Using a lineup of mainly reserves Colorado won their first true U.S. Open Cup game in 5 years 3-1 over the Tampa Bay Rowdies. The starting XI was:
Hill - Akpan - EduThompson - Henao - CastrillonZapata - Marshall - Palguta - FreemanCeus
The goals came from all 3 of our starting strikers.

Tonight the Rapids are in Tampa to face the NASL Tampa Bay Rowdies in the 3rd Round of the U.S. Open Cup. If Colorado wins they will travel to the winner of the Orlando - Kansas City game next Tuesday for the quarter-finals. Game time tonight is 5:30pm MDT and there will be at least a Twitter feed, possibly a video stream, at the Rowdies website.

From Friday's game preview:

Prediction: 0-0 draw. I expect some ugly soccer tomorrow. One team is an expansion team and one team is missing up to 7 starters. There will be a lot of tentative, conservative play and no scoring.

OK, so I was way off on the scoreline, but I was right about the ugly soccer.

The New England Revolution is all set to take on the Colorado Rapids tonight at Gillette Stadium. The Revs will be hoping to improve upon a 2-5-0 record, including a three-match losing streak that spanned the month of April. Colorado, meanwhile, just dominated Chivas by a 4-0 scoreline and will hope that match was the coming-out party they've been waiting for under Oscar Pareja.

When the Colorado Rapids comes to Seattle for their 1PM Saturday match most of the national attention will be on Brian Mullan and how the fans react to his presence. Some significant soccer storylines are missed if you focus on that; things that are more likely to effect the result. New Coach Oscar Pareja is shifting the team to a more dynamic 4-3-3.

Things just have not gone the way of the Los Angeles Galaxy these past few days. Not even in the MLS Reserve League.

Chivas USA's reserves topped the Los Angeles Galaxy reserves convincingly on Monday afternoon, winning 4-2 at Field 1 of the Home Depot Center. Cesar Romero led the way for the Goats, scoring a second-half hat-trick in the match.

That's Jamie Smith dressed up as the Mad Hatter for Halloween yesterday.
Another quick turnaround as the Rapids face the end of their season tomorrow in Kansas City. Down 2 goals Colorado mus win by 2 to force overtime and PKs or 3 to win and move on. On top of the other problems a storm is rolling into KC tomorrow night (probably the front edge of what's rolling into Denver tonight) which could make the game sloppy.

A quick turnaround for the Rapids as they are back in action tomorrow. The first leg of the conference semi-finals sees the SporKC's coming back to town. It will be the final home game of the season, no matter what happens, so let's go out with a bang. The tailgate starts at 2:30 with kickoff at 5:30.

Swindon Town: un fantastico tris per Paolo Di Canio Di Renato Cignoni CRAWLEY TOWN 0SWINDON TOWN 3 (Connell '28 – Kerrouche 82' e 85') Crawley Town:Michel Kuipers; David Hunt, Charlie Wassmer, Tom Eastman, Scott Griffiths; Hope Akpan, Josh Simpson (Cap), Dannie Bulman, Michael Doughty; Tyrone Barnett, Matt Tubbs Sostituti: Scott Shearer, Ben Smith, Glenn Wilson, John Akinde, Jon-Paul

The Rapids are on the road this week, some of them on a very long road trip, in San Jose. Last time these two teams met a great Kosuke Kimura goal gave the Rapids the win and, more importantly, the Eastern Conference Championship en rout to their MLS Cup victory. I think we can expect the Earthquakes to be looking for some revenge after that loss.

Sporting KC (aka the SporKCs) makes its first trip to Denver since they renamed themselves from the Kansas City Wizards (a much better name IMO). They also took our kits as they are now the light blue team in the league while we went to the white road kits. The SporKCs are in the 9th game of a 10 game road trip before their new stadium opens next month, and they have been spectacularly unsuccessful on the road with only 1 win and 1 draw so far.

The Rapids started the game with only 2 offensive players hoping just to battle to a low-scoring draw. That worked for about 25 minutes. Between minute 27 and 33 all hell broke loose, then they went back to the plan for the remaining 57 minutes of the game. In the end they got the draw they wanted, but it was a much higher scoring 2-2 draw than what they expected.

OK, computer problems are fixed and I'm (pretty much) healthy again so back to our regularly scheduled blogging. On Sunday Toronto FC is in town along with 4 former Rapids (most on one team in the league). Dan Gargan, Ty Harden, Jacob Peterson, and Adrian "Dalek" Cann will have their sights back on Denver for this weekend's game.

Photo by Nathan Forget

Looking back on Earl's preseason preview of the Colorado Rapids, you will see the following players listed as anticipated starters:

Pickens (10)
Kimura (10) - Wynne (8) - Moore (10) - Wallace (5)
Mullan (5) - Larentowicz (10) - Mastroeni (8) - Smith (9)
Casey (2) - Cummings (6)

With pretty much the entire team coming back from last year's MLS Cup winning side and the key additions being for depth, this team was expected to compete again for a championship.

I have nothing for you other than a promise I will get this done before the afternoon of the next game.

Anyways here you go for you reading enjoyment a break down of a rather ho hum 1-1 draw.

Weather: 46 degrees, partly cloudy.
Surface: Natural Grass
Location: Stadium somewhere in Colorado
Referee: Jorge Gonzalez
Line Judges: Anthony Vasoli, Darren Clark
4th Official: Jose Carlos Rivero
Attendance: 11,789
Matchday Live announce crew:
Colorado Announcers
Lineups:
Chicago:
Coach: Carlos de los Cobos
GK: Jon Conway
D: Jalil Anibaba
D: Yamith Cuesta
D: Josip Mikulic
D: Gonzalo Segares
M: Daniel Paladini
M: Corben Bone
M: Dominic Oduro
M: Marco Pappa
M: Gaston Puerari
F: Diego Chaves
Bench:
GK: Sean Johnson
M: Baggio Husidic
M: Bratislav Ristic
M: Patrick Nyarko
F: Orr Barouch
D: Dasan Robinson
D: Pari Pantazopoulos
Changes from last week: Paladini and Bone replace Pause (out with injury) and Husidic in the center of the midfield.

Water met Fire on Saturday night and the two opposing forces resulted in no winner as Chicago and Colorado ended with a 1-1 draw in very cold temps. The Rapids were playing with a depleted lineup, missing Casey, Folan, Wynne, and of course Mullan. Despite that they controlled the majority of play.
Chicago had only 3 shots on goal, alas they scored on one.

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Today's Teams
QPR: Kenny, Orr, Hill, Derry, Hall, Taarabt, Helguson, Faurlin, Gorkss, Routledge, Smith.

The Rapids have finished their games in Arizona. Over the last 5 days they have faced Kansas City, Columbus, and La, finishing with 2 wins and a draw.
Game 1 - Sporting Kansas CityStarting 11: Pickens, Kimura, Wynne, Moor, Wallace, Nyassi, Larentowicz, Nane, Thompson, Folan, Cummings
29 of the 30 players on the trip played in the 120 minute session, only Mastroeni got the game off.

The Rapids just announced that Andre Akpan, last year's first round pick, and Jamie Smith have signed new contracts. Akpan was probably offered a new contract so quickly due to the new rules on roster spots (which I'll go into in more detail sometime over the weekend) with minimum and maximum salary limits.