SB Nation Chicago: All Posts by Chris White

Hendry Thomas, Oscar Pareja Suspended For Fire Match

2013-06-18T22:41:37Z

Following the spat that Mark Watson started when he kicked a ball at Hendry Thomas, the Rapids got right back into their faces and will pay for it against the Chicago Fire. Oscar Pareja was handed a single-game suspension and won't join the team on their trip to Chicago after leaving the field of play on Saturday, while Hendry Thomas will be suspended a match for a tackle late into the first half.

Dillon Powers will likely start in place of Thomas with Nathan Sturgis getting pushed back into a deeper defensive role, while Martin Rivero is likely to get the start at the top of the midfield for the Rapids. In Pareja's place, we're likely to see goalkeeper coach Dave Dir, who has previous head coaching experience. Wilmer Cabrera is not with the team at the moment, otherwise he would likely have taken control of the match for Pareja.

Both player and coach will be back on the team for the game this Sunday.

Colorado Rapids vs. Chicago Fire - Game Stream

2013-06-18T21:35:56Z

Colorado will head to a stadium that has given them trouble over the years, Toyota Park, in a midweek game against the Fire.

I've lived in Colorado for the vast majority of my life, a good 23 years of it I'd say. In that time, I recall a single, solitary time that I ever even saw a tornado warning, let alone an actual tornado. I'm sure most of the players on the Rapids have spent quite a bit less time in Colorado than I have, and they can already say they've seen more than me!

Ready to fly to Chicago, the team was forced into the tornado shelters at Denver International Airport when a real, live tornado touched down right outside of the airport, which caused a rather frightening half-hour as they waited for it to clear out. They did eventually get on a flight, though it would have had to be a long-ass warning to keep them from the game tomorrow night. (Rather ironic that they're flying to the 'Windy City'.)

Also, the first person on the plane to make an 'I don't think we're in Kansas any more' joke on the plane once they pass over it should get smacked.

Apparently Colorado Gets Tornadoes Now

2013-06-18T21:33:42Z

Also, the first person on the plane to make an 'I don't think we're in Kansas any more' joke on the plane once they pass over it should get smacked.

Colorado Rapids vs. San Jose Earthquakes - Player Ratings

2013-06-18T16:00:09Z

Nick is out for the week, so I'll be taking over the player ratings for the Quakes game. As you would expect, most of the numbers are fairly high after a good overall performance -- with 10 men! -- marred by only three real mistakes all game.

DEFENSE

Clint Irwin - 4.5
Nothing much he could have done on the first goal, but may have mistimed his run out on the second. Not a horrid performance overall from Clint, though.

Drew Moor - 6
Though both goals were caused by defensive errors, neither were on Moor's turf. He was his usual steady self for most of the match, though perhaps he should have known better than to play a bit higher up the pitch than Marvell Wynne was.

Marvell Wynne - 3.5
The whole 'Wynne is often not great at center back' thing has been beaten to death already, but I think Saturday was one of his worse ones. Should have had a say in both goals, letting a guy get by him and failing to do his usual catching up.

Chris Klute - 4
Chris was also present for the first goal but didn't make much effort to stop Steven Lenhart, and he wasn't quite as sharp going up the wing as we're used to from him. It makes sense that he was swapped for Wallace with 30 to go.

MIDFIELD

Hendry Thomas - 6
Another steady performance in the back from Thomas. When you don't hear his name called much during the game, that usually means he's doing an efficient job. (Of course, we did hear his name that one time but that's another story.)

Nathan Sturgis - 7 (MotM)
How many Man of the Match performances can this guy possibly have this year? A great goal and great work in the middle of the field to hold and distribute by Sturgis once again.

Dillon Powers - 5
Not much good and not much bad from Dillon, who I think may be getting played a bit too high up the pitch for his best game. Martin Rivero's return should solve that, though it may push Dillon all the way out of the lineup regularly with Sturgis still on the rise.

FORWARD

Atiba Harris - 1
An absolutely silly challenge for Atiba to have made. The fact that the team seemed to play better with him off the field only added insult to the injury.

Edson Buddle - 6.5
A rather uninspiring first half immediately shifted into a beastly second when Martin Rivero came on. The Rivero-Buddle connection was fabulous and Buddle was very close to finding or creating a goal several times.

Deshorn Brown - 5
A rather run-of-the-mill performance from Brown, who uncharacteristically failed to get all that many chances for himself in this one, but did well when he had the ball at his feet.

SUBS

Martin Rivero - 7
Had he played the entire match, I have no doubts he would have been MotM. Rivero's 45 minutes were very good, and he only got better when Jaime Castrillon came on later.

Jaime Castrillon - 6.5
Another great and late addition, Castrillon nearly found the goal more times than some of the starters in that game did despite his limited time. It's very good to see him back.

Anthony Wallace - 6
As I said in The Daily Wave yesterday, I quite enjoyed the performance that Wally put on display for everyone on Saturday. Perhaps it's time to give Chris Klute a rest for the first time in a while.

Pablo Mastroeni Traded To LA Galaxy

2013-06-17T15:58:40Z

Well, not sure most of us were expecting that one, but what can you do? The Rapids announced on Monday that they had traded long-time team captain and, really, Rapids legend, Pablo Mastroeni to the LA Galaxy for an international slot and a 2014 second-round draft pick. (The rights to Baggio Husidic, which I completely forgot that the Rapids still had, were also included in the deal.)

Since it was reportedly by Mastroeni's request that he went to LA, I'm surprised that the Rapids even got that much for him. There's almost no chance that Mastroeni continues to play past this season and he has been completely destroyed by injuries this season. If they can get a few games out of him, good for them, but Colorado will likely find plenty of use for the international spot he's leaving behind.

Mastroeni's spot on the Rapids became less important with the rise of Dillon Powers, the effectiveness of Nathan Sturgis taking over his spot and the growing leadership abilities of Hendry Thomas and Drew Moor. Nobody will ever be able to replace Mastroeni, of course, but the team doesn't look like it's desperate for his presence any more, as they were last year.

Now, we just have to wait and hope that he's going to come back to Colorado in a coaching position once his career as a player has ended. I know we were all probably hoping to see him retire in burgundy, but as he said in his exit letter, Colorado will always have a place in his heart. We can only hope that spells an eventual return for our Captain.

The Daily Wave: Wally Freed

2013-06-17T14:00:02Z

During preseason, when Anthony Wallace made his first few appearances with the Rapids following two straight years of injury setback after injury setback, he did not look good. He was slow, timid and struggled to stick with marks. A lot of fans took that to mean he had regressed and was now an awful choice. As the proprietor of the #FreeWally campaign two years ago, I wasn't quite so sure, instead insisting that he was probably still getting his sea legs under him.

Since then, we've seen Wally moved to left midfield instead of left back -- the emergence of Chris Klute certainly didn't hurt Colorado's case of not playing him, either -- and he had gotten 27 minutes of unremarkable substitute appearances total prior to the San Jose match on Saturday.

Something must have clicked in practice or somewhere else for Wallace, being Oscar Pareja gave him a second chance on Saturday. Late in the game, as the Rapids were trying desperately to find a goal or two to match their fantastic play, Pareja pulled Klute out of the game for Wallace. Yes, that meant Wallace was all of a sudden playing left back for the Colorado Rapids for the first time since August 6th, 2011.

To the surprise of pretty much everyone, Wally was masterful. He had only a few bad touches on the ball all evening, looked more technically sound than he ever did under Gary Smith, and came very close to snagging an assist a couple of times as well. It was the Wallace that the Rapids were hoping they would get when they originally traded for him from FC Dallas back in 2010.

Certainly, it was only a half-hour performance, and the game situation was far different from what one would normally see -- dominating a match while down a man isn't exactly an oft-written storyline -- but I liked the progression. Maybe Wallace starts to scratch his way onto that team sheet a bit more often with a performance like that under his belt.

Colorado Rapids Thugcast Episode 39: Doing It Live!

2013-06-16T21:01:22Z

Like I said a few days ago, the Rapids Thugcast is moving to Blog Talk Radio, and we're going to give our new digs a spin today. Since that... thing happened last night, I'm sure that there will be plenty to talk about, even if Ben never actually gets back to me regarding whether or not he's going to show up. If you want, feel free to tune in or even call in, since we have a call-in phone number to work with now.

Either way, it's gonna be a fun time as we discuss last night's San Jose game and the upcoming game against the Fire, among other things. Maybe some USMNT talk? Who the hell knows with us?

Click on the Thugcast logo there or this text right here to go to the official show page. The festivities kick off at 4 p.m. MT, and hopefully it won't just end up being me talking to myself for the entire duration of it. That would really just be sad, no?

Edit: The show is now finished, you can listen to the replay by clicking the text or logo!

Colorado Rapids vs. San Jose Earthquakes - Man Of The Match Vote

2013-06-16T14:00:04Z

We can't rave enough about how good the Rapids looked despite being down a man yesterday. There were plenty of great performances all around, but who was the Man of the Match? Vote below on who you think it was, I had these two candidates in mind:

Nathan Sturgis - Not only did Sturgis score a goal, but was once again superb while partnering up with Hendry Thomas. Oscar Pareja may have some selection headaches when all of his players are 100%, because breaking up that duo to get both Dillon Powers and Martin Rivero on the field may be ill-advised with how well they're playing. (Indeed, Hendry would probably be on this list, but he isn't the one with the goal on the stat sheet.)

Brian Mullan - Though I would rather have seen Marvell Wynne out on the wing and perhaps German Mera in the middle, I certainly can't fault Mullan for the performance he put on out there. He was very good at swiping away possession on the right side, made great runs forward and put in a great cross for the only goal of the game. It's just a shame that that came at the expense of Wynne giving up two softies in the middle.

So, who was your MoM? One of those guys? Someone else? Indeed, I had a few other names in mind who didn't make it only because I feel they didn't play great first halves but dominated in the second half. (Edson Buddle and Chris Klute come to mind.)

Poll