The Colorado Rapids look to break out of a funk when they battle rival Real Salt Lake on Saturday night in the Rocky Mountain Cup at Commerce City, Colo.
The Rapids have dropped their last three matches and are winless (0-3-2) over their last five outings entering the rivalry contest.
Colorado (4-5-4, 16 points) is coming off Wednesday’s 2-0 road loss to San Diego FC in a largely one-sided affair.
“Yeah, it was a tough game for us,” said Rapids coach Chris Armas. “The margins are thin in this sport, in our league and in the Western Conference.
“There’s not a lot of room for error, and we didn’t do enough. … Saturday is our focus, all of our energy now is spent on recovery and a big match for our players, our club and our fans.”
Colorado has been blanked in each of its past two games. The Rapids were outshot 28-9 by San Diego FC.
Now the Rapids look to end their slide against Real Salt Lake (4-7-2, 14 points).
Salt Lake is 0-1-2 over its past three matches and played the visiting Portland Timbers to a scoreless tie on Wednesday.
Salt Lake has just 13 goals and more than half of them (seven) have come from star Diego Luna.
What boggles the mind of Salt Lake coach Pablo Mastroeni is his club’s inability to score on corner kicks and free kicks, things that typically rate as a top-flight scoring chance.
“This year we haven’t scored an offensive set-piece goal,” Mastroeni said. “That’s an area of, regardless of who we have up front, we have to be able to find mechanisms to unlock that statistic.”
Colorado also isn’t ferocious on offense with just 15 goals. The Rapids have two players with five goals — Rafael Navarro and Djordje Mihailovic — with the rest of the roster totaling just five.
Last season, Colorado won two of the three matchups against Salt Lake. The Rapids won their home match 3-2 and also posted a 2-1 victory in Sandy, Utah. RSL’s win was a high-octane 5-3 home victory.
–Field Level Media
