After a 10-game winless streak marked by a seven-week stretch during which they scored only three goals, the Colorado Rapids righted themselves in time for back-to-back matches with two of the top three teams in the MLS.
The Rapids outplayed Houston Dynamo on Saturday, knocking them out of first place, and now look ahead to a match with New England Revolution, perched atop the Eastern Conference standings. But after trying roster moves and strategic shifts on the field in an effort to end their two-month drought, the Rapids dug within themselves to find the passion and energy necessary to put themselves back in the win column.
"I saw heart that we haven't seen in the last 11 games," midfielder and team captain Pablo Mastroeni said, identifying one of the factors that makes him optimistic about the coming matches. "Everyone on the field, everyone that came in, everyone on the bench, the coaching staff and everyone involved showed heart [Saturday]."
It's an element of the game you'd expect to see in play on a constant basis, but even the Houston players admitted that Colorado was the "hungrier" team Saturday, acknowledging the ebb and flow of a team's drive and determination throughout the long season.
"As a pro, you should bring it every day," Mastroeni said in an effort to explain how the heart of the team could have gone missing for so long. "But we're all human, and losing is just as contagious as winning. Sometimes you can soul search, you can look in the mirror as much as you want, but there's some intangibles in losing and in winning that can't be described.
"I don't know where it came from, but the fact that everyone busted their tails on both sides of the ball against the best team - a team that's been dominating Super Liga, a team that's been hands-down the best team in the league for me this year - a performance like this speaks volumes about the kind of characters we have on this team."
Veteran midfielder Terry Cooke may have put his finger on the catalyst for change when he looked at the team's 5-0 loss to the USL First Division (second tier) Seattle Sounders in a U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal last Wednesday.
"Midweek counted for a lot," Cooke said, explaining that the humbling loss to the Sounders went a long way in revitalizing the squad. "A lot of the lads had a reality check midweek. I don't want to bring it up again, because we want to put it behind us now, but it allowed us to look at ourselves and dig deep [Saturday], which we did."
Only two MLS teams remain in the U.S. Open Cup hunt, Dallas and New England, so the Rapids aren't the only team to fall to an "underdog." Chicago, Houston, D.C. and L.A. all lost 1-0 matches in the third round, and Chivas took a 3-1 defeat by Seattle in the same round-of-16, but Colorado's 5-0 blanking was demoralizing enough to represent rock bottom for the Rapids.
"Ever since I've been here we've always been an honest working team," Cooke said. "For some reason we haven't jelled this season, I don't know why. I don't know if other teams are getting more motivated because of our settings, our surroundings - it's a lovely stadium. I don't know. But I think [the loss to the Sounders] helped us. We knew we had to dig in for each of us and give that extra 10 percent. From the first whistle [against Houston], we matched them all over the field for energy, passion and belief. We were the better team."
With a three-game homestand beginning with Houston and continuing through the Aug. 26 match against Galaxy, the Rapids are hoping to finally establish a measure of dominance on their new home field, having posted an unintimidating 3-3-4 record two-thirds of the way through the inaugural season at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.
"We did a great job of finding Colin Clark and getting Cookie involved in the game," Mastroeni said, elaborating on the signs of hope coming out of Saturday's victory. "We made the field really wide and utilized that 80-yard field that we haven't done all season long. We were finding ways to combine in the middle because of the amount of attention they were attracting on the outside, finding ways to get forward through the middle and the outside. Our combination play was good, the attacking was good, and when the heart's there and the mindset's there, you find ways to win, even if that means putting pressure on them to score an own goal."
Rapids coach Fernando Clavijo still continues to look for an effective pair of strikers, starting Herculez Gomez and Jacob Peterson on Saturday and leaving Nicolas Hernandez on the bench for the entire match.
"Nico is struggling, like the rest of the team," Clavijo said. "We keep moving and changing players, giving an opportunity to the other players until we find the two strikers that help us win games and score goals. Nico is part of the team like everybody else. [Saturday] was his chance to sit."
Defender Facundo Erpen also sat for most of Saturday's match, entering the game in the 78th minute, following Ugo Ihemelu's ejection for denying a goal scoring opportunity.
"Erpen had been injured from the last game," Clavijo said. "He was sick with a 102[-degree] fever. I never thought he was going to show up in the game [Saturday]. He showed up and said 'I'm ready to play,' but I knew physically he was not."
Colorado will try to make the most of the ongoing homestand, a critical period for the team, which may have to endure Mastroeni's absence after his U.S. national team call-up for an Aug. 22 match against Sweden in Goteborg.
"I'm pleased to know that we still have it and people still care and people still think we have a chance to get to the playoffs," Mastroeni summed up, eager to continue widening the gap between Colorado and fifth place L.A. while chipping away at Chivas, who sit six points ahead of the Rapids in third.
Owen Perkins is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
