Colorado spent 3,330 minutes this season defending the 2010 MLS Cup Championship, which put the
team 180 minutes shy of defending its title.
Graham Zusi provided the services in the 28th and 76th minute as Sporting Kansas City recorded
another 2-0 victory over the Rapids, giving KC a 4-0 aggregate win in the Eastern Conference
Semifinal.
Teams that can't score don't make it far in the postseason, and the Colorado Rapids are a team
that can't score.
The latest evidence came Sunday evening as the Rapids fell 2-0 to Sporting Kansas City in the
first leg of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Colorado, which edged the Columbus Crew 1-0 in the wild card match on Thursday, couldn't
generate legitimate threats as Sporting spent the evening shoving them around the field.
The Saturday night showdown between FC Dallas and the Colorado Rapids was not so much a rematch
of the 2010 MLS Cup as it was a desperate 90 minutes for two teams stumbling toward the
playoffs.
Colorado came in winless in its last five MLS matches (0-3-2) and Dallas arrived on a string of
getting shutout in three straight matches.
Isidro Metapan and the Colorado Rapids combined for five goals on Wednesday night, but it was a
brace from Macoumba Kandji that made the difference in the home side's first CONCACAF Champions
League match.
Kandji's goals, in the 16th minute and first-half stoppage time, rescued a discombobulated
Rapids side and paved the way for Andre Akpan's second half winner at Dick's Sporting Goods
Park.
Rarely does a tie feel like a defeat more than when the closing goal comes on a dubious penalty
call at the end of the game.
For the Colorado Rapids, it was the old sinking feeling that comes from letting points slip away
at home to a poor side that has mustered only one win on the road. The fact that the tie came after
Kosuke Kimura scored a ludicrous goal made the 2-2 draw with the New England Revolution only that
much more unsettling.
Conor Casey could only smile as he scored his sixth -- and ultimately final -- goal of the 2011
season in a 2-1 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps. With Casey out for the season, Colorado begins
the search for a new scorer. (Photograph by Jonathan Ingraham/ColoradoSoccerNow.com)
Maybe Scott Palguta has a few more goals in him this season.
The Colorado Rapids are undefeated when Scott Palguta scores.
Admittedly, the reserve defender has only scored twice in his career, with both goals coming
this season. Each strike, however, has been the winner in 2-1 decisions for the Rapids (6-5-9, 27
points).
Palguta, who came on when Danny Earls couldn't continue after 23 minutes, was in the right place
at the right time to stroke home a rebound from a Conor Casey header and put the Rapids up 2-0 on
the visiting Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday night.
Three days after coming back to tie and then beat the Houston Dynamo, the Colorado Rapids
settled for a 0-0 draw with the New England Revolution on Saturday night.
The tie moves the Rapids to 4-3-2 (14 points) and gives the team four points from the first two
games of a three-game road trip.
(Editor's note: This is part two of a series looking at how the Rapids will fill out an
expanded roster for 2011.)
There are only six defenders on the current roster, but there is probably no position in better
health for the Rapids. There's also no area that will tell more about the team's long-term plans
for captain Pablo Mastroeni, 34, than what Colorado does on defense.
