San Diego FC goalkeeper CJ dos Santos calmly collected Djordje Mihailovic’s second shot from midfield in the 77th minute and shrugged toward the crowd like he was offended by the attempt.
An apt reaction to a prayer just as fittingly unanswered in a 2-0 loss for Colorado. It was the Rapids’ third straight defeat — their first such skid of the year — and it dropped them to 10th in the Western Conference standings. A month ago, they shared second place.
Four minutes before Mihailovic’s heave, dos Santos denied him from the penalty spot to force the Rapids midfielder’s first miss of the season. He had previously converted all four of his penalties this year in all competitions. At the end of the first half, dos Santos only just got his fingertips to Mihailovic’s first — much more threatening — half-field shot.
Those were Colorado’s two best chances.
San Diego scored in the 33rd minute on a corner kick when a flick-on by Jeppe Tverskov found the head of a wide-open Chris McVey from four yards out. Anders Dreyer doubled the lead in the 58th minute with his sixth goal of the season on an impressive counterattack.
“It’s a tough game tonight for us. The margins are thin in the sport, in our league and in the Western Conference,” Rapids coach Chris Armas said. “At home, we put San Diego in a tough game, and tonight, they put us in one. … There’s not a lot of room for error and we didn’t do enough.”
A key Armas flaw of 2024, which ultimately set the campaign on a downward course, was a lack of squad rotation during fixture congestion. In weeks like this one that included three games in a span of seven days, Armas might’ve made two or three changes in the starting lineup between games.
Wednesday evening — the first midweek game of the MLS season for the Rapids — featured six changes to the starting lineup after last Saturday’s 2-0 home loss to the San Jose Earthquakes. Some were due to injury — Rafael Navarro was unavailable with an ankle injury and Cole Bassett is returning to fitness — but others were not.
Ultimately, Armas’ malleability signals increased trust in depth pieces, like 2023 Rapids MVP Connor Ronan and second-year Trinidad and Tobago international Wayne Frederick, both of whom started Wednesday night.
“We have a roster that’s deep. We have players that are performing all year long and (it’s) time, in a three-game week, to give guys opportunities,” Armas said. “Sam Vines, Keegan Rosenberry, starters from last year. Connor Ronan, the same. Wayne Frederick’s a guy coming through. We made a big move to get Ian Murphy. If I don’t play guys like this on nights like this, they may never play, right?”
The Rapids play a pivotal first match this season against Real Salt Lake this weekend to begin their defense of the Rocky Mountain Cup, which Colorado won in dramatic fashion last season. Armas insisted the lineup changes on Wednesday had nothing to do with looking ahead to RSL.
“This was about putting a team out there that would and could win the game and to put our best foot forward,” Armas said. “We said we’d worry about Salt Lake after (this game) and now it’s the time to do that. It was not about saving legs tonight.”
The most heavily rotated group was the defense, which only returned one starter from the San Jose match (Andreas Maxsø). Vines and Murphy have been used in various roles in recent games, but Rosenberry started for the first time since a loss at Vancouver more than a month ago.
His absences of late has been curious for the Rapids. The team captain hasn’t been injured, and the stretch of no-shows and short substitute appearances came after he signed a two-year extension right before the MLS season started.
According to Armas, it’s all about internal competition at the outside back position. It’s a solid group between the likes of Rosenberry, Vines and Reggie Cannon, but there have been games where second-year left back Jackson Travis has been selected over Rosenberry. Even Murphy, a center back, has taken precedence over Rosenberry out wide.
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When the Rapids’ defense had the ball, though, SDFC took advantage of what turned out to be a disjointed build-up game from Colorado. In the 3-2 Rapids win over San Diego last month, the Rapids feasted with their press. That script flipped from kickoff on Wednesday, even if SDFC had no goals to show for the press in particular.
“One of the hardest parts of the game is trying to solve things on the fly,” Rosenberry said. “I think tonight, we struggled at times to connect that first pass under pressure and the ball turns over. That’s a huge part of escaping a counterpress. … I thought we could have done that better.”
The first leg of the Rocky Mountain Cup against RSL kicks off Saturday at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park at 7:30 p.m.
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