Colorado Rapids @ DC United 5/3/25

KDP makes his return to Audi Field

Game Context

The Colorado Rapids had run hot and cold at times this season, but arrived sitting in a fairly comfortable fifth place in the West after two draws against Houston and Seattle. Oddly, Colorado coach Chris Armas had “technical issues with his flight” and wasn’t able to get to DC in time to be on the sidelines. missed his flight to DC and thus wasn’t on the sideline. A surely unrelated bit of trivia is that Armas has been fired from two different jobs after losing to DC United (in 2020 with the Red Bulls and then in 2021 with Toronto FC). Colorado was also missing a typical starter in midfielder Cole Bassett after a recent injury, bringing perennially underperforming DP Kévin Cabral back into the starting lineup.

DC was back home after after an 0-3 loss in Philadelphia that might not have been quite as bad as the scoreline but still was enough to get people speculating about. Troy Lesesne’s job security. Making matters worse was the year’s first injury crunch. Christian Benteke and João Peglow had missed the Philadelphia game and Kye Rowles got his fifth yellow card and so was suspended. DC United recalled Garrison Tubbs from his one week old loan to Loudoun, a move that should have made me realize more was going on. MLS being MLS, Lesesne shrugged his way through injury questions at his Thursday press conference, then showed up to the game without Lucas Bartlett or Gabriel Pirani. Fortunately, Benteke at least was recovered enough to start.

According to the MLS power rankings, this featured #13 (Colorado) vs. #27 (DC United).

Formation

Luis Barraza got another start in goal. DC played with its now customary three centerback formation. In my preview I talked about Conner Antley and Matti Peltola being candidates to start in place of Kye Rowles, but since Lucas Bartlett turned out to also be injured, Lesesne ended up starting both of them on either side of Lukas MacNaughton. David Schnegg and Aaron Herrera played as wingbacks on either side of Boris Enow and Brandon Servania. The front line was Hosei Kijima, Christian Benteke, and Jared Stroud.

I usually call this a 5-2-3, though in the first half DC was quite aggressive about pushing the wingbacks forward (maybe too aggressive, given how Colorado’s goal was scored) so 3-4-3 might give a more accurate impression, even after Lukas MacNaughton left with a hamstring injury after Colorado’s 43rd minute goal and was replaced in the center of the backline by Garrison Tubbs. DC would have to play a bit more of than a half of soccer without any of its three starting centerbacks.

From the start of the second half, though, DC spent most of the time bunkering with a five man line in the back. In the 61st minute, Dominique Badji replaced Jared Stroud while Conner Antley (probably still not 90 minutes fit after being injured for the first part of the season) came off for Derek Dodson. At that point Aaron Herrera moved to right centerback and Dodson played right wingback.

In the 72nd minute, Christian Benteke asked for a sub—despite this Lesesne said today that he’s healthy, thankfully—and was replaced by Jacob Murrell. Badji moved to being a very, very lonely center forward while Murrell took up a “winger” position on the left (Kijima moved to the right) but the formation now looked much more like a 5-4-1.

Expected Goals

DC United lost the xG battle to Colorado by a small margin, 1.1 to 1.3. The game was really a game of two halves, as DC had almost 60% possession in the first half and outshot Colorado 7-6 while getting 0.95 xG to Colorado’s 1.26. From those numbers, or just from watching the game, you know how the second half went. DC parked the bus and Colorado had a hair over 70% possession but no ideas for breaking down the block. Each team had two second-half shots and tallied only tiny amounts of xG (0.11 for DC, 0.07 for Colorado).

Christian Benteke’s goal was just 0.17 xG (it was reasonably close, but headers score a lot less often than shots) but his excellent placement was credited as 0.76 post-shot expected goals by Opta. Hosei Kijima’s goal was just 0.07, I think penalized because it was a volley, and the post-shot expected goals weren’t much higher (0.15) since he put it right in the center of the goal. DC’s highest xG shots were Benteke in the 6th minute (0.32) followed by Stroud’s errant shot during his collision with Benteke (0.26).

Darren Yapi earned 0.84 xG for his ultra-close-range header, getting most of his team’s xG on the day on that single shot, his only shot of the day. Rafael Navarro had the next highest total in the 4th minute (but just 0.13) when he followed up Djordje Mihalovic’s shot off the post with a volley that was comfortably saved by Barraza.

Despite the relatively low xG, the first half certainly felt action-packed with two DC shots off the crossbar and that Mihalovic shot off the post in addition to the three goals. The MLS highlights package skips the entire second half and…yeah, that’s fair.

Goal Breakdowns

43’ Darren Yapi 0-1

Colorado has the ball deep DC’s box, but Darren Yapi’s cutback is intercepted by Schnegg, who clears it up to Aaron Herrera on the right side of the field. As two Colorado players counter-press Herrera, he plays a slick backheel to Jared Stroud in lots of space. Stroud advances into Colorado’s half and plays it back to Herrera on the overlap. Herrera lofts it over to Schnegg at the top of the box. Schnegg touches it down to Boris Enow, who takes a good touch to beat the first defender and shoots. The shot bounces off another Colorado player in the box and comes back out to Brandon Servania. Servania fakes out a defender and passes it over to Schnegg at the corner of the box. I mention all this because, since the Colorado turnover, this is has been a wonderful sequence of play from DC, albeit one that hasn’t really manifested any real danger.

Schnegg’s first touch is a bit awkward, so instead of pinging a cross to Benteke like he usually does, he tries to touch it past the midfielder he’s isolated on, Oliver Larraz. Larraz does well to maintain his position and poke the ball forward. Schnegg goes down and asks for a foul. Lirraz smashes the ball upfield just as Servania arrives to pressure him. Not a great moment from Schnegg, but players are expected to take risks and lose the ball in the box.

DC has three centerbacks and Colorado has two forwards, but both outside centerbacks are upfield of where the forwards are, Peltola (on the side where the ball was) especially. The ball heads into space on the right side of DC’s half for Colorado’s Rafael Navarro to chase down. As this play happened, I expected MacNaughton, the last defender back and behind everyone else, to charge at the ball, probably get there first, and if not to put Navarro under a lot of pressure. Instead, he surprised me by jogging back in the center of the field as if someone else was there to match up against Navarro.

Peltola is running back but is well behind the play. On the other side, Antley runs hard and catches up to Yapi before Navarro is ready to make a pass. Surprised, I think, to find he’s still in a lot of space and that MacNaughton isn’t closing him down, Navarro touches the ball forward and then shoots at the near post. It’s a hard shot but a routine save from Barraza, who parries it along the endline. Navarro retrieves it while MacNaughton kind of saunters towards him instead of quickly closing him down. This gives Navarro plenty of time to look up see where Yapi is.

Peltola is now back and standing in the six yard box, marking no one in particular, while Antley is standing two steps in front of Yapi. Navarro lofts the ball to the back corner of the goal and Yapi beats Antley to it, heading it in at close range. Barraza manages to scoop the ball out of the goal but the assistant referee correctly signals that the ball went over the lin

After this, MacNaughton gets subbed off, and I think that explains a lot of what happened here. He tweaked his hamstring as the ball is hit downfield and after that could barely run. If Peltola had known this, he could have taken over defending Navarro when he came back instead of trying to cut off possible passing lanes (to be charitable). Of course, if MacNaughton had tried to signal this somehow, Navarro would have easily dribbled past him and been in on goal. I think a healthy MacNaughton challenges Navarro aggressively right away, and if the later part of the play had somehow happened, would also have not let him hit such an easy pass. So: some bad luck for DC that this injury happened.

What about Antley? He’s marking Yapi, how can he get beaten to the far post? I expected to blame him entirely for the goal, but watching it carefully I’m not sure what else he could do. He and Yapi both react at about the same time to the ball, but it’s hit perfectly to reach Yapi at head height. I guess if Antley had been a step closer to Antley, he might have contested it, but I’m not sure even then he would get to the ball. It’s a perfect pass from Navarro, a forward who has never had more than one assist in an MLS season. But this is why any MLS player would absolutely demolish a rec league team: if you give a professional athlete an unusual amount of time, they suddenly reveal lots more skill than they normally can display.

45+5’ Christian Benteke 1-1

Colorado fullback Reggie Cannon takes a long throw up field. Garrison Tubbs is holding Navarro just enough to slow him down but not get whistled for a foul, allowing Servania to get to the ball and touch over to Conner Antley. Antley plays it up to Herrera, who plays it back to Servania. Servania plays it across to Peltola, who passes up to Schnegg on the sideline. Colorado has him closed down, so he passes back to Peltola and Peltola passes it across to Antley. Antley plays an aggressive line-breaking pass up to Jared Stroud. Three Colorado players converge before he taps it back to Servania. From there Servania passes it over to Enow, who then hits a diagonal to an open Schnegg on the other side. As Colorado scrambles over, Schnegg hits a lofted cross to a double-teamed Benteke. The defender in front heads it on and then the left-side fullback Jackson Travis clears the ball into DC’s half.

As the ball bounces, Navarro easily wins an aerial duel against Garrison Tubbs and it seems like all this patient possession has come to nothing. But there’s only one other Colorado player nearby and Navarro’s header misses him, allowing Servania to retrieve it. He plays it back to Conner Antley, who hits another pass forward along the ground to Stroud. Stroud finds Enow in the center of the field and Enow plays it over to Schnegg on the far side. Colorado seems to have adjusted and ended the danger, denying Schnegg access to his favored crossing position a little closer to the box.

Schnegg plays it back to Peltola, who sends it past a pressing Colorado player to Enow. Enow touches it past the player pressing him to Kijima. Kijima’s marker is right on his back, so he plays it back to Enow. Enow hits a short pass sideways to Servania. Servania initially wants to play it into Benteke or Stroud, but there’s too many defenders in the way. Kijima is making a left-to-right run that seems bad since it’s taking him and his defender straight toward Benteke, but it actually opens up the left side. Servania takes a touch in that direction that forces no fewer than five Colorado defenders to close on him. He passes it through all of them to the now wide-open Schnegg, then makes a run toward the endline. Schnegg hits a low, driven cross that ends up going almost exactly at Servania’s face. Servania ducks, the ball glances off his back, and happens to go right to Benteke at the far post. Colorado centerback Chidozie Awaziem is in a great position, but he waits for the ball instead of attacking it, allowing Benteke to jump up and lean over him to head it down into the ground. The ball bounces up and into the corner of the goal.

In the end it takes a lucky deflection off Servania (credited to him as an assist) to create real danger, but it was also created by sustained pressure from DC United, a period in which 9 players (most of them several times) touched the ball in the buildup. It seems like a template for what Troy Lesesne has wanted from the more possession-oriented style he’s been trying to run this season.

45+5’ Hosei Kijima 2-1

After a long VAR check for Benteke’s goal, the referee holds up two fingers to tell the players there are two minutes left in the half.

Colorado plays it back to goalkeeper Zach Steffen, who hits it long as part of the standard play it seems like DC has been running for several seasons. Conner Antley and Darren Yapi both jump for it, but both misjudge the ball and miss it. It bounces off a surprised Servania’s foot and goes right to Rafael Navarro. He tries to pass it to Djordje Mihailovic, but Antley, running back towards his normal position, cuts this out. He taps it to Servania, who turns and hits a hard forward pass along the ground toward to Benteke at midfield. Benteke holds off a defender, dribbles back, and passes it back to Servania. Servania takes a bad touch and has the ball tackled away by Navarro. The ref is actually going to call a foul on Navarro here (he indignantly points at the ball he touched away) but then signals advantage as Peltola gets the ball and passes it up to Schnegg on the sideline.

Schnegg carries it into the Colorado half and hits a long switch to Herrera all the way on the other side of the field. Herrera tries to tap the ball over to an onrushing Servania, but a Colorado player blocks the pass. Enow recovers it facing DC’s goal and, with Colorado coming forward to press, he surprises them by turning and passing diagonally to Schnegg in one motion. Schnegg cuts inside, then passes along the ground to Herrera, who has also come somewhat inside to receive it. Herrera passes it to Stroud near the sideline and then makes an underlapping run past him. Stroud carries it inside, plays a one-two with Servania that doesn’t really get them anywhere, then plays it back to Servania. He taps it along to Herrera on the sideline.

It’s still a very stable situation for Colorado, but now Mihailovic comes charging in with an aggressive slide tackle for some reason. Herrera cooly pops the ball over the slide tackle, then hits a left-footed cross that Joshua Atencio tries to block but only gets a piece of, sending it looping into the box. Benteke is blocked from reaching the ball by Colorado centerback Andreas Maxsø. Reggie Cannon has the inside position on Kijima, but seems to expect Benteke or Maxsø to get the ball and just waits. Kijima runs around him and hits a side volley. It’s straight at the goal, very close to where Zach Steffen is, but Steffen is expecting it to go to his left and is leaning that direction. Instead, it’s going slightly to his right, and all he can do is bat it as it flashes past him and into the goal.

The teams line up for another kickoff and the ref signals there’s now one minute left in the half.

Player Ratings

Starters

Luis Barazza - 5 - Still too many errant long kicks for my taste that either go out of bounds or straight to Colorado with no ability for DC to contest, but he made the saves needed to get the win.

Conner Antley - 5 - He played pretty well for most of the game, but I think watching him makes me appreciate Lucas Bartlett’s emergency defending even more. Still, I don’t think he deserves much blame for the goal and had some crucial tackles at other points.

Lukas MacNaughton - 6 - I thought he played well until the goal, and I think he was already hurt while trying to defend. Hopefully his hamstring injury won’t keep him out very long.

Matti Peltola - 5 - Completed 40 of 43 passes, but one of those three missed passes was a bad giveaway that Colorado wasted but which should have been a very dangerous situation. As mentioned above, I’m not sure how much blame to give him for the goal. Last season we saw him really struggle when playing centerback against big, physical forwards so he surpassed my low expectations.

David Schnegg - 5 - A so-so game, seemed to have his hands full at times with Kevin Cabral but didn’t let a lot past and did okay on the offensive side as well. I guess he’s not used to playing this position because I’ve noticed across a number of games that he’s decent matched up against actual defenders, but he accidentally loses the ball over the sideline more than any DC United player in recent memory.

Aaron Herrera - 7 - Fans sometimes talk about how the poor roster is wasting Christian Benteke, but at least everyone around the league knows Benteke is good. Aaron Herrera is really the one being wasted. He’s not as notorious, or (consequently) as well-paid, as Benteke but he looked like the best player on either team in the first half, then followed that up with a quietly solid performance out of position at centerback for the last thirty minutes of the game.

Boris Enow - 5 - He has his moments. I really liked his pass to Schnegg in the buildup to the second goal, for example. But I definitely don’t think he made much of a case to start over Servania or Kijima in central midfield.

Brandon Servania - 7 - I thought he played really well, better than I thought he was capable of to be honest. He’s been trending better all season, so while I assume this game is close to his ceiling, the team could really use even more improvement if that’s possible.

Hosei Kijima - 7 - In warmups, he repeatedly practiced cutting inside from the left and shooting and seemed to tuck it into the corner at least half the time. Then, in the game, he hit the crossbar on that exact pattern. I’ve been in favor of keeping him in central midfield since I think that’s his natural position and he’s been fairly effective there, but there’s real advantages to playing him at winger. His speed and aggression in the press makes it harder for the opposition to move the ball around the back and his attacking movement might be the best on the team. Meanwhile, his acceleration gets him into a lot of duels but he loses more than he wins, so better to be losing them higher up the field. When Peglow is back, I have to wonder if it might not be worth moving Kijima into Stroud’s role and moving Stroud to “impact sub”. Finally, I want to note that after a grueling 90 minutes, Kijima spent a huge amount of time signing things for fans in the supporter’s section.

Jared Stroud - 5 - I thought it was another overall quiet game for him. Benteke might have stopped him from getting a better shot on the collision play, but did he call off Benteke like he needed to? FBref however says he had 0.6 expected assists in this game, which is enough to put him in the top 10 leaguewide on the week, so…there’s that.

Christian Benteke - 7 - He only got two shots, but he got his goal anyway. He also had some very accurate long switches in the buildup.

Substitutes

Garrison Tubbs - 5 - He got a clean sheet in 50 minutes of play after playing 90 USL minutes for Loudoun a week earlier, so that’s great. Made a few key tackles. He still plays very small despite being a big guy. Grateful for this performance and he might continue to be needed as soon as Tuesday, but I think he’s better off getting USL minutes right now.

Derek Dodson - 5 - Provided some needed defensive energy, but frequently turned the ball over when DC started trying to move out of the back.

Dominique Badji - 4 - 5 touches in 30 minutes. Ouch. Obviously his teammates and the conservative gameplan up a goal have a lot to do with that, but you have to think Benteke would have been more involved if he had been able to stay on the pitch (even aside from headers). He’s out for the Open Cup game, so maybe I didn’t notice an injury after DC was out of subs.

Jacob Murrell - 5 - Not very involved either (8 touches in 19 minutes), but he got off a shot on a stoppage time counterattack (admittedly one that was blocked) and then took the loose ball to the corner instead of trying something even more unlikely, all of which I appreciated.

Other

Troy Lesesne - 7 - Despite a fair number of injuries, his players “won” the first half 2-1. Then, counter to his inclinations, he parked the bus in the second half to see out the game. I always praise coaches for being flexible, especially when it results in wins.

Ally Mackay - Not going to attempt an actual rating, but while overall I think it’s been a disappointing season for a lot of key Mackay acquisitions, I want to note that DC United’s depth players helped earn a win today. The team’s ceiling doesn’t feel like it has risen and that’s very frustrating for fans, but I do think he’s raised the floor of the roster and made it more to the inevitable bursts of injuries that happen during a season. And while Peltola and Enow are Mackay guys that aren’t looking so hot, he also dug Servania and Kijima out of the MLS bargain bin.

Ted Ku-Dipietro - It was nice to see KDP again, but I’m afraid in his 30 minutes on the pitch he didn’t do anything to make DC wish they’d kept him. He’s only just back from injury, though, so hopefully (now that he isn’t playing DC) he’ll improve and have a strong season.

Standings

The win vaults DC United from 13th all the way to 12th, two points ahead of Atlanta United with its massive spending and its equally massive insufferable-in-preseason fanbase. DC is now just a point behind Chicago and three points behind the slumping Red Bulls, but there’s a ways to go to reach 9th place and playoff position. In the leaguewide Supporters’ Shield standings, they passed Houston and St. Louis to reach 23rd.

DC continues to have given up the most goals of any team in the league, but after its meltdown against Nashville last week Chicago is just one goal behind them. CF Montréal and the titleholders LA Galaxy actually have a worse goal difference. CF Montréal has scored only 5 goals in 11 games, yikes. That’s one less than Christian Benteke.

Speaking of which, Christian Benteke’s 6 goals puts him one away from the Golden Boot lead along with eight other players. Philadelphia’s Tai Baribo is still leading with 7 goals, but he now shares that lead with San Jose’s Cristian Arango and Chicago’s Hugh Cuypers.

Coming Up

Tomorrow (Tuesday), DC will host Charleston Battery in the US Open Cup. Yes, DC has won this tournament three times before, but the real tradition going back to the glory days is to field a bunch of backups and get bounced from the tournament by a USL side. With many of the backups having had to play significant minutes on Saturday, we’ll see if they go again on short rest or if a bunch of academy players show up. At the Monday pre-game press conference, Troy Lesesne talked as if he’d play the strongest possible lineup and implied Christian Benteke would probably play. I’ll believe it when I see it. I’m expecting an opportunity to see fringe guys like Rida Zouhir, Fidel Barajas, Gavin Turner, Hakim Karamoko, and Kristian Fletcher.

Next weekend, DC travels to Toronto to play one of the league’s worst teams after drawing them 2-2 at Audi Field on opening day. Toronto lost four straight after that, leveled off with three draws and even a road win over Real Salt Lake, but now have lost two straight at home to what I consider to be mediocre teams (NYCFC and New England). Yes, I know, DC has been aspiring to mediocre for ages and not getting there.

Anyway, after that DC United hosts NYCFC in the season’s first midweek game. NYCFC is playing a very young, very unheralded roster but is still well ahead of DC on points and though I still call them mediocre, they’ve have beaten some strong teams like Philadelphia and FC Cincinnati.