khari Stephenson and Chris Wondolowski, respectively. Though not respectfully. NEVER respectfully.

Some notes on the game:

--Kosuke Kimura started the match and played 81 minutes, his first competitive minutes since the injury.

--Kohei Yamada played his first minutes in a Rapids kit, coming on in the 81st minute for Castrillon.

--Jefferson Angulo is getting quite the look from Colorado, he played 45 minutes and has been quite impressive, I'd expect an announcement regarding him quite soon.

--Zapata also getting a good deal of minutes for Colorado, I'd also expect an announcement regarding his future.

--Hunter Freeman also saw minutes for his new team as well, coming in at Centerback.

The Rapids did deploy a 4-3-3 which looked something like this:

Pickens started in goal.

Back four was Kimura, Wynne, Marshall, Zapata.

Playing Pivot was Larentowicz, I think in football terms that would be a "number 4" but correct me if I'm wrong. It's late in Minnesota and I've been drinking, clearly.

In foront of him, I believe in a number 8 and number 6 role respectively, were Castrillon and Mastroeni. Pablo and Castrillon would shift places often, switching sides and taking on different roles as the game progressed. Though generally Castrillon played further up the pitch which Pablo withdrew.

And then up in front of them were Mullan, Cummings, and Angulo. Cummings was deployed centrally, and Mullan ran close to the touchline, Angulo would drift in and out as he preferred.

Here's a neat thing about what a Rapids 4-3-3 does: it basically takes the high pressure midfield game that the Rapids have been used to playing and turns it up another notch. It's less a total revamping and more of a natural evolution of the high pressure game that we're used to seeing. The Rapids attempt to retain possession further and further up the field (they failed in that tonight, mostly) and thus they compress the field of play entirely into the opponents half. At least that's the idea. The execution tonight was suspect. And as I've told people before, it's going to be some time before we see it becoming something that really produces a lot of wins for the Rapids.

I do feel, however that this 4-3-3, and the style we are currently playing, is a natural evolution of Gary Smith's high pressure 4-4-2. And I believe a significant upgrade which offers more versatility and dynamic movement forward to score some serious goals, and contend consistently for championships.

However, and I want to emphasize this: execution is suspect right now. The idea is good, but change like this does not happen overnight, though we may pray to the football gods that it may be so.

Alright guys, have a great night. I'm going to drink more and possibly cry.

Possibly.