The Pre-Game: 6/28 vs. Colorado

By: Max J. | June 27th, 2007

Hooray for short weeks!
Hooray for games on ESPN2 (= I don’t end up spending thirty bucks at the bar)!
Hooray for relatively weak opponents for a rebound game!

That about covers it for the general points. As for the specifics…

The Good Guys: Four players are MIA with a fifth not looking good: Moreno, Casal (coming back from a snub by the Nigeria U20s), Boz, Benny, and possibly Namoff on the sidelines. The first two I’m not concerned about, Moreno for obvious reasons and Casal since he was unlikely to get a run-out anyway. As far as Boswell and Olsen, the options are rough but doable. The obvious is Moose or Simms in for Olsen (I think and prefer Moose right now), McTavish for Boz, and DeRoux for Namoff. Then, there’s outside the box: even with my well-documented distaste for Rod “The Human Change-Up” Dyachenko as a forward, I’d be very interested to see him playing d-mid with Carroll moved to the back four, since a) the back line needs some help and experience right now and b) Rod’s excellent holding instincts would, I think, allow him to sub for Carroll very ably. Where Carroll would play in that case, I don’t know, but it would maybe be McTavish and Erpen in the center with Gros and Carroll on the wings.

The Bad Guys: The Rapids are down Gomez (take a moment for a sigh of relief) and Beckerman, both in Venezuela for a stomping. Thankfully this gives United some breathing room for defensive choices, otherwise I’d be pretty worried about a Gomez field day with our sure-to-be-makeshift back line. Beckerman also gave us fits on Opening Day, so overall Colorado’s losses even out pretty well with DC’s. Unfortunately, Prideaux and Petke are still roaming around and did a great job of shutting down United the last time around. [EDIT: My bad, apparently Ugo is also out for a red card last week, so that's some more defensive help for us.]

Big Picture: There’s absolutely no logical reason not to win the game. United is at home, is a better team by most measurable standards, Colorado is without its best scoring threat, and the sense of urgency after losing to RSL had better be worth something to this team. The result should largely be about us, namely if we a) find the width that screwed our offense in Denver and b) can make the most of out a fairly bad defensive situation. If United plays wide, there’s not much in their defense that scares me; if the defense holds, there’s not much in their offense that scares me. If either fails, though, I think we’re looking at a very close-run game.

Prediction: The offense is a much better unit than it was in April, and United needs a win, but the defense is too suspect for total comfort. Both teams score without too much problem, but DC does it more. DC 3 - 2 Colorado.