There wasn’t much to celebrate this season as a Colorado Rapids fan. A 4-1 loss Sunday to the Portland Timbers brought the season to a merciful end.
With a final record of 9-15-10, Colorado showed glimpses of brilliance, but those fleeting moments were surely replaced in the Rapids fan’s psyche by the inevitable loss the following week (some of which extended for several at a time).
Still, Colorado improved on its point total and goal differential from 2014 to 2015 and the Western Conference was particularly difficult this season. Had a few more ties gone the way of wins, we might be talking about a vastly different scenario – one that includes a playoff bid.
Instead, it was a season filled with too many lows and occasional highs and not enough even-keeled middles. With that in mind, we’re now ready to dissect the best and worst of the 2015 campaign. The positives and negatives of a year that could have been, but wasn’t.
Negative No. 3 – Dillon Powers
Powers garnered MLS Rookie of the Year honors in 2013, scoring five goals and adding six helpers. The midfielder upped his production last year, adding three assists to his previous stat line to give him five goals and nine assists on the year. But production went down this season. Powers found the back of the net just thrice with six assists. His assist total was still good for team-best, but that’s a small victory considering the struggles that the Rapids offense endured.
Powers needs to be the man that many have dubbed the face of the organization, the guy technical director Paul Bravo calls a player “to build around.” Though he has played in more games than in each of his two previous season, Powers total game starts have gone down since getting 29 in his rookie season.
Since a four-game hot streak in April where he scored a goal and dished out four helpers, the midfielder became quiet, producing just two goals and two assists in his next 26 matches.
Positive No. 3 – Kevin Doyle
Forward Kevin Doyle brought something that the Rapids supremely lacked—a finishing touch in clutch situations. He did just that in the waning moments of this win over the Seattle Sounders:
Doyle led the goal-scoring effort with five on the year, despite only starting 16 games on the year. The Irishman was signed on as a Designated Player at the end of March.
Even more impressive, Doyle had four game-winning goals this season, easily the best mark on the team. Similar to Vicente Sánchez, Doyle has also proved to be important from a leadership standpoint.
Coach Pablo Mastroeni indicated that Doyle had been “a driving force for the guys” and when “looking at the whole body of work, he’s been quite influential.”
Doyle will be a cornerstone in 2016 and should vastly improve Colorado’s offensive production.
Negative No. 2 – Consistency
Let’s start talking about our home performances. The Rapids finished with a sub-.500 record at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park (5-7-5). The inability to establish a presence on home turf doesn’t bode well for any team.
Wins were always isolated on either side of the schedule by draws or losses. The Rapids went from blanking the eventual Western Conference champion FC Dallas to losing consecutive efforts to fellow bottom-dwellers in the West, the Houston Dynamo and Real Salt Lake.
But those inconsistent efforts didn’t occur only in Commerce City. Perhaps the epitome of the Rapids erratic ways is best illustrated by their last two matches. In their penultimate game, the Rapids handed playoff-bound Sporting Kansas City only their second home loss of the year with a 2-0 win that some players called the team’s best performance of the year. That euphoria gave way to a feeling of “here-we-go-again” four days later when the Portland Timbers skewered the Rapids 4-1 to close the season.
The same can be said of the Rapids 1-1 draw against D.C. United in mid-September. In a game that Mastroeni called “unforgivable” the Rapids gave up a goal in the 87th minute to force the draw.
Colorado’s offense regularly went long stretches without scoring and the club often seemed content to play for single points from a draw. Sadly, too often the defense was not stout enough to hold the line and wins turned into draws and draws turned into losses.
Positive No. 2 – Vicente Sánchez
The Uruguayan ranked among the Rapids’ top producers in 2015, with four goals and five assists in 30 games played.
When the Rapids handed out team awards earlier this month, Sánchez garnered the MVP honor for his play.
Too often, Sanchez had to put the team on his aging back. Like in this effort against Houston:
At 35 years old, there’s only so much heavy lifting still left in those legs.
Mastroeni talked not only of Sánchez’s prowess on the field but of his leadership abilities as well. The coach noted that during the second half of the season, Sánchez had been “a real catalyst in not only his individual performance, but the performance of the group moving forward.”
Sánchez is the oldest player on the roster and his future with the Rapids is murky. Regardless, it was a productive season for the wizard, though his performance feels wasted on the Rapids.
Negative No. 1 – The final third
Mastroeni called the season finale 4-1 loss to the Portland Timbers the “same old swan song,” stating that his team wasn’t “good enough in the final third and not hungry enough.”
How many times have we heard Mastroeni say something to this effect?
Whether it’s cashing in on good scoring opportunities or effectively clearing the ball in the defensive third, the Rapids struggled. Plain and simple.
Often times the box score speaks for itself. The Rapids scored a league-worst 33 goals, five behind the next lowest total by rival Real Salt Lake (38). It’s usually hard to score if you don’t shoot, and the Rapids didn’t do much of that this season either. Their combined 127 shots on goal was third-fewest in the league.
The Rapids also committed the most fouls in the league with 506, compared to the league average of 440. More often than not, these fouls gave way to free kicks that didn’t help the Rapids’ plight, like the one seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaPuJvudFcE
Positive No. 1 – They’re still young
The boys in burgundy are actually quite green, despite Vicente Sánchez’s advanced age. If you look at the players that took the field in the loss to the Portland Timbers, the average age was about 26.
The 23-year-old rookie Dominique Badji had the lone goal in the loss and was recalled from the Rapids’ USL affiliate at the end of August.
A slew of Argentines in Lucas Pittinari and Juan Ramírez also performed well. Pittinari looked strong, having played in 29 games this past year and starting in 25 of those at the midfield.
Ramírez produced similar numbers (one goal, three assists) through 27 games. And this kid is only 22.
Then, of course, there’s Dillon Serna, who doubles for the U.S. Under-23 Men’s National Team and also scores goals like this:
Another season under the belt of some of these youngsters could go a long way in acheiving long-term goals for this club.