Saturday, June 17, 2017

Rapids Look to Break The Timbers


Back to league action after the break.  The Timbers are in town tonight for the 4th straight home game (including the USOC) for the Rapids.  Its a 3 game week with LA coming here on Wednesday and a trip to expansion Atlanta next weekend so how Pablo uses his lineup will be interesting to watch.  Unusual start time of 7:30pm this one as this game was originally scheduled for national tV on FS1 tomorrow but after it was dropped it was moved to tonight and presumably either Altitude or Root Sports (Portland's affiliate) has something scheduled at the more usual 7pm start time.  Tailgate will start at 4:30.

Burling is certainly not available for the Rapids.  Boateng and Gashi are both questionable but I doubt we see them.  Supposedly Sjoberg and Ford are recovered from their injuries but I have my doubts they'll start.  Watts played in the USOC game so I expect to see him at CB tonight.Portland has two out and a number of questionable players so both teams will be running out patchwork back lines tonight.

Portland has a top 5 offense and a middle of the road defense that's banged up.  Colorado, as we all know, has a bad offense and a top 5 defense.  So we can expect most of the action to be in the Rapids defensive half.

Prediction: 1-1 draw, goal by Doyle.  This won't be pretty for the Rapids but they'll get the point.

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