After their dramatic win over the New York Red Bulls last night, the Colorado Rapids proved to the league once again that they are not to be counted out.
Despite going down two-nil in the opening minutes of the game, the Burgundy Boys pulled out a 5-4 victory on the road, their first win away from home this season. Their effort to come back stronger than the home side propels them into a packed August schedule with six games remaining.
“To win and these conditions and circumstances I think are really important for our self belief, our confidence,” said head coach Robin Fraser following the victory. “I would certainly like to think that this is something for us that we take confidence from and we go out on the weekend be aggressive on the attack like we were and see if we can continue to make our way up the chart a bit.”
The Rapids sit within three spots and five points of a playoff spot with a third of the season to go. To the players and staff, there’s nothing more vital to potential continued success than the team’s willingness to fight for itself when dealt a bad hand.
Fraser and the crew will be the first ones to admit to the mistakes that land them in precarious situations early in games, such as Tuesday night’s matchup or their 2-2 come-from-behind battle with Real Salt Lake. How they choose to react to them is what sets them apart from other teams in the league.
“To show the character that we did to come back, made more mistakes, we're down three-one and the team was unfazed,” said Fraser postgame. “They just kept fighting. And this is the group that I've known for a number of years and have spoken about their character forever. And this was just one of those games where we just kept fighting. They just kept fighting. They were excellent.”
The drive to be better, fight harder and get the points back is a Colorado Rapids staple. It’s a collective effort, emphasized by the talent of its individual members.
Striker Diego Rubio earned himself a goal and two assists on Tuesday at Red Bull Arena, not to mention firing off the deflected shot that led to Dantouma “Yaya” Toure’s goal to finish off the Rapids’ scoring. The Chilean has tallied 10 goals this season already, just one shy of his single season record.
“I mean, for me, it’s a performance of the team,” he reflected after the win. “It’s not my performance. I mean, I helped. I helped in a couple of goals today, but the big thing today is the team. We win. We win. That's the main thing for me. I always say that if I can help the team to win, you know, I think I was involved with four of the goals and that's awesome.”
Fraser’s side returns to altitude on Saturday night to take on Minnesota United FC. As the race for playoffs begins, every point earned is crucial.
“It felt like tonight that our team was playing with a different purpose and that different purpose is you're getting down toward the end of the year and every single play comes at this point,” he said. “And I felt like they really took that to heart tonight.”
