Colorado easily defeats Metro, 2:0
July 4, 2013
Knowing this club's history on Indpendence Day -- specifically in Colorado -- no one expected much today. Not much is what we got. An impotent Metro team was dumped by the Rapids, 2:0, for its four loss in five matches. Metro's attack was nonexistant, as they failed to create any offensive pressure until the game was all but over.
Mike Petke did not make any changes to the lineup that beat Houston on Sunday. It looked like the strategy was to let Colorado possess the ball and counter; that seemed to work somewhat in the first half. Colorado did look dangerous at times, but it wasn't anything the Metro defense couldn't handle. On the other end, counterattacks resulted in a couple of half-chances for Titi Henry, but the Frenchman uncharacteristically misplayed the ball on each occasion.
Alas, it all went out of the window two minutes after the break. Metro failed to clear the ball off a Rapid corner kick. After S. Markus Holgersson cleared the follow-up off the line, the ball landed at the feet of Nathan Sturgis. With the Metro defense ball-watching, the Colorado midfielder opened the scoring.
You would think that being down a goal would wake up the Metro offense, but it wasn't the case. Instead, a few minutes later, Jamison Olave was forced to make a fantastic stop. The Colombian took the ball away from Deshorn Brown in a penalty area on what looked to be an easy breakaway. Sadly, in the 68th, Brown got on the scoreboard on a play that started from a careless Dax McCarty giveaway at the edge of the penalty area.
Down two, Metro attempted to claw back into it, but it was too little too late. Henry's short lob from the endline was parried away, and Lloyd Sam couldn't connect on the rebound. Tim Cahill did put the ball in the back of the net following an Eric Alexander feed, but it was correctly pulled back for offside.
What a terrible game... Even if it wasn't completely unexpected.
Lineup: Robles, Lade, Olave, Holgersson, Barklage, McCarty, Steele, Alexander, Cahill, Espindola, Henry. Subs: Kimura, Sam, Luyindula.
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