Friday, July 24, 2009

Rapids Try To Find Their Wings Against Red Bull

A closeup of my cousin's new baby daughter Abigail. One thing Rapids fans and Sounders fans can agree on is that NY is crap

Red Bull New York Red Bulls are in town tomorrow to take on a Rapids side that needs to right itself. The game is at 7:30 tomorrow night at the Dick, to be followed by the rescheduled fireworks for the 4th of July. The supporters groups will be tailgating as always starting at 5:30.

Official Injury Report:
NONE

Official Discipline Report:
SUSPENDED: Conor Casey (Caution Accumulation)
TWO CAUTIONS FROM SUSPENSION: Mehdi Ballouchy, Pablo Mastroeni, Scott Palguta

International Absences:
Colin Clark (U.S. National Team)

New York has two players out injured and two players listed as questionable. They aren't missing anyone to discipline or international duty. Facundo Diz will be available, but recent reports don't have him in shape to be starting for the Rapids yet, so I'm guessing he'll be on the bench. My guess on the lineup:

Pickens
Kimura - Gibbs - Baudet - Harvey
Mastroeni
Peterson - Ballouchy - LaBrocca
Cummings - Noonan

I've heard from a good source that Cooke will be starting on the bench (continuing to indicate that he's the odd man out when Jamie Smith signs). This is the first time that all 5 defenders that have gotten significant play time and Baudet are available, so picking the back line is fairly difficult. I think Palguta is one of the two unlikely to start, but the second could be any of the rest of the group.

Key To Look For:

Focus. There's a big game coming up next week against Columbus, and its easy to overlook RBNY. New York is working on a historically bad season and this could be a seen as an "easy" win by some players. If the Rapids do that though, they'll let the Red Bulls sneak out of a town with a point, or maybe 3. They need to focus on putting RBNY away and worry about Columbus starting Sunday.

Prediction: 2-0 win, both goals by Omar Cummings. Red Bull is an awful team and its just the type of team the Rapids need to right the ship. Omar's due for a multiple goal game and a disorganized defense like New York's is a good team to score against.

1 comment:

Rob said...

the sounders are 2-0 when abby wears a diaper with the gameday opponent on it. looks like she is good luck for the rapids too.

i will thank her for you