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Folan, Rapids light up D.C. United 4-1, remain undefeated

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By JOSE M. ROMERO

The Colorado Rapids are off to their best start in team history, offering further proof that last season's MLS Cup run perhaps was no fluke.

Imagine, then, what more the Rapids might have accomplished with big Caleb Folan available to them. Folan just signed two weeks ago from Hull City some time after a winter trial in Arizona with the Rapids, and Colorado's efforts to retain him paid off with a pair of goals in their 4-1 laugher over D.C. United Sunday at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.

Folan's first goal was his best. In the 38th minute, he took a pass from Jeff Larentowicz, settled it and dribbled around defender Rodrigo Brasesco, clearing space to drive in a shot that beat DCU goalkeeper Pat Onstad.

D.C. United actually tied the score at 1 in the 70th minute, Santino Quaranta scoring off a long cross from Chris Korb that he shot in for a goal. But that tie lasted a minute at the most, as Jamie Smith rans across the box and headed in an accurate ball from Anthony Wallace for a 2-1 Rapids lead.

DCU was without injured forward Charlie Davies and three other players out either due to injury or absence. It showed, with the ease in which Folan and others were able to find space in front of the goal area.

Folan started alongside Conor Casey, giving the Rapids an imposing duo up front. But Casey had to leave the match soon after the second half started with what looked like a pulled hamstring, replaced by Omar Cummings, who normally starts with Casey. 

Colorado went up 3-1 in the 81st minute, Folan's header off a good pass from substitute midfielder Sanna Nyassi getting past Onstad in the corner.

With the game in hand and a small crowd of diehards (listed at 9,857 but it looked to be fewer in the stands) celebrating in the freezing night, Cummings capped off the win by putting in a cross from Pablo Mastroeni that was deflected into the air. Players walked off the field amid snow flurries.

The Rapids are 3-0-0 for the first time ever.

 

Comments

  1. I was there. It happened. Perkins was wasting time not picking up the ball and the referee just blows the whistle to allow the DC sub, then plays a drop ball to Perkins to start the game back up….weird.

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  2. For DC’s last sub, the ball was in Picken’s box and he was waiting for a DC player to run at him to pick it up. Pickens picked up the ball and was going to punt down field when the ref blew the whistle and allowed the sub. Realizing his mistake, he gave Picken’s a drop ball in the box after the sub.

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  3. What are you talking about? Watched the whole game and didn’t see it, and can also find no mention of it online (though I did find a DC United supporter site that complimented the ref on a fine job).

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  4. How about the ref allowing DC to sub during the run of play last night? MLS must have picked him up from a local indoor league.

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  5. Match Day Live streams from mlssoccer.com… I think it’s a better deal than Direct Kick… you get most matches live (except blackouts), feeds of actual telecasts instead of some cheap webstream, chat box/Twitter, archived games (blackouts available after 48 hours), reasonable price… yeah, it has its glitches and transmission issues sometimes (especially from Canada) but overall it works fine. Saturday I was watching LAG/PHI and then switched over to SJ/SEA because it looked like the better game. Also, Garber in a recent interview with Forbes was talking about a iPad app that goes with it so you could stream matches wireless to your HD TV.

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  6. yeah, you are way overestimating that number. DC United had 11 shots to Rapids 7, I doubt they did that with only 30% possession.

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  7. I really want to support MLS but I can’t watch most of the games without paying for Direct Kick…and we all know how great Direct Kick is, don’t we?

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  8. They should be having a hot start to the season, first game against an expansion team playing the first game on the road. Second and third games against the two worst teams from last season, how did they get such an easy start to the season? There will be a bigger test next game against RSL.

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  9. Gary Smith would agree with you. He said in the post-match interview the scoreline really didn’t display how dominant DC United were during that game. There were long spells in the first half where we just couldn’t get the ball down the field.

    But I think the second goal from Smith, coming right as a response to the first United goal, really picked the Rapids up, and I think it exposed an achilles heel. Rapids went on to do the same thing (floated cross-to-header) two more times and got two goals out of it.

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  10. +1

    I can recall countless cold, snowy, rainy Saturdays up in SLC at that terrible Rice-Eccles Stadium with die-hard RSL supporters years ago. Our side was terrible for the most part. The pitch was a joke. The league was much smaller back then and did not boast such big names and storylines as it does today. Our avg. attendance abck then? Still much higher than NY today. Easily.

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  11. DCU certainly had more chances and looked lively in the first half. Pickens looks good and Colorado’s back line is much better than they probably get credit for. The match looked painfully cold on TV, and as stated above, combine that with the mile-high elevation and DCU was doomed in the second half.

    On a side note, that guy Caleb Folan looked like a beast. Great touches and finishing despite the poor conditions. He may be a surprise candidate not only for the newcomer of the year, but the golden boot as well. I’d love to see him take Casey’s regular spot up top with Cummings. That’d be deadly.

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  12. You hear schtick because you have undoubtedly North America’s best soccer specific stadium.

    You hear schtick becaue you’re in a region/hotbed for the sport.

    You hear schtick because your ownership/management is making a great effort to put a competitive, potentially trophy winning, side on the pitch for you.

    You hear schtick because even your home opener, with a global icon in the sport (Henry), a young up & coming US product (Agudelo) against a solid MLS club (Seattle)…you can’t even sell the place out.

    You hear schtick because your fan base is underachieving and it’s blatantly obvious.

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  13. Well perhaps he has in mind Ives’ rather more recent piece (from just the day before?) asking if the Red Bulls were not now the team to beat in MLS…

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  14. “….offering further proof that last season’s MLS Cup run perhaps was no fluke.”

    “Proof” then “perhaps”? That’s one reason why this sentence really doesn’t make a lot of sense.

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  15. I always hear schtick from people about RBNY’s attendance when they rank in the top 4, then the cup winner play and there are what looks to be 45 people in attendance… Cold, snow, what have you… thats no excuse. Their supporter’s section is even a joke. its only like 100 seats.

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  16. 70% possession? I think we were watching different games (and different teams). 70% possession is the kind of number that Barcelona puts up…and the Rapids are no Barcelona. I have yet to see any match numbers with possession percentages but a few indicators are that DCU outshoot and had more corners than Colorado (again, not proof of equal or higher possession). One shot on goal for 70 minutes seems like an unrealistic number for 70% possession.

    Don’t get me wrong…Colorado is a good team. They’re playing confidently and given a chance that frontline will finish and finish well. And the last 20 minutes by the Rapids were very impressive…exactly the kind of display you’d expect from a confident, experienced team. But at the 70 minute mark this was a tied game with DCU having more shots, more shots on goal and more corners and Gary Smith saying it was a difficult match and that the final score flattered the Rapids…but a few people are saying it was total domination and 70% possession?

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  17. Slightly different take. I thought DCU outplayed the Rapids through most of 70 minutes–no domination there, certainly not the huge edge you’d expect especially against a team missing FIVE regulars (Davies, Zayner,,Jakovic, Kitchener, Simms).

    Total credit to the Rapids for finishing well and playing strongly in the last 20 minutes. But the Rapids had a total of 4 shots on goal (and one through the first 70 minutes)–hardly sounds like “total domination” to me.

    No excuses–the Rapids deserved the win and were the better team. But this article reads likes someone who didn’t see the game, just saw the final score and figured “4-1, Rapids must have been dominating from the first minute on”.

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  18. Nevertheless, for a minute there (literally!), it had the look of one of those where a team gets too complacent and takes their foot off the gas and lets the opponent right back in it. I mean the DC goal was beautiful, but it was also set up by the Rapids fooling around with the ball in front of their own goal way too much rather than properly taking care of business. And of course it only tied the game because all that possession still had not resulted in anything else to show for it besides Folan’s beautiful first goal.

    Happily for the Rapids, Onstad and the rest of the DC defense seemed to ignore Smith for way too long and he immediately put the Rapids back on top with that deft little header. But it could have been uglier.

    Actually even Gary Smith said in a postgame interview that the scoreline flattered the Rapids a bit, compared to the level of difficulty of the match.

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  19. Rapids had also announced well before game time that those with tickets who couldn’t make it due to weather would be able to exchange them for tickets to an upcoming match against the Sounders. That’s a deal I would have taken, especially given the greater relevance of seeing a conference rival and knowing about Davies not being there.

    Anyway, yes, hopefully people will continue to underestimate the Rapids for quite a while. But the increased firepower on display today might naturally start to work against that, if it keeps up…

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  20. It wasn’t a fairly even game as some have said. The Rapids dominated possession–it seemed like about 70% in the Rapids favor, and that was all she wrote.

    DCU had very few (if any, really) stretches of possession lasting as long as 30 seconds.

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  21. I guessing the rain and snow that we got in Colorado played a part in the empty seats. Was in the 80’s Saturday and then a cold front moved in.

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  22. Uh, until altitude started to take its toll late it was a fairly even game. If you guys trained and played at sea level you’d have the same slump at the end. 3 goals in the last 20 minutes is clear evidence of this. Unfortunately we also had a only one defensive starter on the field and he rarely gets above mediocre play.

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  23. First half pretty even but in the 2nd the Rapids beat us like a drum. Even at full strength this would be a tough game to get a result from, but with Simms, Zayner, Davies, Jakovic, and Hamid out — plus the altitude — we were doomed.

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  24. It had been snowing heavily all day, and was about 40 degrees at kickoff and 32 at game’s end with the snow starting up again.

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  25. The Rapids are being overlooked again. The are the best TEAM in MLS. Ives’ (Red Bulls) team will fall short again.

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