And although they don’t work every Rapids game, the offered keen insight into the team and its playoff fortunes throughout Saturday night’s telecast from Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah.

When Real Salt Lake owned a 2-0 lead in the first half, Max was already calling it a win. Sullivan also called the result a done deal in the first half, as did Mark Rogondino at halftime. It’s painful to say, but at no point after Robbie Findley scored his second goal of the match did it seem as if the Rapids had the goods to make it a contest. Fighting for their playoff lives, they had no punch.

And the FSC crew could see that.

Sullivan also pointed out that someone in the Colorado midfield needed to pick up his game when the team faced a two-goal deficit in this, the season finale. He was absolutely right. The problem for the Rapids, however, was … who?

Since Colin Clark injured his knee on Aug. 11, the Rapids are 4-6-4 and have scored 19 goals in 14 games. Jacob Peterson and Jamie Smith also have suffered knee injuries and have missed time on the midfield flanks for Colorado.

Those losses forced Kosuke Kimura and Jordan Harvey to move forward into the midfield from the defense, the only area of the pitch where the Rapids have real depth. But that leaves Pat Noonan as the sole offensive midfield option on the bench. So if a Rapids midfielder was being counted on for a burst of offensive inspiration, who would it be?

In the second half, Sullivan said that, going into the playoffs, you want to be a team that shows it can play convincing soccer. The Rapids have not done that in weeks. Since the last time the team was on FSC (Sept. 5) the team is 0-3-4 and has scored six goals in those seven matches. Three of those were penalty kicks.

Next, Bretos noted near the end of the match that Colorado, based on this result, does not have the look of a playoff team. Maybe that was an easy one. What was your first clue, Max? Findley’s two first-half goals? Yura Movsisyan’s dagger in the 85th? The frustration on the faces of the players, helpless to shape their own fate? The observation was a soft one, but Bretos hit it out of the park.

Finally, Sullivan pointed out that RSL owns the mountain region of Major League Soccer. Again, painfully, they do.

Even though the Rapids beat them convincingly in May and Omar Cummings conjured a goal from nowhere for a road tie in June, Saturday’s 3-0 RSL victory came when it counted the most. It was the second straight season that RSL has beaten the Rapids in the regular-season finale with the playoffs on the line. Salt Lake gets to keep the Rocky Mountain Cup and shows once again that it holds the upper hand in this rivalry.

All that wisdom in a few short observations about the Rapids. FSC is a joy to watch.

This game, however, was not.

MAN OF THE MATCH: Findley.

ARE THE RAPIDS ELIMINATED? For Colorado to advance to the postseason the team needs New England to lose today against Columbus.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN CUP The trophy stays in Utah for another season, but it was nice to see C10 member Tina Nuechterlein in her Rapids gear on the telly.

ATTENDANCE MATTERS: Officially, the attendance was 18,675, but I saw a lot of red seats at Rio Tinto Stadium. Could the Rapids have drawn a better crowd? No.

RAPIDS STARTERS: Preston Burpo, Jordan Harvey, Cory Gibbs, Julien Baudet, Drew Moor, Mehdi Ballouchy, Pablo Mastroeni, Kosuke Kimura, Nick LaBrocca, Omar Cummings, Conor Casey.

REAL STARTERS: Nick Rimando, Chris Wingert, Nat Borchers, Jamison Olave, Tony Beltran, Andy Williams, Kyle Beckerman, Javier Morales, Will Johnson, Robbie Findley, Fabian Espindola.

RSL knocked the Rapids out of the playoffs (and put itself in) in the final minute of the final game of 2008. And the league set up a similar showdown by pairing the two in the 2009 finale.

It makes sense: Nurture this rivalry by making the teams go head to head at the most crucial juncture. More than likely, some important playoff scenario would come down to the last game for at least one of the two. Why not let them bang heads to decide it?

And get their hate on in the process.

After Saturday’s loss 2-1 loss to FC Dallas, the Rapids have played right into the schedule makers’ hands. Saturday’s match in Texas could’ve ended up anywhere from a 2-2 tie (if Kosuke Kimura puts away his golden opportunity in the second half) to a 6-1 win for Dallas (if the Hoops put away any number of golden opportunities in either half of play).

The Rapids had so many breaks in this game that Altitude color commentator Marcelo Balboa predicted Colorado would come back and tie it 2-2. And you can’t blame him.

Jeff Cunningham was called offside on a play in which he wasn’t.

Referee Edvin Jurisevic was too busy passing out yellow cards to notice Pat Noonan play the ball with his arm in the Rapids’ penalty area.

Cunningham missed a sure goal wide right.

Cunningham missed a sure goal wide left.

Dax McCarty drove a hard shot just over the crossbar.

Cunningham served to David Ferreira, who missed a completely empty net wide after Cunningham drew Rapids goalkeeper Preston Burpo out of the penalty area.

And on and on. The Hoops had so many opportunities to put this one out of reach that it got comical. And it seemed as if the stars were aligning to allow the Rapids their fifth consecutive tie.

Nope. The second Rapids goal didn’t come, and Dallas’ two goals held up.

Dallas got on the board first in the fourth minute. Van den Bergh served a wicked free kick in front of the Rapids’ goal, and the towering George John slipped in front of Jordan Harvey and headed it in.

Balboa was right on the money in pointing out that John was aggressive on the play, attacking the ball, and Harvey was passive, waiting for the ball to come to him. That was the difference in the goal, and it was a rare mistake from Harvey this season. He has played consistently at a high level for Colorado all year, and this is a rare blemish on his 2009 record.

The Hoops made it a 2-0 lead when Ugo Ihemelu put the ball in the net in the second half after another Dallas free kick. Ihemelu swiped at the ball with his leg, sending it toward goal. Burpo made the initial save, but the rebound bounced into the net after hitting Burpo’s leg or foot. Whatever body part happened to be the culprit, it was a goal for Dallas.

Pat Noonan gave the Rapids some hope in the 71st minute. For some reason the goal was unassisted, but Nick LaBrocca set it up with some nice footwork along left edge of Dallas’ penalty area. Noonan showed some fancy moves of his own to keep the ball in front of him and away from former Rapids defender Ihemelu, then he fooled Dallas keeper Dario Sala with a shot to the near post. Sala was looking far post, and Noonan almost twisted him into the ground like a tent stake.

But that was it from the Rapids. Colorado beat Toronto 1-0 in Commerce City on Sept. 5 and hasn’t won a game since. The team has logged a 0-2-4 record in that stretch and has scored only six goals, three from the penalty spot.

Six matches. Four points.

It’s a bad time of the season to be hitting a wall. And the last chance to get over that wall is Saturday.

In Sandy, Utah.

RACE FOR THE GOLDEN BOOT: In a highly anticipated meeting between the top contenders for the MLS Golden Boot, Cunningham and Rapids striker Conor Casey came up empty. Cunningham couldn’t finish any of his numerous chances, and Casey’s teammates couldn’t put him in a position to score. So, instead, we got John’s first goal in MLS, Ihemelu’s first goal of the season and Noonan’s second goal with the Rapids.

ALTITUDE HIGH JINKS 1: The Kroenke entertainment and sports programming network missed the first four minutes of the match, opting to show the Colorado Avalanche on Altitude and Altitude 2 simultaneously. The first we saw was Cory Gibbs objecting to a foul outside of the box (which is what led to van den Bergh’s fateful free kick). I’m not sure everybody had that problem in the metro area, but that’s what we got in Greeley on Comcast.

ALTITUDE HIGH JINKS 2: When will they stop superimposing images of the announcing team in front of the road stadium? It’s bush league. Just show them in the studio. It’s obvious Cory Lopez and Balboa aren’t at the stadium (Balboa even talked about driving to the game on Saturday), and trying to give the impression that they are on location is deceitful. Fox Soccer Channel often has its announcers in the studio (and not at the match site), and it never feels the need to lie to its viewers. They don’t make a point of hiding the fact that they’re not at the stadium; they just don’t try to show viewers that they are.

MAN OF THE MATCH: Dave van den Bergh’s service on the first Dallas goal was sublime, a low, curling rope of a kick. The Dallas offense was firing bullets that the Rapids couldn’t stop, only dodge, and van den Bergh was pulling the trigger. In the first 20 minutes of the second half, Dallas attacked in waves, with van den Bergh leading the charge. I thought Ihemelu matched up well with Omar Cummings and was making a case to be man of the match. And when Ugo scored his goal, the case got stronger. But there was a fire in Dallas’ bellies on Saturday, and van den Bergh threw fuel on the fire with his offense.

MISSING: The Rapids were without defender Julien Baudet and midfielder Mehdi Ballouchy because of disciplinary suspensions.

YOUNG AT THE BACK: When Rapids coach Gary Smith took Cory Gibbs out of the game in the 63rd minute, I thought it was a strong vote of confidence in defender Scott Palguta. Then, when Smith took out Palguta for striker Ross Schunk in the 87th, I thought it was a strong vote of confidence in rookie defender Michael Holody.

MAN WITH TWO FIRST NAMES: George John has a name that’s odd because it’s difficult not to think of either name as a first name. George. John. John. George.Then that got me thinking. George, er, John wasn’t the only player on the pitch with two first names, too. What about Jordan Harvey? And Conor Casey? But is Conor a first name or a last name more often. And, to be fair, if you consider how many folks have named their precious little boy Tanner in the past 20 years, I’m rocking two first names as well.

RAPIDS STARTERS: Preston Burpo, Drew Moor, Cory Gibbs, Scott Palguta, Kosuke Kimura, Nick LaBrocca, Pablo Mastroeni, Pat Noonan, Jordan Harvey, Conor Casey, Omar Cummings.

DALLAS STARTERS: Dario Sala, Heath Pearce, Ugo Ihemelu, George John, Jair Benitez, Atiba Harris, Daniel Hernandez, Dax McCarty, Dave van den Bergh, Jeff Cunningham, David Ferreira.

George Tanner is a former writer and editor for the Rocky Mountain News; the Greeley Tribune; The Daily Independent of Ridgecrest, Calif.; the Durango Herald; and the Boulder Daily Camera. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado and an affiliate professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver. E-mail him at ColoradoSoccerNow@gmail.com.

To advertise on Colorado Soccer Now, e-mail George at ColoradoSoccerNow@gmail.com.

And the Colorado Rapids did just that, beating Real Salt Lake 2-0 on Saturday night at a rainy Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.

In the 11th minute, LaBrocca a midfielder who is usually asked to play a defensive role on the team (last week he actually replaced Kimura on defense), scored to give the Rapids a 1-0 lead in the first game of the Rocky Mountain Cup series. Conor Casey pierced the Salt Lake defense with a ball up the left wing to Colin Clark, who chipped over a few other players at the near post and found LaBrocca in the middle of the box. LaBrocca easily headed the ball past RSL goalkeeper Nick Rimando.

“He was our man of the match,” Rapids coach Gary Smith said of LaBrocca, who started and played the full 90 minutes. “I thought he was a driving force in that midfield. The goal really capped a very good performance on a night against a very good Salt Lake side.”

Salt Lake was dealt two blows late in the second half. Rimando left the game in the 35th minute after a collision with Casey, and defender Jamison Olave received a red card for a foul on Casey in the 41st minute.

At the hour mark, Kimura, whose parents were in town for the game, scored the first goal of his Major League Soccer career. Casey chased down a long ball deep in the left corner then tapped back to Jordan Harvey. His cross was slightly behind Terry Cooke on the right side of the penalty area, but Cooke dropped the ball off for onrushing Kimura. The right back’s low liner sliced past goalkeeper Kyle Reynish and punched the net at the bottom left corner.

“I thought he had one of his better games on the ball,” Smith said of Kimura. “He’s one of those individuals that will create a spark going forward. If we could put some sort of gauge on him, the amount of ground he covers, I imagine it’s as much as anyone else on the pitch.”

With the man advantage, the Rapids played a possession game in the second half that Salt Lake could rarely crack. The visitors were not able to put a shot on goal in the match.

A TASTE FOR GOAL: Kimura apparently enjoyed scoring the goal. In the 82nd minute, he was pushing forward so far he was called for offside.

THE THIRD GOAL THAT WASN’T: The match could’ve been a rout early on. In the 16th minute, Casey headed the ball into the RSL goal, but the play was disallowed. Omar Cummings, on the right side of Real’s penalty area, chipped the ball masterfully to the opposite side, where Casey headed the ball from an impossible angle through an impossible gap between a defender and the goalpost. But referee Edvin Jurisevic waved it off. Why? “You tell me,” Smith said. “Only here would that happen, at this ground. It seems commonplace that something unusual happens. Somebody whispered in my ear that Omar’s cross went out and came back in or that Conor’s header was off the pitch when he headed it back in, which I can’t believe. It would’ve been an absolute miracle. Offside, somebody else said. Probably a combination of all three.”

MAN OF THE MATCH: Smith picked LaBrocca, so I’ll go with that. “The type of player Nick is is a value to any football team in any league anywhere in the world. He’s so versatile. He’s played right-hand side; he’s played left-hand side. He slotted in at right back last week when Kosuke was stretchered off. He’s a talented and intelligent footballer. When you ask Nick to do a job, he can do it. … I think if we look back at the footage, you’d see a lot of industry, a lot of determination and energy in his game. And I think that’s a mark of the group. ” Casey played a strong game, although he didn’t score. He got an assist on LaBrocca’s goal because the scorekeepers awarded two assists. There also were two assists on the Kimura goal, but Casey would’ve had one if the scorekeepers had awarded three. On the free kick that followed the RSL red card, Casey nearly scored on a header.

AS THE DERBY TURNS … Earlier this week, I asked if Kyle Beckerman or Pablo Mastroeni would pick up a yellow card first. It was Beckerman in the 87th minute. The over-under in Vegas was halftime. So if you had “over,” you win!

SCOTT PALGUTA STARTS AGAIN: Once again Cory Gibbs was out of the lineup. Gibbs was practicing with the Rapids midweek, the team said, but he was not yet match-fit after battling a groin injury. Scott Palguta, who signed with the Rapids after four years with the Rochester Rhinos, a USL first-division team, has started the past two games at center back. “Scott has stepped in and been very reliable,” Smith said. “It’s a big ask for the lad, stepping up from league one. He’s reliable on the ball. He doesn’t get flustered for a center back. And when all is said and done, you want players in those positions who can compete. He’s become a great part of our group, and we think he’s done a tremendous job. We’re very pleased with him.”

PICKENS RETURNS IN GOAL: Matt Pickens, who started the Rapids’ first two games of the season but then left the lineup with back spasms, was back in net on Saturday. Smith said the decision to start Pickens over Preston Burpo, who was 2-1-2 in all competitions after replacing Pickens, was difficult. “I’ve said all along we have two first-choice goalkeepers,” Smith said. “Preston had been fantastic. I just felt … it was the right moment to give Matt his opportunity again. And, as expected, Preston was extremely disappointed, and rightly so. But I have to make decisions, and hopefully they’ll be the right ones.” Real Salt Lake did not record a shot on goal, so perhaps it was a good opportunity to ease Pickens back into the lineup after being off for  about a month.

ATTENDANCE ISSUES: Another lousy weather day and another lousy crowd for the Rapids. Official tally was 9,045, but my spotter put Dick’s Sporting Goods Park at 20 percent full. For example, fewer than 20 people were in section 120. Maybe about the same in 114. The weather played a factor. But until we see the size of the crowd on a warm-weather night, we won’t know just how much of a factor the bad weather is.

THE NORTHEAST CORNER: Congratulations to the RSL fans, who made a stadium’s worth of noise from their one section. And considering the scarcity of Rapids fans at Dick’s on Saturday, the stadium needed the Utah fans’ exuberance. Good on ya!

VICTORY WAY HOOLIGANS: Soccer fans averting their eyes from the halftime activities on the field may have seen the Rocky Mountain Cup start to make its way around the concessions concourse.  The trophy was escorted by supporters of the current holders. Progress was slowed about even with midfield, however, when the RSL fans were verbally accosted by less-than-gracious hosts.  Cooler heads prevailed when someone’s mother advised the sparring groups to “just walk away, boys.”  It wasn’t quite “Eurotrip,” but the rivalry is still young.

But until one side hurts the other, really inflicts some damage, all you’ve got is press releases, window dressing and hollering.

After Real Salt Lake joined Major League Soccer in 2005, some well-meaning fans whipped up a trophy and a competition that RSL and the Colorado Rapids, by virtue of their mountainous locales, could vie for. The Rocky Mountain Cup was born. 

The Deseret News tells when the series got personal for RSL.

But in Colorado, it was mostly was neat, a bauble that the Rapids could hold high after beating their little stepbrother to the west.

Then fan favorite Kyle Beckerman got traded to the Utah team.

Then Real Salt Lake won the Cup in 2007 … in just its third season in the league … in the season finale … with a victory at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park  … a shutout, no less.

Then Nat Borchers, a Pueblo native and University of Denver alumnus and a Rapids fan favorite, was allocated to RSL after playing in Norway.

All of that was annoying enough. Losing that first Rocky Mountain Cup was like losing a game of H-O-R-S-E to that little stepbrother. 

Then came Oct. 25, 2008. It was at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park again. It was the season finale again. With a playoff berth on the line, the Rapids held a 1-0 lead. It was all they needed to reach the MLS postseason.

But Yura Movsisyan scored in the 90th minute to tie the game and end Colorado’s season. A tie was all Salt Lake needed to advance, and Movsisyan, in the cruelest of fashions, took the playoffs from the Rapids and gave them to his own team.

Rapids fans remember. I remember. When the 2009 schedule was released, the first things I looked for were how many times RSL would visit Commerce City and when.

But do the players remember the pain of last season’s finale? Have the players circled Saturday’s date on their calendars?

Rapids coach Gary Smith said he doesn’t think so. Saturday’s game, the first time the teams have met since last season, holds little extra significance for his team, he said.

“I felt as though we deserved the victory at the end of last season, but that’s gone now,” Smith said. “We’re into a new campaign now. We both have new problems to deal with and qualities to be proud of, and I wouldn’t have thought the players will harp on that too much.”

He did say the familiarity between the teams will produce a spirited contest on its own merits.

“They’ll know each other inside out,” Smith said. “A lot of players from Salt Lake have been here and been teammates of some of the guys here. There’ll be some good individual battles, and we’ll obviously be looking to that three points.”

Last week, the Rapids’ home fixture featured another late goal by the visitor and another 1-1 draw, this one with Los Angeles. Meanwhile Real Salt Lake demolished New England with six second-half goals in a record-setting home victory.

“They’ll be full of confidence, but I think everyone will take each game as it comes. I’m sure (RSL coach) Jason (Kreis) will be delighted with their win, and rightly so,” Smith said last Saturday. “But New England are a different set-up and a different team to L.A. We should still have gotten our three points. And whether it’s six goals or one goal, you can only get three points for that.

“We look forward to Salt Lake coming in as a local derby. But whether it be New England, Salt Lake or L.A. coming in, we’re still looking to bag as many points as possible.”

And as for the wave of confidence that RSL may have been riding after its victory over New England … well, let’s just say that wave crested midweek, when Salt Lake lost 4-1 to Seattle in a U.S. Open Cup play-in game.