Colorado faced Chivas USA in a scrimmage at the HDC today. A late Qunicy Amarikwa goal from a Steven Emory assist gave the burgundy boys a 1-0 win. Of course its preseason so its meaningless but wins are always better than losses. The starting XI (trialists makred with a *):
Angulo* - Cummings - MullanLarentowicz - Castrillon - MastroeniZapata* - Marshall - Wynne - KimuraPickens
After subs the team finished with the the following lineup:
Cascio - Amarikwa - AkpanThompson - LaBauex - EmoryFreeman - Palguta - Guido* - AbabioJoyce
Guido is a local player playing with the team while they're in California.

There's been murmurs all week that Folan was looking for a a new club in Europe. Today the Rapids made it official, releasing him from his contract. Anyone who read this blog last year knows I was no fan of Folan, mainly due to the lack of effort he displayed on the field. This move frees up around 200K of salary cap space, possibly to go after that rumored Argentine midfielder.

The 2012 MLS SuperDraft has come and gone. With only two rounds this year, the draft flew by like never before. There were no trades during the draft to make it interesting and overall, there weren't too many surprises.

I figured I would give it almost a day before I came back with my draft grades.

Click here to view the embedded video.

With the 13th pick in the 2012 MLS SuperDraft, the Philadelphia Union selected UCLA striker Chandler Hoffman. The Hoff had 29 goals and 9 assists in three collegiate seasons, including an astounding 18 goals and 6 assists in 2011.

An impressive combine performance didn't help Hoffman, who dropped much further than expected.

You can follow the MLS SuperDraft here. The highlights so far: *Chivas USA, picking fifth, need a goalscorer or two in addition to Juan Pablo Angel, so they picked up a striker who had 17 goals in 22 games last year, Casey Townsend. That's the entire draft for the Goats

The forward class in the 2012 MLS Combine is an intriguing one, as teams try to figure out who the top strikers will be on the board once Akron star Darren Mattocks is taken, as expected, with the first or second pick in the draft.

Three of the most likely candidates to go early from the forward pool are UCLA product Chandler Hoffman (pictured), Maryland standout Casey Townsend and South Florida star Dom Dwyer.

MLSsoccer.com 2012 Mock SuperDraft

Kelyn Rowe goes 2, 4 & 5. Sounders are seen picking Casey Townsend (Maryland) by two while the other sees GA player Sam Garza out of UCSB. In the second round there is more variety with one going off board with Washington Husky Jacob Hustedt getting the nod. The other pickers go with UCLA players Andy Rose and Eder Arreola.

Today the Rapids released information about the expansion draft, namely which players qualify as internationals. That means its time for my take on who to protect.
Automatically protected under homegrown player rule:Davy ArmstrongJosh Janniere - I'm not sure how he qualifies as homegrown for the Rapids, but maybe the status transfers with the player.

A cold night in Commerce City worked to the Rapids advantage as they got a first half lead and then suffocated any chances the Crew might have had to get back into the game. Colorado won 1-0 and moved on to the Conference Semi-Final round to face Kansas City.
The Rapids took control early as they had the majority of play in the first half.

Last night Colorado defeated the Columbus Crew 1-0 at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, advancing to face KC in the Eastern Conference semi-finals. The game will kick off at 6:30 central time Sunday out in Denver. KC split the season series with Colorado, both on the backs of 1-1 draws. Colorado's goal scorer in both games was the now injured Conor Casey.

The Colorado Rapids kick off defense of the 2010 MLS Cup tonight in conditions reminiscent of the night the team won the title in Toronto in November.

It will be chilly in Dick's Sporting Goods Park for the 8 p.m. battle with the Columbus Crew. But there will be plenty of heat on the field for the Rapids.

I was just going to do a recap of my All-Time Team tonight but the Denver Post had an interesting article about tension in the Rapids Front Office this afternoon. It seems that Gary Smith is happy to sign a new contract for next year, but not if he has to continue to work with Technical Director Paul Bravo.

The U.S. Futsal National Team is holding a camp this week at Soccer City in Torrance, Calif. The training camp is building on the success of the player identification camp held earlier this month and the team is now in the process of preparing for FIFA Futsal World Cup qualifying next year.
One goal of the player identification camp was to rebuilt the squad with an injection of youth, and three players who are 17 and under have joined the team in southern california.

Colorado played poorly, the coaching staff made poor decisions, and the team got a poor result. The 1-0 score hides the fact that this loss should have been by 3 or 4 based on what we saw on the field. For most of the first half LA was just attacking in wave after wave, forcing Pickens into 8 saves total, two of which were back to back and as good as the MLS Cup saving tackle at the end of the championship game.

The starting target forward for the Rapids All-Time Team is Conor Casey.
How Acquired: Acquired from Toronto FC in exchange for allocation money, allocation position, and the rights to Riley O'Neill .
Years In Colorado: Early 2007 through present
This was an easy pick.

The Colorado Rapids come to Toyota Park tonight at 7:30 PM CST so we turned to Chris 'Uz' White of the Burgundy Wave for some insider perspective by exchanging the traditional three questions. If you live in Chicagoland but can't make it to the game, it's being broadcast on My50. The answer to the first question in the exchange is below and the rest of the questions in the exchange are after the break.

Twice Colorado led on Saturday night, and twice Chivas USA came back, eventually claiming a share of the points at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.

Goals from Caleb Folan and Jeff Larentowicz, both clinical strikes, were countered by the visiting Goats, who exploited the few openings they found on the night.

Apparently Sanna Nyassi saw an opportunity with Casey's injury to claim a starting spot and he took full advantage. He was a couple of inches short of a first-half hat-trick, but got his hat-trick and staked the Rapids to a 4-0 lead right after half. After that it was smooth sailing the rest of the way.

There's no escaping it: the Revs have been bad this season. And not just bad in the generic, it's-not-their-year sense. No, it's much worse than that. They've been historically bad.

As of this morning, they're last in the league in goals scored (16), next-to-last in goal differential (-11), last in the Eastern Conference, and are on pace to finish with the fewest wins in team history (6), fewest goals scored (29), and are one loss or tie away from breaking the club record for longest winless streak (9).

Colorado Rapids forward Conor Casey will miss the rest of the 2011 Major League Soccer season after rupturing his Achilles tendon against Seattle over the weekend. After having surgery this week, he is expected to need eight to ten months of recovery time. Casey is currently 9th on the MLS goal scorers chart with six goals in 14 games.

Just being reported by the Denver Post. Say goodbye to our Champions League chances, its going to be a struggle just to make the playoffs now.

As I predicted, the Rapids lost in Seattle by a goal. As I didn't predict it was a 4-3 goal-fest instead of the expected defensive battle. The Rapids got off to a good start, with a Wells Thompson goal off a lazy Seattle clearance in the first 5 minutes. Not surprisingly Colorado gave the lead right back within 5 minutes as the back line was beaten again, for at least the 3rd time in the first 10 minutes.

Seattle's Strategy Hurtado went off injured v Portland and Ianni was brought on to replace him at center back. Other than that, the starting XI seems to be the preferred lineup for Sigi Schmid. Alonso and Friberg paired in the center of midfield with Fernandez and Rosales out wide.

To quote my game preview:

2-1 win, goals by Casey and Cummings. C+C Goal Factory find their rhythm and put the Rapids up 2, but the defense continues to have at least one breakdown a game to make things interesting in the second half.

That's pretty much what happened. Palguta got the second goal instead of Cummings, but otherwise I was dead on.

By JOSE M. ROMERO

Saturday night at home gave the Colorado Rapids a good opportunity to secure three points against the team with the worst record in their conference, and the defending MLS Cup champion took care of business.

Colorado's two goals were enough to defeat the struggling Vancouver Whitecaps, 2-1, at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.

Before I get to the game review I wanted to mention that the Rapids have announced some of their pre-season plans for next year. They've been invited to be the MLS representative in the new Hawai'ian Islands Invitational Tournament in February. The other teams invited are the J-League's (Japan) Yokohama FC, the K-League's (South Korea) Incheon United, and the A-League's (Australia) Melbourne Heart.

Quick Recap:

Portland finally showed some effort and looked like a better team than the previous two games. Despite the effort the quality was lacking around the goal and Colorado got lucky late to take 3 points. 1-0 Portland goes down.

First Half:

Portland looked really shaky in the first 2 minutes of the game but weathered that initial butterflies to get a dangerous free kick in the 4th minute and a corner off of that set-piece.

Major League Soccer has a reputation for being a tough, physical league. What it lacks in talent and technique it makes up for with speed and strength. Often heard in discussions of the league is the belief that teams need a target forward to win someone to launch crosses at, get physical with center backs and hopefully score off of set pieces.

In my game preview on Friday I said:

1-1 draw, goal by Casey. The Rapids haven't shown the ability to put a team away in a long time, and with the injury report I don't see that changing. Colorado will take the lead but give it back. Our defense is strong enough, with the altitude, to prevent a loss but our offense won't be able to get a win.

The view from above at Capitol City (Photo: JB Shots)

Thanks again everyone for coming out. We had a great day with over 500 FC Barcelona fans in attendance and of course coming out victorious. If you were unable to make it don't worry we are at Capitol City on Hollywood, CA for every Barcelona match next season again.

Playing the worst team in MLS Colorado continued their lack-luster play, and they got burned by it. What should have been an easy won resulted in the Rapids 5th draw in a row and 6th draw in 7 games.
This game was much like last week's home game against Toronto. Lots of possession by the Rapids in the defensive third but no ability to capitalize on it.

So my original prediction of the team needing 10 points on this road trip can now no longer happen. But at least KC ended their long term losing streak in league play as they came from behind to draw with the Colorado Rapids, 1-1 out in Colorado. KC came out strong from the start and put good pressure on the Rapids.

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.

Toronto came to town with 4 former Rapids on their roster, 2 of them from the Clavijo era. As part of their return to Denver they returned Clavijo-era ball to the Rapids. An ugly 0-0 game then played out.
The closest the Rapids got to a goal was right before halftime when Quincy Amarikwa was tripped up in the corner of the box, but didn't get the PK call.

1. Real Salt Lake - How long do they last at this spot without Morales?
2. New York - Very impressive at times, looked vulnerable at others.
3. LA Galaxy - See above.

4. Columbus - One goal - chance for draws; two goals - chance for win

5.

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.

Here are the latest rankings. The separation the top three had is still there but with more losses, even if they came on the road, it won't be for much longer.
1. Real Salt Lake - Had to figure the team was due for a letdown even though Portland is a tough place to play.
2. New York - Took the throttle off after one goal, but it was more than enough to silence KC.

Obviously the post game focus has been on the Mullan-Zakuani incident. I covered that in length yesterday so I won't say any more about it other than correct red card to Mullan doomed the Rapids in the game. Playing a man down for 87 minutes is too much to overcome.
I thought Colorado actually had the better play most of the game but that was partially because Seattle got an early goal.

The Rapids played FSL in a reserve match yesterday before coming back to Denver. I'm not planning on doing regular coverage of the reserves but, as in this case, if there's any interesting news I'll make sure to note it.

• Before the game Colorado announced the signing of first-round pick defender Eddie Ababio, who then started the reserve game.

The undermanned Rapids played Fake Salt Lake even for 92 minutes. Then the refs got involved and the Rapids were out-manned 15 to 11 which resulted in a 1-0 loss.
The weather was as bad as we've seen it in years, cold, wet, window, and snow at the end. This may have been an equalizer for the teams as the Rapids were missing 3 starters (Casey, Mastroeni, Wallace) and lost two more players to injury during the game (Amarikwa, Smith).