The Colorado Rapids are one of the league’s classic teams that have been in America’s top flight since the very beginning. Despite only obtaining one piece of hardware in the MLS, it is hard not to think of the Rapids when talking about the MLS.
The Rapids always find themselves in the playoff picture despite being rocky in regular-season play.
With how the playoffs are set up in this league, all you have to do as a team is find yourself in the playoff mix and hope you can steal a road win in the best-of-three first round.
The Rapids find themselves in a familiar spot, at the edge of playoff contention, with a good run of decent results as we are at the halfway point of the season.
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Rough Results to Start
It was hard to tell if the Rapids were going to go on a run at some point this season, even now, this team feels near impossible to predict in the dog days of summer.
The Rapids obtained some impressive results in between horrendous losses that made it appear as if Colorado would not compete as the season progressed.
The Rapids suffered a five-game stretch that saw them go winless as hope dwindled when it came to their Supporters’ Shield aspirations. With the West having some major surprises with certain teams rising to the top and others falling to the cellar unexpectable.
Colorado found themselves on the outside looking in on the playoff race, despite believing that their roster was good enough to compete; they were failing to do so.
They may not be good enough to run the table through the early months, but they are good enough to compete, which they were failing to do early on. After losing by two to a hot Vancouver team in April, it appeared that they wouldn’t be able to change their fortunes around.
A game of Runs
Colorado’s season tends to go up in down in the form of runs. They lost two matches in a row to win another three to get back on track.
This trend started in April after getting a handful of good results at the end of the month, to then backed off at the start of May. These bad results have no trend of being against stiffer competition or weaker teams. The Rapids have just failed to remain consistent every week.
Against LAFC earlier in the month, they had a player sent off early in the first half while the game was tied up.
Despite Colorado playing decent with a man down, they were not able to create any offensive chances thanks to the offensive talent of LAFC and working with one less Fullback.
Mistakes like this for Colorado will only set them back on their quest to make the playoffs and hopefully make a run. Last year, we saw that anything can happen in the best-of-3 playoff format in the first round.
Giving lower seeds a slight advantage by hosting a playoff game helps these fringe teams fight for better seeding.
If the Rapids can fight through their bad stretches and stay consistently in the win column, they might be able to gather momentum to make a run in the last half of the season.
Main Photo
Credit IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire
Recording Date 15.07.2025