RSL vs Colorado: What we learned

Yay!

We won our second match on the road in a row! That brings us to three road wins on the season. And we’ll take every point. Two red cards, an early goal, and some slop.

A Few Stats

I absolutely love that RSL went after that goal differential tonight! I also don’t think Kreilach was quite offside on that last play, but whatever—I’m biased. We still have a negative goal differential, but we pulled that down to only a -2. Not bad.

We started this match in 4th place, but were tied on points with LA Galaxy. Now we’re a solid 4th place with 41 points on the season, only two points out of 3rd, four points out of 2nd, and five points from 1st; we’re tied for third in number of wins at twelve.

Watch for the Timbers and the Sounders. The Timbers have four games-in-hand on us; the Sounders have three. Portland are in a slide, but the Sounders are surging. Both have the capacity to spring up in the standings. Good thing they play each other tonight, so only one team can grab a bump. Watch those two. They’re the threats.

VIsuals

That first goal set the entire tempo for this match. A beautiful ball from Beckerman, great service from Plata, and a cold finish from Kreilach.

Then a red card. It was soft, but was also aggressive and violent conduct. Red card, no question. Happy birthday, Jackson!

Then sloppy. After that first red card of the match, we played some of the ugliest, sloppiest soccer of the year for about twenty minutes. It was gross. Rimando’s distribution was bad. Passing: bad. Movement: bad. Possession: bad. I thought Colorado might make something of this match, even down a man and a point.

RSL turned it around, though, and went to town. I love kicking a rival while they’re down, but it wasn’t really about that. It was about solidifying our position above the playoff line.

Scoring

I’m not going to go into too much here, but say that the top players on this team made their marks tonight. Take a look at Jake’s article about our forwards. I’ll wait here if you haven’t read it yet.

Taking into mind those xG numbers, our attacking corps is now overperforming regarding xG. If we can keep this up—and by this I mean a round distribution of goal-scorers—we’re going to make a great run through the end of this season. Strap in.

Overreactions

Happy birthday to you...Happy birthday dear Niki Jackson. Sorry Miss Jackson.

Do you think Jackson and Boateng played Pachisi or Guess Who back in the locker room during the match?