June and July feel like the weekend of the calendar year. If you’re a student school’s out, all the water and theme parks are open, and weddings, just like any other Rapids’ season, seem to peak right around this time. As we head into August and the summer season starts to wind down, we’ll look back to the eight league games the Rapids played in June and July. In addition to those eight, Colorado also played an additional two games: an Open Cup game and a friendly against New Mexico United and Arsenal respectively.
After a hopeful May, Colorado went in to June with plenty to look forward to. Interim Head Coach Casey seemingly had the Burgundy Boys playing with confidence, purpose, and with a clear identity. The Rapids went unbeaten in June if you exclude the US Open Cup Match. Overall, a very good record for the month of June. It seemed as though the wheels really started to spin for the Rapids as they started to climb the table, slowly, but surely. July, however, seemingly killed the Rapids playoff hopes and put right back at the bottom of the Western Conference. The Rapids went all of July without a win and the honeymoon phase of June came to an end. I’ll give a quick analysis of each of the games except for the New Mexico and Arsenal games. In quick summary, the Rapids lost the New Mexico game because its a competition the organization doesn’t care about as a whole. Tickets weren’t even available until a week before the match: they know it’s nothing to focus on so I won’t here. The Arsenal game can be simplified as a game where a dominant European team defended in a low block with very rigid positioning. The Rapids attack had zero ideas and as soon as someone in the defense made a mistake, Arsenal capitalized and made the Rapids pay. In hindsight, and in my opinion, the Open Cup Game and the friendly are anomalies. They were chances to see a rotated squad but apart from that, not really anything to write home about. The league games will be the main focus and we’ll see just how quickly the Rapids Summertime Hightime went to the Summertime Blues.
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