The Big Picture
The Colorado Rapids fell to FC Cincinnati on the road tonight, playing a 2-1 result at TQL Stadium. Defending MLS MVP Luciano Acosta opened the scoring shortly before halftime, and Corey Baird finished another chance for the home side in the 64th minute. Rapids defender Moise Bombito was able to pull one back for Colorado in the 72nd minute off a Djordje Mihailovic corner, marking his second set-piece goal of the season and Mihailovic’s fourth assist of the season. Colorado will remain on the road to take on NYCFC on Sunday, May 5. Kickoff from Citi Field is set for 2:00 p.m. MT.
Notable:
- D Keegan Rosenberry surpassed Marcelo Balboa for the fourth-most regular season starts (146) in tonight’s match against FC Cincinnati.
- D Moise Bombito surpassed his single-season career high (eight starts) for regular-season starts in MLS during tonight’s match against FC Cincinnati.
- D Sam Vines surpassed Dillon Serna for the second-most minutes (5,302) recorded by a Homegrown Player in club history during tonight’s match against FC Cincinnati.
- M Djordje Mihailovic has gone back-to-back matches recording an assist, bringing his season total to four assists to lead the club.
- GK Ethan Bandré was available for selection for the first time in a MLS match since signing his first-ever MLS contract on April 25, 2024.
- The Colorado Rapids have scored in nine of their 10 games in the MLS this season.
COLORADO RAPIDS HEAD COACH CHRIS ARMAS
On the match:
Not the result we came for, not the performance we came for. So on a bunch of levels we’re disappointed, but the reminder to the group quickly is that it was nine games we [played] coming in, we lost our first one of the year and had gone eight games and losing one. The team has gotten used to not losing so yeah, it hurts a little bit. A little bit of a dose of reality for us if we don't bring our good stuff on any given night. We say on our journey towards the top, wherever that is, we know it's not going to be smooth sailing all the time. And tonight's a reminder that bringing the good stuff is always gonna be important and maybe more importantly, sticking to who we are. We felt we got away from that tonight a little bit. It hurts because we want to win every game. The guys, they put themselves in a spot to make it interesting at the end. We'll regroup, get home and get back to work.
On takeaways from playing in a tough environment in preparation for another away challenge with NYCFC:
What we take from tonight is it's 10 for 10. We've had 10 tough games, home and away. Nothing's been easy for us. Nothing will be easy for us. The reminder tonight, which I'm well aware of every single day when we show up and get to work on the details and the mentality, is we have a team that buys in. Yes, that's a big part of it. But then sticking to who we are is going to be the most important, I think that's gonna be the takeaway tonight where we as a group will say “What could I have done, could we have prepared a little better?” And then what can the boys do on their part? When we stick to who we are, I know we're really, really tough to play against and we get right back to that heading into NYCFC.
COLORADO RAPIDS DEFENDER MOISE BOMBITO
On the match:
I think it was a difficult game at difficult place. We started on the front foot for the first 15 minutes and after that, I think we were a bit too stretched out and bit fatigueed with the humidity and it got a bit difficult for us. We managed to hold it down until the 40th and then they scored a good goal. We tried to come back in the second half and they still found a way to stretch us out and score the second one and after that, we just tried to put ourself into a situation where we could come back into the game and score one and we still tried to push off but at the end of the day, they held us quite well. So credits to Cincinnati.
On being dangerous on set plays to find his second MLS goal off a corner:
[Assistant coach Chris Sharpe] comes up with some thoughtful ideas on set pieces and I feel like once again, he's done really well at finding some openings during those corners. And I feel like having me sometimes going to front post, sometimes a bit in the middle just creates that confusion to the team. I got this second goal of my MLS career and really proud of it, and we just got to keep on working and like I said, come back next week, work hard and trying to get a good result in New York.
