Colorado Rapids vs. LA Galaxy - The Blank, The Bad, The Ugly

Eeesh.

It has been a week and I am still struggling to find the words that describe the Colorado Rapids vs LA Galaxy match at Dick's Sporting Goods Park last Wednesday.   It was some parts good, some parts bad, and a whole ton of ugly, but after a week was it really as bad as it looked.

In a word: it was worse

Here is The Good, The Bad, The Ugly--Colorado Rapids, Just 26% left in the year

The Good--Well, We Scored

Most folks who follow this team were sitting on pins and needles waiting for the first 15 minutes to be over.  Let's face it, the Rapids have been down right terrible in the first 15 minutes of matches.  They have given up so many goals that they were seemingly out of the match before it even started.  But something happened on Wednesday night: the Rapids scored before the 15 minute mark and had two goals on the board in the first 17 minutes.   Marlon Hairston opened his MLS account and Edson Buddle notched his 100th in his Major League Soccer career.  It was shocking to see and the Lads looked like they might have something there.  But....

The Bad--The Defense

...and then the other shoe dropped.  The Rapids cannot play defense to save their lives.  Chris Klute got caught, somehow, so badly out of position that Robbie Keane could have walked in.  Young defenders and defenders out of position were beaten and that led to the Galaxy scoring three goals in the second half to walk away with all three points.

The Ugly--Dropped Points And A Trip To Seattle

The LA match continued a horrible trend of the Rapids dropping points at home.  To date they have lost (or tied) winnable games at home to Chivas USA, San Jose Earthquakes, Columbus Crew, Chicago Fire and now the Galaxy.  In those five matches the Rapids have garnered 3 points when they should have had fifteen.  Those 12 extra points would have them tied for second and able to better absorb this patch of horrific form.  But alas, you can't got back and change the past, but those are matches that the Rapids blew it.  And now they play the best team in the league, at home, on fake grass with no Drew Moor, Shane O'Neill and Jared Watts.  Yikes.

Our Colorado Rapids have 9 games to turn this thing around.  It is a brutal schedule with trips to Seattle and Los Angeles in the next two weeks, but if there is a light at the end of the tunnel--the Rapids are just a point out of playoffs.  Time for them to dig deep and find that form that has been missing.  A shock result in Seattle would be huge.