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The 2014 Colorado Rapids came to a close on Saturday night in Vancouver as the Rapids were defeated by the Whitecaps to end the season 8-18-8 and now face a difficult off-season with a number of questions. The match itself was not terrible to watch as the Rapids, for the most part, played an decent game, but once again were let down by a moment of poor defending. And that singular moment was similar to singular moments in other games which have contributed to this slide.
As with player ratings from last week, I am going to focus on the four functional areas on the pitch rather than give individual player ratings.
Here is how I saw the match:
Goalkeeper: Clint Irwin 6
Irwin looked very good again and it should have erased all doubt as to who the starter on the team is. Made four saves but got hung out to dry by poor marking on the Vancouver goal.
Defenders: Chris Klute, Shane O'Neill, Zat Knight, Marvell Wynne, Davy Armstrong 5.5
Largely a mixed bag for me. For me there were two key moments in this match: when Armstrong entered for an injured Wynne and the goal. This was the most significant MLS time for Armstrong and he looked pretty good out there. He made some runs forward and did not look as out of place as you might imagine for a Lad that has not played. The goal was significant because there is no way that Knight should not be covering the biggest guy on the field. Again, Knight showed why he is not good enough to be on this team and I hope his tenure is over soon.
Midfielders: Carlos Alvarez, Marlon Hairston, Nick LaBrocca, Dillon Serna, John Neeskens 4.5
The midfield needed to do a better job of holding onto the ball and getting it forward for the speed guys up front. They really struggled stringing passes together and some of their passes were so poor that it was almost as if they were telegraphing what they were going to do with the ball.
Forwards: Gabriel Torres, Charles Eloundou, Deshorn Brown 6
I really liked the pairing of Torres and Eloundou up front as both guys had two shots on goal. I would LOVE to see the Rapids run a 4-3-3- with Brown joining Torres and Eloundou up front. Hopefully all three guys will be back in 2015 and more importantly, get consistent minutes.