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Rapids face F.C. Dallas in midweek double-header
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Tonight's Rapids match against F.C. Dallas is part of a doubleheader with the Colorado Force.
The Colorado Force are a W-League team based in Fort Collins. The team they will play is the NY/NJ Sky Blue FC of the Women's Professional Soccer League (WPSL). The WPSL is the newly minted top flight of women's professional soccer. The W-League has been around for several years and is now the second division of the women's game. The match, an exhibition, is the equivalent of the Colorado Rapids meeting the Portland Timbers.
There are many voices in Colorado pushing for a women's WPSL team to be established in Colorado. Among the voices is the Dr. Bob Contiguglia who has been a leading voice in U.S. Soccer for many years.
At this years Colorado State Soccer Association's general meeting Dr. Bob Contiguglia made a speech calling for financial backing to bring a team to Colorado. Dr. Bob was the President of the United States Soccer Federation from 1996 - 2008.
This game may be seen as a test case to guage the appetite of Colorado soccer fans for the women's game. Hopefully, there will many such test cases before a decision is made. Filling the stadium for midweek games has been a challenge for all of MLS. This game will likely be just as big a challenge.
The opposition will not be any great help. The Colorado Rapids are facing the seventh place F.C. Dallas. The Hoops, as Dallas' marketing department would like the team to be known as, have struggled all season on the field and in the box office. Dallas has one of the most porous defenses in the league. The offense has struggled as well even though the team features one of the best strikers in the league. In many ways the F.C. Dallas is the Western Conferences version of the N.Y. Red Bulls, without the Designated Player.
The Rapids have a colorful history with the team from Dallas. Neither team has been a league champion. The Rapids have been a conference champion while F.C. Dallas' does have a U.S. Open Cup trophy for their cabinet. The two teams have been matched up in the playoffs on four different occasions with the Rapids eliminating the Dallas team in every meeting. One of those meetings ended in a fight that saw Dario Sala knocking out the Rapids Hunter Freeman.
The Dallas team the Rapids are facing tonight is like a wounded Bull. He may look like he's down, but the wise matador will be cautious. Dallas is coming off a four games that illustrate how wildly uneven their play can be. Four games ago they beat up on the highly rated Chicago Fire in Chicago. The huge win preceded a three game home stand. To start the stand Dallas faced the hapless San Jose Earthquakes, and earned a tie. Dallas followed the tie with an expected loss to the Houston Dynamo. They finished their home stand with a good win against the surging Columbus Crew.
What kind of team will the Rapids see tonight? Who knows! We might see the team that beat Chicago on the road, or the team that tied San Jose. Trouble is for Dallas is they don' t seem to know which version of themselves will show up either.
Dallas does have some real threats that the Rapids defense will have to contend with. Kenny Cooper is every bit as big and strong as Conor Casey, but with a bit more skill with the ball at his feet. Dave van den Bergh is a very classy wing player. And, Rapids fans will remember the ever dangerous Jeff Cunningham. There's a lot of fire power on the Dallas team, but not many players who can provide the service.
On the other end, Dallas has one of the leakiest defenses in the league. With Conor Casey still in Europe playing with the team that's surprising the world, the scoring burden falls once again to Omar Cummings. Pat Noonan now has a game under his belt with the Rapids and fans can expect to see more playing time from him. The best match up of the night may be Omar Cummings against Ray Burse the Dallas goal-keeper.
Kickoff is at 7:30. Get there by 4:30 to see the women play.
