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The Colorado Rapids when …
The Colorado Rapids’ postseason media guide is full of wonderful information, and today The Tuesday List going to look at a list of the Rapids’ records under certain circumstances, like when they scored only one goal or how many games they won in October or how they fared after being tied at halftime.
Let’s start with the overall record: 10-10-10. You can’t get more average than that. The home record was respectable (8-2-5), but the road record (2-8-5) left something to be desired, especially against Real Salt Lake in the season finale.
The Rapids again were average when facing each conference: 5-5-6 against the Western Conference, 5-5-4 against the East.
The team was shut out only five times, and it’s not surprising it had a losing record in those games: 0-4-1. And, conversely, in the eight games the Colorado shut out its opponents, it went undefeated (7-0-1).
The three-goal plateau was magic for the Rapids. They were 5-0 in those games, and they were 0-5 when opponents scored three goals (no team scored more than three goals against Colorado in 2009).
But in the games where Colorado scored one and two goals we start to see some interesting trends. The same goals for games in which the opponents scored one or two goals.
RAPIDS WHEN SCORING ONE GOAL
1-2-8 overall: 1-1-4 at home, 0-1-4 on the road
RAPIDS WHEN SCORING TWO GOALS
2-2-1 overall: 2-0-1 at home, 0-2-0 on the road
RAPIDS WHEN CONCEDING ONE GOAL
1-2-8 overall: 1-1-4 at home, 0-1-4 on the road
RAPIDS WHEN CONCEDING TWO GOALS
2-3-1 overall: 0-1-1 at home, 2-2-0 on the road
Of those statistics, these are the ones that jump out at me: How can the team be 2-2-0 on the road, dead even, when allowing two goals? That, to me, would be a sign of a strong, resilient team. But the Rapids were only 1-1-4 at home when allowing exactly one goal. It doesn’t make sense to me that the Rapids can beat opponents twice on the road when giving up two goals but can manage only a single victory at home when the opponent is held to just one goal.
However, when the specific opponents are considered in those two road victories, the picture becomes a little clearer. The Rapids beat Los Angeles 3-2 at The Home Depot Center in early April (before L.A. got hot), and they beat the woeful Red Bulls 3-2 at New York. That explains the victories.
But it still doesn’t explain winning one 1-0 decision at home, losing one 1-0 match at home and tying 1-1 four times.
Next, let’s look at who scored first, a huge factor in the outcome of a game. The Rapids were 10-3-2 when scoring first. They were 0-7-7 when the opponent scored first. Again, I see resiliency: In the 15 games they scored first, they won 10; that’s a good percentage. And in the 14 games the opponents scored first, they avoided defeat in half of them. That’s also a plus.
And look at this: When tied at halftime, Colorado compiled a 6-1-6 record. So nearly half of those matches ended in ties, which is predictable. but in the other seven, the Rapids amassed a 6-1 record. That’s remarkable.
After leading at halftime, the Rapids were 4-2. And after trailing at halftime 11 times, the Rapids lost seven games but found four ties.
However, for my money, the key breakdown came by month.
March: 1-1-0
April: 1-1-2
May: 2-0-2
June: 1-1-2
July: 2-2-0
August: 2-2-0
September: 1-1-3
October: 0-2-1
Colorado played .500 football in every month but two. The Rapids were 2-0-2 in May and 0-2-1 in October.
But October is not the best month to go winless. And when you combine September’s record with October’s, the Rapids went 1-3-4 down the stretch. Not the way to finish the season. The Rapids sat at 4-2-2 at the end of May, but they followed it with three months of dead-even results and a 1-3-4 stretch run.
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