Call them boring. Call them pragmatic. Call them whatever you’d like.
But when you speak of the 2017 Colorado Rapids, you should call them contenders as well.
In 2015, the Rapids looked down and out. The season saw them fall to the bottom of the Western Conference and post the second-worst record in MLS. The outlook heading into the 2016 season wasn’t much better.
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Then came a season in which the club pulled off one of the great turnarounds in MLS history. Colorado finished just two points back of FC Dallas in the race for the Supporters' Shield and lost to the Seattle Sounders in the Western Conference final.
A defense that posted the best numbers in the league in 2016 will rightly get much of the credit for the team's change of fortunes, but the reality is that the Rapids embraced a team-first mentality that coach Pablo Mastroeni has instilled in the club.
“I think really what made (the record-setting defense) happen is a bunch of guys working hard together,” center back Axel Sjoberg told Goal . “Obviously there’s a lot of quality in there as well, but really, it’s people coming together, working hard for each other and taking on the system.”
Last season was, in many ways, a masterful example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts for the Rapids. Despite a couple of big signings — Tim Howard and Jermaine Jones — Colorado relied heavily on unheralded players working for each other to make sure they avoided a similar fate as the 2015 side.
And it was a huge success.
Colorado’s final position in the table in 2016 was the best in club history. The question now is whether the team can build on that showing and contend for a title in 2017.
To do that, the Rapids know that they can’t just rely on their defense.
“The next step for us is to be a bit more potent offensively and not have to win every game 1-0, (to) be able to grind out and score more goals and put games away sooner,” midfielder and captain Sam Cronin said. “That’s been the focus primarily: improve our offensive output while maintaining the same defensive form we’ve had in years past.”
Scoring was at a premium in Rapids games in 2016 on both sides. Despite giving up just 32 goals in 34 games through the regular season, Colorado finished with a plus-7 goal difference. The 39 goals scored by the side were the second fewest in MLS.
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“I think honestly we’ve got to keep what we did really well last year as the foundation,” Sjoberg said.
“We know the process, we know how we want to play in general, but we have to tweak a few things, because you win games not only by defending well but by also scoring. So obviously we’re working on a few different looks and a few different things that can help us not only keep the ball out of the net but score some goals as well.”
Striking the right balance can be a complicated process. Pressing to find goals often leaves teams less organized on the defensive end. For the Rapids, who saw only four of their 34 games last year decided by more than one goal, that’s a risky proposition.
“That’s something we’ve been stressing all preseason,” Sjoberg said. “Trying a few different things but always keep in mind it’s the defense that made us really successful last year. That’s something we don’t want to lose.
“That’s the core of who we are and we can’t lose that, even though we’re trying to push forward a bit more in certain instances and score some more goals.”
The club added MLS veteran Alan Gordon in the offseason, along with a promising young midfielder in Bismark Adjei-Boateng, but the lack of a real splurge on attacking talent is a testament to the options Colorado already had at its disposal.
Gordon joins a strike force that includes veterans Shkelzen Gashi, the team’s leading scorer and creative hub, and Kevin Doyle, who chipped in with six goals last season. Both are versatile playmakers who could benefit from having a large target man like Gordon in the ranks.
With Adjei-Boateng and the continued growth of Dominique Badji and Marlon Hairston, the Rapids should have plenty of options when a change of pace is needed as well.
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Ultimately, though, Colorado is relying on the same play-as-one strategy to build an attack in 2017 that it relied on to build the best defensive side in the league a year ago.
“It’s definitely (about) getting more guys forward, and that has to be done as a cohesive unit or else you get stretched and start getting in bad spots and you can’t recover quick enough,” Cronin said. “It’s about getting our team a bit higher up the field and getting more players in advanced positions, but all the while maintaining a good shape if the ball is turned over and being able to put plays out quickly. “
If the Rapids can manage to strike the right balance, the outlook is a scary one for the rest of the league. But in the end, this team taking the next step could well come down to the intangibles they relied on to climb out of the basement a year ago.
“I think the first thing is every player individually and collectively as a team being hungry and wanting to achieve more than we did last season,” Cronin said. “And that’s been the mentality so far in preseason, which has been great.”