2-0 Domination of Fire at home brings fans to their feet
by William ‘BilFish’ Fisher

Denver, CO. July 30, 2004 (ASN) — "Possession. That's the key," said veteran left midfielder Mark Chung, confident about the impetus for Wednesday's 2-0 victory over the visiting Chicago Fire.

"The whole season, we've played too much longball," Chung added. "That doesn't cater to anybody on the team. We can be dangerous — if we possess the ball."

Why and how could Colorado swing from such a low-energy malaise against Columbus last Saturday to their explosive, enjoyable performance against the Fire?

No one feature generated the enthusiastic performance, just a series of small changes executed well from the back to the front of the lineup, delivering a critical three points.

A midweek announcement that Commerce City would permanently house the Rapids in Spring 2007 added an extra level of energy, but there was more to the win.

After the game, Head Coach Tim Hankinson said the team realized his vision.

"We didn't need spectacular games, [we] just needed players all along to play to their abilities in a collective way," he said.

"I think defensively Joe [Cannon] and Ritchie [Kotschau] and Matt Crawford had outstanding games. Kyle [Beckerman] was supposed to be defending and keeping possession, and never gave balls away tonight. Our strikers created problems for their backs, and that's something we haven't done. We were able to bring John [Spencer] in to settle the approach to the game."

Bringing Spencer off the bench was another clear indication of changes being made to the lineup and mentality of the team.

The Rapids Captain himself saw yet another aspect. Spencer felt the team "realized we were in a situation where we had to win games. We didn't want teams creeping away from us."

Spencer came on strong in the 67th minute for forward Alberto Delgado, and demonstrated no ill-will through tough play and post-game comments.

"[I'm] a player within a squad and never in my whole career have I ever felt I'm an automatic choice," the Scottish striker said.

"You're on the team to do a job of scoring goals, and if you're not doing it, then you shouldn't be in the lineup, whether you're the captain or not. It's not about me. It's about the team winning games. The franchise will be here long after John Spencer's here, Hankinson's here, Pablo Mastroeni's here. The franchise is going to outlast everybody."

Quiet much of this year —partly due to injury— Chung saw another side to the Rapids success in that "last year Spencer, [fellow midfielder Chris] Henderson and I could attract defenders to us. When we play the ball on the ground, it opens things up. Guys can finish — we have guys that can finish."

The wily veteran left-footer backed up his assertion on the pitch in the second half, scoring the Rapids' second goal and securing the victory for Colorado.

"If we play longball, I have no chance to get up front because the ball [goes] over my head," said Chung. "By the end of the game I'm completely knackered, I can't move anymore.

"Today we played Chicago, a good team, and they were back on their heels. We need to possess the ball. Let the ball sweat instead of us."

Sweaty or not, the ball was slippery on the field following a short, torrential pregame downpour that included hail and ensured a small-but-enthusiastic crowd would be in attendance.

Ultimately, a dramatic jolt of goal-scoring energy would leap to the fans, who remained vocal and passionate for most of the game.

The game didn't start quite so swimmingly. The first 25 minutes was a clear feeling-out effort as each team warmed up and made halfhearted attempts towards their opponents' goal.

In the 11th minute, the Fire's Justin Mapp followed a good run up the left side with a decent cross into Chicago forward Damani Ralph, but Rapids defender Nat Borchers shadowed him step-for-step and ensured a safe delivery of the ball out of the penalty area.

Set pieces such as corner kicks have no memory, so the Rapids' 15th goal of the season didn't exactly come against the run of play. Yet it shocked the Fire and energized the Rapids as Antonio De la Torre and Jean Philippe "Pedro" Peguero combined to repeat their home-field scoring debut.

De la Torre dropped a looping, curving corner directly towards the penalty spot, where Pedro took advantage of midfielder Jordan Cila's apparent non "pick" to find himself alone and get his head on the flying ball.

Proving somebody on the Rapids remembers that what once was up should go down, Peguero slammed the ball towards earth, sending it sliding and bouncing towards the upper netting and past Fire keeper Henry Ring, who was unable to react fast enough to keep the Rapids from ringing the bell.

"We practiced that yesterday," said De la Torre. "I just send the corner behind the two guys at the [near post]. I told Pedro, 'just run to the goal, don't look at me, once you start running I'll try to put the ball behind them,' and luckily we were one-zero at halftime."

Perhaps there was no dominant possession in the first third of the game, but this combination goal was a defibrillator that jolted both teams into action.

Immediately after the tally, Chicago came on strong, allowing Cannon to show his All-Star quality and throw egg on the face of MLS for failing to include him in their reindeer games.

The Rapids keeper made three quick saves against decent shot opportunities as the Chicago struck hard.

"The ball was slippery and I wasn't as confident," Cannon said of the first save. "Luckily, it stuck to my gloves and that set the tone for the rest of the night."

Indeed, whether luck or Super Glue, the keeper refused to allow any rebounds.

Sensing an opportunity of their own, Henderson and Crawford both served several crosses into Chung, who's three resultant headers made the Fire flinch and forced Ring into a jumping save to tip an on-target ball over the crossbar.

Chicago's Nate Jaqua would have a ball served to his feet in the six-yard box, but apparently was not ready to shoot and Kotschau quickly smothered the chance and cleared the ball as the first half came to an exciting close.

A loud crowd greeted the men on their return to the pitch to open the second act.

Action resumed immediately with hard tackles and pressing runs on both sides. Chicago's Ralph opened the bidding as he got on the end of a searching pass and ran into the sliding arms of Cannon, who rushed out to make a painful save in the middle of the box as Ralph's foot appeared to go through the goalkeeper's right arm, stopping play for several minutes.

Henderson one-touched a slider just wide of goal off a Cila throw-in that was allowed to penetrate the Fire's penalty box by a faulty Chicago defense.

This was nothing more than a prelude to the dramatic punctuation added by Colorado in the 57th minute.

Controlling the ball down the right side, Delgado, who started up top over Spencer, pushed forward until he drew several defenders and slyly slid the ball across to the top-left corner of the box where an unmarked Chung controlled the pass, breathed a sigh of relief and stretched his legs, then nonchalantly smacked home the second goal into the upper 90.

The veteran felt this was an important tally for him.

"It's tough to come back mentally after pulling my quad in my shooting leg," Chung said. "It's good to get a shot off like that, to get open like that. I haven't been open like that since last year.

"If we continue to do that, this team is going to score a lot of goals."

Chicago is not one to roll over, and the Fire showed resilience in pushing up strong and hard with all available firepower, subbing in a fresh Andy Williams to provide more energy. Just before the
substitution in the 63rd, Ralph created a one-on-one situation against the Rapids keeper.

"I played solid, except for the Damani one-on-one," Cannon said.

Reviewing the play he said, "Damani cut it back. Normally I stand my ground, [but] with the slick ground I thought he wasn't going to be able to cut it so nicely. He did well with it, but Ritchie Kotschau —all the guys— played well in the back."

The experienced Kotschau, initially beaten by Ralph, never gave up and made a clinical move to cover the net behind Cannon, putting him in position to brush away the seemingly open-net shot by the frustrated Fire forward.

Providing a vision of a soccer game where home crowds overwhelm the opposition with noise and passion in their own soccer-specific stadium, Rapids fans spent much of the last half on their feet shouting, stomping, and generally making life difficult for the visitors and visiting referees.

Finishing with an adrenaline rush sustained for the last 15 minutes of play, the Rapids kept momentum and the crowd up with excellent possession, and thoroughly worked a tired Chicago midfield as the Black & Blue created crowd-pleasing third-goal opportunities.

"In the first half it still felt like we were giving them a little too much possession," said Cannon.

"Even in the second half at times [we did], but that was [Chicago] putting numbers up top because they were down 2-0. Then, towards the 75th minute, we started possessing the ball like we haven't done all year."

The team was confident in the locker room, and cognizant of the importance of this game.

"Luckily, tonight we got two goals," said Spencer, "and K.C. and Dallas got beat as well, so all around it's a great night for us."

Even better for fans, the guys clearly have a sense of what's to come and are not content to simply bask in the glow of a job well done as the All-Star break is upon them.

The Rapids know they'll face Chicago again, at the tail end of a three-game away series concluding against the Fire.

"It's rare to see this happen to Dave Sarachan and such a well-coached team," concluded Cannon. "They're struggling for a little identity right now, and hopefully they don't find it when we go back to Chicago."