NOTES:
- Tonight’s result completes a three-game season sweep over Minnesota. It is the Rapids’ first three-game sweep since 2016 over Sporting KC.
- The win lifts the Rapids to 7-4-3 away from home in 2021, the third-best road record in MLS. It also set a new club record for most wins on the road in a season in the post-shoutout era.
- Drew Moor made his 400th career MLS appearance. He is the eighth player in MLS history (including goalkeepers) and the third active player to reach the milestone.
- Cole Bassett scored his fourth goal of the season from the penalty spot. It was his first career penalty kick conversion in MLS.
- Michael Barrios scored his team-leading eighth goal of the season. It was his second game-winning goal of 2021.
- Lucas Esteves scored his first goal with Colorado in stoppage time.
- Jonathan Lewis picked up his second assist of the season on Barrios’ goal. Keegan Rosenberry earned his third assist of the season on the goal.
- The win is Colorado’s second after trailing at halftime this season. The Rapids defeated Minnesota, 3-2, on May 8 after trailing 2-0 at halftime.
QUOTES: HEAD COACH ROBIN FRASER
General thoughts on tonight’s match...
“Thoughts on tonight’s match are: what a team. What a fantastic team. Down a goal, down a man. Such a character statement. It’s what I’ve enjoyed about this team since I got here, that they don’t quit, they don’t have quit in them. Not just down a goal, down a man—down a goal, down a man to a very, very good team and some really, really good players. Words can’t express how proud I am of this win and how proud I am of the team.”
On the team doing well playing down a man:
“What it is, is obviously the urgency of the moment—where we are in the table, where we are in the time of year. You go down a man, it’s not even necessarily just going down a man, it’s knowing that we’re down a goal and we need to get points, and if you look at the response of the entire team, the entire group of guys did such a great job. Everyone will remember the goals and the fantastic things done by Jonny [Lewis], Michael [Barrios], Cole [Bassett]. Everyone will remember all that. What most people will forget is the very, very difficult work in the trenches in front of the goal between Will [Yarbrough], the defenders, everyone who was really dug in right in our box late in the game. When you think about both sides of it, you think about the group that really, really worked hard and defended, you think about the group that was really able to spark some of these really good counter attacks. It just comes back to what I started with: what a team. What a team.”
On Drew Moor reaching his 400th MLS career appearance:
“I’m so happy that that happened with this team and with me because Drew is someone I have the utmost respect for. He is someone who has done this obviously for a long time, 400 games, and he is one of the classiest individuals you will ever meet, one of the best team guys you will ever meet, and throughout his whole career, he’s done whatever his team needs him to do. I had the good fortune of meeting him in 2006, I think, which may have been his first or second year. He was playing with Greg Vanney at the time and there was an event that we were all attending and I had the good fortune of meeting him then. I’ve admired him for years, and was really happy to have him in Toronto with us where we did well, won a championship, did a number of really good things. When I came here, it was one of the things that I thought would really help this team going forward—someone with his kind of experience, his kind of character. There are very few people in a locker room like Drew, and he’s so unselfish. In the locker room, on the training field, he shows every day the kind of person he is, the kind of character he is and the kind of player he has been for many, many years. I’m so happy that he was able to get to this milestone with me and Drew is the type of person I would want to have around me for a long time.”
QUOTES: MIDFIELDER COLE BASSETT
On the match:
“Interesting one. The last two weeks we’ve honestly seemed to play better with ten men, which is kind of crazy. I think this team, it shows when it gets down to it at the end of games—a lot of teams lose that game, down a man, down a goal—we scored three goals. Those are the special days. We will always remember these ones. Everybody played a part today and we are happy to pick up three points because of the tight race at the top.”
On taking the penalty kick:
“I wanted the pen. I had the confidence to step up and take it. There’s a couple us—me, Diego [Rubio], and Jonny [Lewis]—are normally the three, at least in training, that kind of look after them and practice them a bit. Jonny has already scored one this year and then we haven’t really got one when Diego is in a game. I would probably say he is the main PK taker, but Jonny already scored one and I wanted the one in LA that he scored. So this one, when I grabbed the ball, he was like ‘I know you got it,’ and so it’s great to have a friend like that, that I haven’t scored in probably a couple months and I’ve been really wanting to get one, so it was good of him to let me take it. And yeah, had the confidence to step up and bury it.”
