Colorado Rapids 2 Swansea City 1 - Yay Meaningless Wins!

Sure, it was a friendly match against a mid-table EPL team's second choice starters playing at about 20% of their actual capacities, but hell if it wasn't fun to watch the Rapids beat an EPL team!

With most of the usual starters out of the match -- Conor Casey, Martin Rivero, Drew Moor and Marvell Wynne were probably the top names out -- Tuesday's friendly match provided a chance for some of the players who haven't been getting minutes to show their stuff against a better competitor than usual, and most of the names we were hoping would be put in the spotlight did their best to give Oscar Pareja reasons to play them more.

Andre Akpan and Kamani Hill got starts up top for the Rapids, and both had put the ball in the net by the 16th minute. Akpan's fourth minute goal came off a great cross from Luis Zapata that was headed in easily, while Kamani Hill let loose a rocket of a shot from 25 yards out that slapped the post and nestled in the back of the net.

Past that, the scoring dried up but there were still pretty good performances being put on by just about everyone. It was clear that Swansea was mostly uninterested in playing full tilt as they got the ball stolen away far too often by guys like Scott Palguta and Tyrone Marshall.

In the second half, more young names got chances to shine as Shane O'Neill and Davy Armstrong got stuck in at midfielder and right back, respectively. O'Neill in particular shredded the Swans up and will be hard to ignore after his great performance. Johnathan De Guzman scored on Ian Joyce in the 79th minute for Swansea off a well taken free kick, but past that there wasn't much for either Rapids keeper to do.

It was great fun for the 6500 or so Rapids fans that came out for the match, and a good audition piece for guys like Hill, O'Neill, Armstrong and Akpan. Combine that with a win over a not-too-shabby EPL side and this friendly ended up looking like a very good idea in the end.

MAN OF THE MATCH: Kamani Hill, for that supreme goal that he let loose. It was a solid match for a lot of guys though.

GOAT OF THE MATCH: I don't know, just about everyone played well against a mostly uninterested Swansea side. Even Scott Palguta had his moments.