COMMERCE CITY, Colo. – October 11, 2014.
That’s the last time the Colorado Rapids scored a goal during the regular season, marking more than 400 minutes since John Neeskens’ 30th-minute opener against Chivas USA last fall in a 2-1 loss. The Rapids are currently scoreless in their past four regular-season games and winless in their past 16 after opening this year with two goalless draws heading into Saturday’s road match with the Houston Dynamo (8:30 pm ET; MLS LIVE).
“The ball has to bounce your way, everything else is right there,” Rapids head coach Pablo Mastroeni said, responding to reporters' questions about his team’s scoring drought. “The hardest thing is getting in position to shoot, and I think we did that well [against NYCFC].”
Colorado managed only two shots total (none on target) in the team’s season opener on the road in Philadelphia. In their return to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park last weekend, the Rapids did better, outshooting NYCFC 21-9 with seven of those shots on frame.
While the output increased, the end result remained the same as Colorado failed to put their noses in front in another scoreless draw.
“[Josh] Saunders has been standing on his head, making some unbelievable saves,” Mastroeni said of last weekend’s performance in which the NYCFC goalkeeper stopped all seven of those shots on goal. “There was a couple [saves] in that game that pumped their group up and helped them play tight.”
“I think that we got better in the second half, and we showed that we have good offensive power,” added Rapids midfielder Gabriel Torres, who put multiple shots on frame against New York City including a breakaway chance in the second half. “We played on their end of the field for most of the half and had plenty of goal opportunities. Unfortunately we couldn’t finish but we are going in the right path.”
With forward Deshorn Brown, the Rapids’ leading scorer the past two seasons, dealing with injury through much of the preseason and later sold to Norwegian club Valerenga, the Rapids have turned to players like Torres, the first Designated Player in Rapids history who barely saw the field last year due to fitness issues, and fourth-round draft pick Dominique Badji to find a scoring spark. Badji, a 23-year-old striker from Senegal, has managed only one shot on target in two games thus far but remains confident his team will find its first tally sooner than later.
“We’ve worked on a lot of offensive sequences that I’m sure will pay off,” Badji said. “Right now, we’re just really trying to work on everything we can control. That’s the energy up top and the work rate.”
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Perhaps the key to Colorado’s scoring woes will be the developing relationship between Badji and Torres. Both linked up well in the preseason and were able to deliver goals. It’s just a question of whether the two can now translate that success to the regular season.
“We complement each other well,” Badji said of his on-field chemistry with Torres. “It’s slowly getting there, but he works with me. I like to hold up the ball up and lay it off, and he likes to take players on.”
“I think it’s a good relationship,” Torres added. “All of us have to work hard, and we have to take into consideration all the rotations on the field and we have to help each other out so that we can score some goals.”
The sentiment within the Rapids’ camp remains content with results after the first two games, but the team remains hungry for its first goal and first three points of the season.
“The most important thing for a forward will always be to score a goal but we all have to work as a team so that we can get positive results,” Torres said. “It doesn’t matter who scores just as long as we are all fighting for the three points.”
