By Rapids Rabbi

There are several ways that I could approach Saturday’s 3-0 loss to RSL, which was the result of an early (and deserved) red card and a handball in the box for a PK. The recap I wrote gets more specific with the particulars of the game; I’m not sure I can re-read it without plunging into depression.

First, I could accentuate the positive. The Rapids had, in the words of Anthony Hudson, their best 20 minutes of the season in the early goings, as Colorado dominated possession and put Salt Lake on their heels. And also, the team did a solid job of defending with 10 men for 60 minutes. Those are good things, and notable.

Second, I could go negative: lambast the squad for falling apart in the final 10 minutes, which would not be the first time the Rapids had fallen apart in the final 10 minutes this year. Lambast Tim Howard for a technical error that he shouldn’t be making - get those arms down! Lambast Tommy Smith for making an error of concentration in flapping his arm out at a ball. This was a calamity of a match for Colorado, regardless of what good the team produced in the first 20 minutes, and there’s no point in lauding the team for 80 minutes of good play when they ultimately were beaten 3-0 against our most bitter rivals at Rio Tinto. We have played RSL at Rio Tinto in 15 MLS regular season matches since the stadium was opened in October 2008, and we haven’t won a single game. After Saturday, that’s still true. All else is irrelevant.

I’m not going to praise Caesar or bury him.* 

I’ll take the third option: chalk it up as ‘hey, s*** happens.’

Every MLS team will drop a clunker here or there. They will come out flat and lose; or have bad luck and put in an own-goal; or dominate all game and give up a goal on a fluky long-range shot; or get a red card from their goalie.** 

Goalie clunkers are a specific subset of clunkers. The Rapids are well experienced with goalie clunkers. In 2017, Zac MacMath had a brain fart in front of the net and ran over the Galaxy’s Gyasi Zardes, resulting in a PK. The Galaxians never looked back and won 3-0. In 2014, again against the Galaxy, the Rapids had one of the all-time worst goalkeeper fiascos in MLS history as Joe Nasco picked up the fastest red the league had ever seen and the ‘Pids lost, 6-0. 

These things happen. In my opinion, a team gets one of these a year. Nobody’s perfect. Even great players will throw up an epic fail now and again. Ideally, it doesn’t cost them a title.
So let’s just take the L and move on, and call it a mild aberration. 

The Right Back ConundrumWith Marlon Hairston out, Colorado has been mixing and matching at right wing back. Last week, we saw Kip Colvey get the start, only to be replaced in the 39th minute by Dillon Serna. This week, in a surprise move, Anthony Hudson put Nana Boateng at right wing back. There’s only 20 minutes of really relevant data on his performance, but it looked promising to me. Boateng had 3 dribbles; 1 successful and 2 unsuccessful; and he was 7 for 8 in passes, all of which occurred in the final third. After he moved to midfield, he did this, which was cool.  After the red card against RSL, Boateng moved into midfield and Deklan Wynne slid out to right back in a 4-4-1, and he was fine. And then we heard from Matt Pollard in this week’s edition of Holding the High Line that Dillon Serna was getting all the reps at right back in training on Tuesday in preparations for the match against Orlando City SC. So there are lots of options.

When the Saturday lineup against RSL was first put out on twitter, it had just an alphabetized list of the start XI with no formation.*** I immediately assumed Enzo Martinez was starting at right wing back. He has all the tools: he’s fast, he’s an incredible dribbler, and he’s an excellent two-way player. Perhap's he's a possible choice for Hudson, too.

I’m not sure who ends up the starter on Sunday against Orlando. My favorite would have been Eric Miller, who lacks for pace and attacking instinct, but is nearly 100% reliable defensively, can serve a ball well, and is an experienced MLS right back. Miller has been plagued with calf injuries, though, so he may not even be in the mix. 

Interestingly, among the six choices (Colvey, Serna, Boateng, Wynne, Martinez, Miller)  I just mentioned, I don’t really think you can go wrong. Serna probably gives you the least in terms of defense. However, if the fullback’s main goal is harassing the ball carrier in their defensive third to make playing out of the back hard, then being fast and nimble precedes being a good defender, and Serna is a good choice. If wing-linkup play is important, Boateng’s probably your man.

Colvey was just fine in attack but he didn’t seem to be able to defend quite as well. Enzo, I think, could give you a little of everything, except perhaps long service. If Danny Wilson is healthy, a back three with him, Axel Sjoberg, and Tommy Smith lets you put Deklan Wynne at right back, which puts perhaps your strongest five defenders on the field at once, if that’s how you want to go.

The team will likely be at its best when Marlon Hairston returns. But in the interim, having six good options at right back is kinda cool.

The Price is Right

I got a great question from a reader on twitter. @Nickyd750 **** asked me to apply the metric I created to measure defensive midfielders in 2017 to Jack Price and see where he came out. Nick thought Price was doing well, but wanted to know if the numbers corresponded to what his eyes saw, and by how much.

Quick pair of disclaimers. First, sample size is always a concern at an early stage like this. Numbers start to have more meaning once we get through a third of the season, in my humble opinion. They aren’t useless at this stage, but they also aren’t conclusive. Second, yes, there are a lot of people who were critical of my metric. Opinions mostly ranged from ‘it’s flawed but I like it’ to ‘it’s garbage, you’re an idiot, how dare you.’ Simply put, I put stock in how a d-mid passes and I see Key Passes as the best indicator of that reality; I think that passing percentage over-inflates a player who makes useless side passes; and I believe that CBI+T are useful and good numbers. Most importantly, nobody else has tried to make a better statistic, and until they do, everybody should shut up and get off my lawn.

Price so far in 2018 is averaging 2.0 Key Passes per game, and his aggregate CBI+T (Clearances, Blocks, Interceptions, and Tackles) is 5.60 per game. These numbers come from whoscored.com. In Key Passes, he’d rank 2nd out of all box-to-box and defensive midfielders, and in CBI+T, he’d rank 18th. His aggregate of those two ranks would make him, in my metric, fourth-best as a d-mid in MLS, behind only Cristian Roldan, Kelyn Rowe, and Alejandro Bedoya.

Even if you hate the metric I created, the numbers still show that Price is a fantastic passer who creates chances and yet still gets back to do the work. 

I’m a guy that develops nostalgic, sentimental attachments to players: I still love Drew Moor and Sam Cronin and even (don’t hate me) Nick LaBrocca, and sometimes that means it takes me a little while for me to warm to their replacements.

But I’m saying it now. The early returns are in, and Jack Price is an excellent player that is making the Rapids a much better team. I think these numbers might decline a little as the season progresses, but my eyes and the math tell me that when we look back at the entire MLS 2018 season, Jack Price will be regarded as one of the best and most underrated midfielders in the league.

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* This is the second week in a row that Backpass has included a reference from Shakespeare! Apparently, I paid attention in high school. Occasionally. My report cards do not reflect this.

** Because I’m not talking a ton about this game since it isn’t really worth discussing, I’m feeling my oats a little with my quirky endnote ramblings this week. Here, I’m going to say something about the use of the word ‘goalie’. English soccer writers generally feel that the correct terms for the guy that can use his hands in soccer are ‘keeper’, ‘goalkeeper, and the more colloquial ‘netminder’, but that ‘goalie’ is incorrect or inappropriate. This is dumb and boring and wrong. Writing is about language; language is symbolic, and as long as the reader and the writer are both pretty much clear on what is being discussed, then traditions and conventions are irrelevant. Goalie is probably a loan term from hockey, and it’s just fine. I also think loan-terms from basketball, like ‘dribble-drive’ and ‘turnover’ are all great. Traditionalists are all still watching soccer while sitting on a wet pile of peet that they hand-shoveled at the river-end of their ground, wearing a black frock coat and top hat, enjoying their team in wool kits attack their opponent in the WM formation, AKA the 2-3-5 formation. Tradition has its place, but at some point, it’s dead and lifeless. Goalie is fine.

*** I hate the new twitter lineup announcement graphic. It’s stupid. Colorado Rapids, for heaven sakes, please stop doing this. Go back to something that tells me the formation to some degree. Think of the children. And the soccer writers.
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**** Nick's avatar is the football team of Medellín, Colombia! That's fantastic. Two thumbs up.

By Rapids Rabbi
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There is no doubt that the Rapids were heavy favorites going into a game with Toronto FC’s B-team. I’m not sure anyone expected the team that Greg Vanney put on the field to be quite that inexperienced, though, as TFC’s lineup included five players making their first starts of the year - Clint Irwin, Ben Spencer, Tosaint Ricketts, Liam Fraser, and Jay Chapman. In addition, the team signed free agent defender Jason Hernandez on Friday and also called up three players from their USL affiliate TFC II, including starter Ryan Telfer. This was a really below-average MLS side, and the Rapids should have beaten them. And they did.
That said, it is easy to deduct hypothetical points because the degree of difficulty isn’t that high. But let’s take the other view: this is a Rapids team that got the job done. By comparison, NYRB played a mediocre Chivas Guadalajara team last week, at home, and out shot them 20-1, and lost. There were expectations, and the Red Bulls did not meet them. I haven’t been following MLS for 20 years, but I understand that this is the ethos of the New York/New Jersey RedstarMetrobulls - perpetual disappointment. Colorado fans have also been disappointed many time before; fans often operate in the protective crouch of a person that has been kicked in the nuts frequently.

Saturday we faced a team we were supposed to beat, and we beat them. Colorado is now undefeated in four straight matches, and undefeated at home. The team got a 2-0 lead, and held it. 

Even if the quality of the opponent is a bit lower, the Rapids did not play down to their level. They came with their lunchpails, did the work, and got the result. This week they play an RSL team that have been uneven at best. They have wins over NYRB and Vancouver, and they’ve also been blown out by LAFC, TFC, and NYCFC. (All these teams have ‘FC’ right in their title; maybe we should rebrand as ‘Rapids FC’ for just one week.) 

Instead, fans are adjusting to a new normal with the Rapids. They play a team that they expect to beat, and they go ahead and beat them as planned. It’s a great way to conduct your business.

“It was a tactical decision.”

In the 38th minute of Saturday’s match against Toronto FC, Coach Anthony Hudson subbed off right wingback Kip Colvey. When asked about it in the press conference, Hudson said “It was a tactical decision,” and then looked for the next question.

I was kind of mystified. My assumption was that Colvey had drawn the ire of the coach for some gaff or poor decision or error, or perhaps for being well out of position to where the manager would have liked him to play. 

I went back and watched the game closely to figure out what Colvey did wrong. I thought it would give me some insight into how Coach Hudson wanted his players to play and how not to play, and also what goes through the coach’s mind in determining who should start. And it did! But not the way I thought it would.
What I observed was the following:

-> Colvey was generally pushed very high, and often harassed the ball carrier high up the pitch. He still got back on defense quite well.
-> He received service on a pass over the top from the center backs on several occasions, but on most of those occasions the passer over hit it, resulting in a turnover that was not Colvey's fault.
-> In the 22nd minute, Dillon Serna and Nana Boateng were up getting warm.
-> Colvey didn’t make any serious mistakes in defense, and forced a turnover in the 25th minute. 
-> On that forced-turnover play, Colvey broke down field and laid a great through pass to Dominique Badji in space at the top of the box, which turned into a great shot, saved by Clint Irwin.
-> Colvey put in 3 good crosses that were dangerous balls. He also had a great dribble at the 36th minute to beat one, then two defenders. The second defender fouled him, but there was no call from referee Baldomero Toledo.
-> Colvey came off in the 38th minute for Serna.
What I saw was a pretty good attacking right back create several chances on passes and runs. Because Serna and Boateng were up so fast in this game, I think Hudson really did make this sub for tactical reasons: he wanted to swap a fast, right footed attacking fullback for a fast left footed attacking fullback and see if he could terrorize young TFCII left back Ryan Telfer. Telfer was not only playing in his first MLS match, he was also playing out of position: he’s normally a left midfielder. I think Hudson knew that, and wanted to throw as many wrenches as TFC as he could. 

If I’m right, it’s kind of impressive. I sense in these 7 games that I’ve seen Anthony Hudson coach that there are tactical considerations and machinations at play that we really never saw under the previous coach. There is always an attempt to adjust the tactics in order to attack a soft spot that the opponent has exposed. Instead of a static style or system, Hudson is looking for chinks in the armor to exploit.

Tomorrow I’m posting an interview I did with Anthony Hudson that will elaborate a little bit more on this point. In short, for the first time in years, the tactics feel calculated. Though sometimes it seems like Hudson’s approach might be madness, yet there is method in it.

Hudson’s Tactics, Part II

I asked Hudson about the tactics in this game at the press conference on Saturday. Specifically, did he anticipate playing against an inexperienced TFC team that was going to be resting his players, or does the coach make his tactical plan for the game without regard to the player he expects the team will face?
Hudson said this:

“I think in every game up till now, we’ve known the opposition. We’ve had a good idea enough to predict who’s going to play and how they are going to play. I think this is the first time that there was uncertainty about who was playing, and when we saw the lineup, with the players they had, the howthey were going to play. And throughout the game they changed that quite a few times. That itself poses a problem. And then you’ve got a bunch of players in there, they’re looking to prove a point and get in the team for Tuesday (against Chivas), it’s an opportunity for them. It’s not an easy task. So I felt in the game the players were constantly managing to adjust, how we matched them when they changed. I think we dealt with that quite well.”

Playing an uncertain opponent changed the Rapids approach in that it took the coach out of the driver’s seat a little and required him to trust his players to adjust on the fly, and adjust they did. This speaks a bit to one of Padraig Smith’s priorities in acquiring players: footballers with a high soccer IQ. Veterans with a sublime feel for the game like Edgar Castillo and Jack Price can make reads on spacing and movement in the moment that might normally require hours of consuming and analyzing video. A good coach needs to trust his players to make smart in-game decisions when necessary. He also needs to firmly establish the game plan when circumstances dictate. I suspect we’ll see more of the latter than the former against Real Salt Lake this week, against an RSL team that is both floundering and a fairly known quantity; get it to Rusnak and send runners beyond the backline. We’ll see Saturday.

Badji Watch

I’m keeping an eye on two things with Dominique Badji throughout this season: his goals and his expected goals. I’m interested to see whether Badji can break 14 goals on the season, and also whether he can exceed his previous expected goals totals in 2017 and 2016. Badji hasn’t been an exceptional finisher to date, but he has been extremely good at getting into scoring positions. In 2017 Badji had an Expected Goals of 9.36 and scored 9 goals over 2540 minutes. That +0.36 G-xG shows he’s about average as a finisher. In 2016 Badji had an Expected Goals of 4.73 and scored 6 goals over 1681 minutes; he exceeded expectations by +1.27 goals. 

For 2018, Badji has 4 goals on an Expected Goals of only 1.80 ; he's exceeding his expected production by a whopping +2.20. And that’s afterhis game Saturday in which Badji had 4 shots and zero goals. 
All the links below are to mlssoccer.com clips of Badji’s shots. To watch them, click the link, then click the ‘back’ button on your browser to return to the article.

He had back-to-back solid chances at the 24th and 25th minute. In the 24th he had amazing service from Johan Blomberg - that dude can place a ball, and that is something I will definitely spend some time breaking down in a future Backpass. Badji tried to loop it over Clint Irwin but Clint pushed it over the bar. Just 30 seconds later, Kip Colvey laid in a great ball to Badji, and the striker turned veteran centerback Jason Hernandez inside-out to take a good shot on goal, saved again by Irwin. Badji was all alone against Irwin in the 54th, but pulled his shot wide for chance number 3. And on chance 4, Blomberg (again! Blomberg!) played a ball right off the endline to Badji at the back post, but he couldn’t connect cleanly.

I thought these misses might have been tabulated as ‘big misses’ by the number crunchers and would have severely impacted the Rapids team xG for the game, but that wasn’t the case. Colorado had an xG of 1.96 for the game, and scored 2 goals, or right on pace with expectation.

With Badji one-fifth or one-sixth of the way through his season, assuming he stays healthy for 2500 to 3000 minutes, he is currently on pace for an unbelievable 24 goals. His xG has him at a more modest 10.8 goals. If the truth is somewhere in the middle, I think the Rapids will be very happy with Dom in 2018.
One last thought: Badji has enough goals that he needs his own song from Centennial 38. I have a suggestion:
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(to the tune of Apache Jump on it by Sugarhill Gang)
Ding ding (), ding ding ding (), ding ding
Dom Badji! Jump on it! Jump on it! Jump on it! 
Ding ding (), ding ding ding (), ding ding
Dom Badji! Jump on it! Jump on it! Jump on it! 
C’mon Paul and Juan, make it happen.