Saturday was game 3 of the Rocky mountain cup…Despite feeling feverish and ill, I did manage to catch the game (though I was forced to retreat to my couch at home during halftime). In point of fact, I may have more to say about the game because I was ill than I otherwise would. I decided to leave the stadium before the game started, and my sickly condition made me stop a few times on my way out of the stadium. I found that if I stood very still, I didn’t feel as bad, so my journey from the stadium ended up being a tour of the stadium, watching from the tunnels. As a rainy game, the crowd was sparce, but surprisingly lively. I got an opportunity to stand behind the Loyalists, whose chants have changed somewhat due to a change of drummer I expect. As I made my way slowly around the concourse, I noticed that the crowd has diversified dramatically since I last had an opportunity to wander around the stadium. Specifically on the West side of the stadium I was heartened to see substantially more hispanic families than I had seen previously. From my usual vantage point in the stadium, much of the crowd looks caucasion/european, but I caught a Liberian accent in the concourse, a whole batch of kids sporting their Ronaldo Brazillian jerseys and Ronaldinho Barca jerseys. In short the crowd started to look much more comparative to the proportional numbers of people I see playing soccer week in and week out, rather than proportional to the overall population numbers. This was a welcome change and kind of warmed my heart. From the West Side of the stadium, I could quite clearly hear Both the Loyalists and RCB, as well as some less organized singing from the North end…About the only people I couldn’t hear were the travelling Colorado supporters mired in the SW corner. When I finally made my way around to them, it became amusingly obvious why I couldn’t hear them. Aside from the fact that they were cold, wet, miserable, losing, and the Rapids were playing some wretched soccer, they had managed to sit virtually right next to Samba Gringa (who have positioned all 10 of their drummers in the West side of the South stands all season). I have to admit, I could barely hear myself speak over the din…It warmed my heart quite a bit. I have never been so happy about the presence of Samba Gringa.
Kreis fielded what actually looked like a natural 4-3-3 in the first half, with Kyle and Chris Brown on the wings and Movsisyan playing the central striker role. A great junk-goal by Kyle off of the rebound from Chris’ shot put RSL up early. I watched Chris Brown play quite a bit from a good vantage on Saturday, and I may finally understand why Kreis thinks he is an asset. My theory is that the gravitational field created by the size of CB’s head actually warps time and space for a short distance around him. I watched some of the wierdest things happen around Brown. He was often out of position, even occasionally running completely contrary to the development of the play and still somehow have the ball pop out to him. I watched him attempt to play the ball with his ass against two Rapids defenders who couldn’t manage to retrieve the ball, despite the fact that Brown was actually facing away from them and the ball was at his heels. It seems possible that for a short distance around him, light actually bends, as defenders took bad pursuit angles at him and misjudged balls around him frequently. I stood there in awe at this inexplicable play…checked my forehead to make sure my fever wasn’t playing tricks on my eyes. I don’t know how you would go about playing to use this kind of anomaly to your advantage.
Sisy played very aggressive up top, giving Brown and Brownie a ton of space to work with. Colorado’s back for were clearly frustrated by how hard they were having to work to keep these guys under control. Their midfielders were scrambling to cover and often getting caught too deep defensively to mount an effective counter against RSL.
I really liked the way Mantilla played as well, sending probing balls forward, often across field to an attacker coming to the ball. He was making good use of the seams in Colorado’s midfield sending the ball forward out of the back. He also had a lot of continuity and chemistry with Lancos at right back, who played some very intelligent defense throughout the game. I was a bit surprised that Colorado didn’t shift Cooke to take advantage of the pace mismatch. Apparently they felt they had a good matchup against Wingert as a known commodity, or they were worried about having a midfielder to check up Wingert’s forward play. Either way, Cooke spent a huge portion of the match mired just outside his own 18 covering KB and Espindola respectively. (something I would expect Clavijo to correct for the next game).
In the second half, Carrey Talley was able to spring Beckerman forward to exploit a defensive unit which was clearly weakened by Movsisyan’s attack. I actually liked the gamble Kreis made in this game, leaving strong enough players on the bench that his substitutions were able to bring an immediate impact to the pitch. RSL effectively shifted back to their 4-5-1 in the second half with the addition of Morales for Kyle Brown in the 62nd minute. They bunkered a bit hard for a while and very nearly gave up a goal in the 85th minute. Rimando, however came to the rescue with a brilliant double save. Afterward, they made more of a point to keep Colorado’s defensemen honest, taking some of the pressure off.
I did love the Television announcement that RSL had won the RMC…I did a big whaaaa? After all, I was at all three games against Colorado this year. I specifically remember the tie in Commerce (the pair of own goals), and the early loss to them at RES. My wife was urging me to call the post-game show rather than railing at the idiocy of the announcers. But I was too busy looking for cheap airfare to Denver for Oct. 20th.
On the whole, I thought this might have been the most cohesive team effort I’ve seen out of RSL. Perhaps we should arrange for it to rain cats and dogs more often…anybody have a spare firehose?
-Heretic
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