The Big Picture
A nine-man Colorado Rapids (2-9-7, 13 pts) fell 2-0 on the road to Orlando City SC (7-4-5, 26 pts) at Exploria Stadium on Saturday night. The Rapids went down to 10 men after winger Braian Galván was sent off with a straight red card in the 39th minutes before the club’s disadvantage was doubled when defender Lalas Abubakar received his second booking of the night in the 75th minute. Orlando’s Facundo Torres opened the scoring in the 56th minute and Ramiro Enriquez added an insurance goal with seven minutes left in the match as the Lions took all three points.
Notable:
- GK Marko Ilić made his third consecutive MLS start for the Rapids after collecting his first clean sheet of the season last week. The Serbian shot stopper joined the Rapids on loan through the summer from Belgian Pro League side KV Kortrijk.
- F Darren Yapi substituted into tonight’s match in the 71st minute, marking his first appearance after returning from the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Argentina with the U.S.
COLORADO RAPIDS HEAD COACH ROBIN FRASER
On the match:
“Disappointing, obviously. I think it was three games ago, somehow Johnny Lewis gets taken down, it's not a red card—doesn't make any sense to me. Last week, a phantom red card for Moïse [Bombito], and then this week, Kévin Cabral gets a breakaway with [Robin] Jansson 10 yards inside of him and Kévin’s at top speed. I just don't understand how that's not a red card, but he was pretty happy and theatrical to give Lalas [Abubakar] his yellow card, his second yellow card. He seemed really enthusiastic about that, so we definitely feel snake bitten. We have to take our responsibility for our play and the things that we do. Goals change games and referees change games. And this is a difficult stretch for us.”
On the team’s current run of form:
“I mean, it's all of it. You can't really distinguish it. It's all part of it, and you know, we talked about being snake bitten. At the end of the day, we know that we have to be better in certain moments, as we've talked about last week. We just need to be more precise in both boxes. Definitely, the injuries and call ups and suspensions and all of that have been really difficult to deal with and the difficult part of that has been the guys had to play in such a depleted state because they've had to play so many games. And that's where you see guys not be quite as sharp and maybe that has something to do with some of the things that we've not been as precise in either box as we need to be. So, there is no way to really distinguish or quantify how much of this and how much of that has led to it. We are where we are and we have to dig ourselves out. And we know the challenges that we have to deal with. We have things as a team that, as I say, we have to do better, and then there are external things that we have to deal with it. All we really can do is put our heads down and work hard.”
COLORADO RAPIDS MIDFIELDER CONNOR RONAN
On the match:
“Obviously another frustrating result. I think, obviously, the talking points are going to be the red cards, which are disappointing. I think up until the first one, we were growing into the game. We kind of saw off the first 15-20 minutes of pressure and then started to grow into the game, which you have to do in away games sometimes. And I just felt that the red card came at a disappointing time for us. And once we get the second red card in the second half, the game's kind of dead, but I thought even with 10 men at points in the second half, we played some good football and looked dangerous, but once we get that second one, it's pretty much game over.”
On staying positive and the upcoming break in games:
“Yeah, I think from the outside looking in, it's probably easy to kind of maybe think, ‘How will we stay positive in these moments?’ But I think you'd be surprised with, especially off the back of the last two performances, for me I think have been more positive than maybe the couple before that. So, I think as a team, you know, when you're in teams and locker rooms that things aren't going quite right, we need to pick up on the little things. And I think the last two performances are definitely something that we can build on, and also we have a little bit of a break now in the games. It's been quite relentless the past five or six weeks and you know yourselves. The squad's been quite thin with injuries, and again, that goes back to a little bit of luck and having the right players fit at the right times. You know, we had pretty much a full squad fit for the first three, four weeks when we had one game a week, and then when the period starts to get a little bit more busy, in the games you can start to pick up more injuries, which is unfortunate. So, I think this break would be good for us. Now, it gives us time to actually get on the training pitch and work on things and I think we'll be ready to go after the break, and hopefully you guys will see that on the pitch.”
