Earlier today MLSSoccer.com reported that the reason Mac Kandji wasn't in camp right away is that he was looking for a team in Europe. This afternoon the Rapids announced that Kandji had been traded to Houston for a conditional 3rd round draft pick in 2014. Probably a fair trade for a guy who's had 0 goals and 3 assists in 16 games.

Photo by David Bernal/ISIphotos.com

By ADAM SERRANO

CARSON, Calif. – The Colorado Rapids squeaked past Chivas USA, 1-0, in a physical preseason scrimmage between the two sides on Tuesday.

Second-half substitute Quincy Amarikwa put the Rapids ahead in the 85th minute.

Mais um amistoso, foi disputado no dia 02/09/2011, na cidade de Quito-ECU, onde jogaram as seleções do Equador (66º no ranking da FIFA) e a seleção da Jamaica (43º no ranking da FIFA).
Antes desse jogo, as 2 seleções jogaram:
2009New York/New Jersey 12/08/2009 ECU0:0JAM 1996Ambato 04/10/1996 ECU2:1 (1:1)JAM
O árbitro desse jogo, foi: Jose Hernando Buitrago-COL
O primeiro gol do jogo, foi de Jaime Ayovi, aos 20 minutos do primeiro tempo, sendo seu segundo gol pela seleção nacional.

Today the second leg matches of the Major League Soccer playoff quarterfinals begin. An ailing Colorado Rapids side visit Sporting Kansas City while everyone's favorite neighbors to the north, the Seattle Sounders, will try to dig themselves out of a three goal hole at home against Real Salt Lake.

Sporting KC are back to business with a quick turnaround as they take on the Colorado Rapids in the second leg of their Eastern Conference semifinal series at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see how Colorado comes out for this game. Three players that started the game in Colorado are now done for the season, Drew Moor, Caleb Folan, and Kosuke Kimura all left the game with injuries.

People don't like Kenny Cooper. He is probably used to it by now. They didn't always like him in Dallas where he racked up forty goals in ninety games. They didn't always like him in England or Germany where he he was busy with a broken ankle. They didn't always like him here in Portland where he was the Timbers leading scorer.

Their Words That season's done. You don't pay attention to it. You're in the playoffs. That's all that counts. You try to make a run in the playoffs. Rapids forward Omar Cummings on what happened during the regular season. Other Sources Cummings' goal gives Rapids 1-0 playoff win over Columbus Crew - from The Denver Post's John Meyer: "Omar was standing there, just chilling by himself.

After a stellar 2010 campaign, Omar Cummings has had a season to forget. On Thursday night, however, he reminded everyone just how deadly he can be.

Cummings was alone in the penalty area when his roommate, Kosuke Kimura, passed to him in the waning moments of the first half. Kimura, who made regular forays into the attack, saw Cummings just after receiving a pass from Brian Mullan.

Happy Friday to you. The week of MLS action saw two wild card matches which dictated the terms of the playoffs. We have now determined two new match ups with worthwhile storylines.
The Two Big Clubs: Thanks to a mid-week victory over FC Dallas, the New York Red Bulls have booked their ticket to a showdown with the regular season champs.

We've been waiting a while to use this one, but Colorado Rapids forward Omar Cummings tallied his first playoff goal and only his fourth of the season to push his side past Columbus Crew, 1-0, and book home and away dates against Sporting KC.
If the Jamaican international gets hot (and we all know that the MLS Playoffs is all about getting hot) will the KC backline look a little like this?

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.

Quick Recap:

The Colorado Rapids come out looking strong and ready to defend their championship. The Columbus Crew looked like they were running around trying to put chewing gum on a leaky dike. In the end the better team won, Colorado wins 1-0.

First Half:

Colorado came out and really looked like they were the defending champions for the first time in a while.

The Colorado Rapids' hopes of defending its MLS title are still alive, and the club can thank Omar Cummings for that.

Cummings scored his first goal in nearly three months to help lift the Rapids to a 1-0 win over the Columbus Crew in a wild card playoff match at Dick's Sporting Goods Park on Thursday night.

The Colorado Rapids took the other MLS wildcard spot, beating Columbus at Dick's Sporting Goods Park. With the Colorado grounds crew needing to quickly prepare the stadium after yesterday's snow, it was the Rapids taking advantage late in the first-half with a goal from Omar Cummings. That turned out to be the game winner, with both teams pressing late.

After a first half completely bereft of ideas by either team (I commented at half that the best hope for either team to score was an own goal) the second half perked up and resulted in the Rapids clinching a home playoff game.
The half started on a bad note though as Vancouver scored 4 minutes in.

Colorado was the better team and controlled play for most of the game, but for the first time in Rocky Mountain Cup history there were no goals to be had in the game and both teams got a point. With it FSL maintains control of the Cup for a 5th straight year.
It was really a tale of two halves.

So, yeah, about that whole post where I said the Rapids will be beat by Metapan and the roster selection was not great. Well Colorado proved me an idiot with a 3-1 win last night. The reserve squad, lead by Steve Guppy and augmented by Wells Thompson and Tyrone Marshall, pulled together in a tough environment and dominated the scoreboard.

The Colorado Rapids unloaded a month of frustrations on Isidro Metapan, beating the Salvadoran side 3-1 at home on Wednesday night.

In the process, the Rapids (2-2-1, 7 points) also threw a lifeline to a CONCACAF Champions League campaign that appeared dead after losing two matches at home by a combined 6-2 margin.

Tomorrow night Real Espana becomes the final CCL team to make the trip to Denver for the group stage. In August we faced them in Honduras using mostly a team of reserves and drew 1-1. The only members of our best XI that started that game were Kimura, Larentowicz, and Cummings with Moor getting 20 and Nyassi getting 10 minutes late.

Colorado Rapids have lost four straight meetings at BMO Field when playing Toronto FC and added a fifth one by losing 2-1 on Saturday afternoon.

It was the stellar Dutch striker, Danny Koevermans that piled on more misery for the Colorado Rapids. Toronto FC's Designated Player showcased an impressive second half brace, scoring six goals total in seven league appearances for the club.

Burgundy's in town
TORONTO (17th) VS. COLORADO (5th)
　
BMO FIELD - SATURDAY 1:30PM ET
TV: TSN
　
THE KICKABOUT:
Good day TFC supporters, we're The Yorkies. Tits McGee is on vacation.

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.

LA Galaxy and the Colorado Rapids battle Friday night. (Getty Images)

Ah, that sound you may here is the sound of a full Major League Soccer slate this weekend. All 18 MLS clubs are involved in Week 26 action with eight of the games being Saturday evening. Most clubs had last weekend off and you can bet they are all geared up for the big playoff push here this weekend.

The starting speed forward for the Rapids All-Time Team is Omar Cummings.
How Acquired: Drafted in the 3rd round (31st overall pick) in the 2007 Superdraft.
Years In Colorado: 2007 through present
This was the trickiest pick of the team. I went back and forth between a 4-4-2 and a 3-4-3, but eventually Cummings won out.

The starting speed forward for the Rapids All-Time Team is Omar Cummings.
How Acquired: Drafted in the 3rd round (31st overall pick) in the 2007 Superdraft.
Years In Colorado: 2007 through present
This was the trickiest pick of the team. I went back and forth between a 4-4-2 and a 3-4-3, but eventually Cummings won out.

It's an international friendly weekend and of the three Sporting KC players with their respective national teams, two had their games tonight. Defender Shavar Thomas and Jamaica took on Ecuador in Quito today. Thomas went the full 90 minutes in Jamaica's 5-2 loss on the road where to MLS players, Omar Cummings and Ryan Johnson got the two goals for the Jamaican team.

The Rapids have taken 19 players on the long trip to Honduras, their first trip outside the U.S. & Canada for a meaningful game in 13 years. Tomorrow they face Real Espana in San Pedro Sula in their second Champions League match. While Pablo, Pickens, Wynne, and Smith stayed in Colorado the rest of the starters traveled with the team and will be available for selection.

Tomorrow night Colorado plays its first meaningful international match since facing Leon in the preliminary round of the old CONCACAF Champions Cup in 1998. The first opponent is El Salvador's Isidro Metapan, who qualified for the Champions League by winning the El Salvadorian 2010 Apertura. Kickoff at the Dick tomorrow is an unusual 8pm for TV, which means the kegs will be breached at 5:30 and the grills fired up at 6 for the tailgate.

A wild and crazy game in San Jose saw Colorado return to the Rockies with 3 points. They got some help from the refs and some good play from the midfield but this game could have easily gone the other way.
San Jose had more possession but Colorado had better chances early. Seven minutes in Folan slammed a Mullan cross off the post from his head.

At 10:35 p.m. on Saturday, Colorado Rapids fans got a funny feeling. It's called satisfaction and it came in the form of a 2-1 win over the stumbling San Jose Earthquakes.

It was satisfying because it was the sort of game the Rapids should win, but the team has stumbled to get earlier this season and at many times in the past three or four years.

Even with a two-year absence from the league, the San Jose Earthquakes remain one of the teams the Colorado Rapids have faced more often than almost any team in Major League Soccer.

The Rapids have played Los Angeles 55 times and Dallas (first as The Burn and then as FC) 51. Next on that list is San Jose, which has met Colorado 46 times since that first MLS season in 1996.

Another week down and things haven't change all that much in the Power Rankings. LA, Seattle, Dallas and RSL continue to lead the pack while teams from the Eastern Conference continue to battle over who will try and crack that top four.

But don't look now, Colorado is making some noise again here.

Rapids' Strategy
With Nyassi on fire, it was easy for Gary Smith to maintain his dynamic strike partnership with Omar Cummings. The home side employed their usual 4-4-2 lineup with Mastroeni and Larentowicz in central midfield and Mullan and Thompson on the flanks. The first half strategy was to switch the ball across the field to Mullan who was in acres of space because the Crew kept a narrow defensive shell.

Brian Mullan made the most of a Friday night game, launching a goal of the week nominee, and Sanna Nyassi turned provider as the Colorado Rapids downed the Columbus Crew 2-0 at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City.

Colorado improved to 9-6-10 (37 points) and dispatched the third Eastern Conference leading team in the past four games.

When the Columbus Crew visited Colorado this past fall it was for a first-round playoff match that the Rapids won 1-0 on a Pablo Mastroeni goal.

While that win put the Rapids (8-6-10, 34 points) on the road to the MLS Cup title in 2010, the stakes are not much lower this Friday when the two teams meet at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.

Call them the bananas, call them the Village People, call them traffic cones, or call them the Crew. Whatever you call them, they're in town to play the Rapids tomorrow night. Columbus is the top team in the East but are level on points with the Rapids. The last two times Colorado has played a team from the East they were on top of the table and the Rapids beat them.

Brazil's Under-20s in their final training session before the Panama game

Brazil's U-20s take on Panama in Barranquilla tonight knowing that they already have a place in the next phase of the World Cup. Ney Franco's side drew their opener with Egypt 1-1 and then beat Austria 3-0.
The coach is forced to make changes for the Panama encounter.

Photo: Paul Rudderow

Union

What to start with, reaction to the loss to Colorado or reaction to the departure of Carlos Ruiz?

The Colorado game

Nowak on Friday's loss: "There's no question we're pretty disappointed with the result, especially with the chances we had in the second half.

Bring on the Eastern Conference leaders, please.

The Colorado Rapids faced the conference leaders for the second time in nine days and emerged with three points. This time it was in Philadelphia where the Rapids defeated the Union 2-1.

While it wasn't as dominating as the 4-1 beating Colorado delivered to the New York Red Bulls on July 20, it was an even more rare creature.

The throwback combo of Le Toux and Mwanga was working well early. The two strikers found each other with regularity but the Union could not find a final pass.

Neither team could wrestle control of the tempo, as evidenced in how they would forgo switching fields to remain trapped on the same side for for long periods of time.