Colorado goes from Western underdogs to Eastern favourites

Could the Colorado Rapids do it again? With a 1-0 win over the Columbus Crew in Thursday’s wild-card playoff game the Colorado Rapids now cross over to the Eastern Conference and face Sporting Kansas City Sunday in the first leg of their two-game series. Does this script sound familiar? Last year, Colorado scraped into the playoffs as a low seed, crossed over to the East, and then went on to the MLS Cup — which it won. Just as it did last season, Colorado gets a break by crossing over to the East. This year, the Rapids avoid the three superpowers of the West — Los Angeles Galaxy, Real Salt Lake and the Seattle Sounders. With key striker and 2010 MLS Cup MVP Conor Casey missing — and, let’s face it, when healthy, Casey is the meanest S.O.B. of a target man in MLS — the Rapids are easily the fourth-favourite in the West. But, in the East, are the Rapids worse than Sporting Kansas City? Or the Houston Dynamo? Or the Philadelphia Union? Hell no. And that brings us back to a 2010 scenario. The danger with the crossover is that the West is so much stronger than the East — and that a Western team making the move across brackets is better off than having to fight within its own conference. Colorado only has three days to rest ahead of Sunday’s first leg against Kansas City, but it has the great equalizer in its possession. And that is Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. A sparse crowd braved the winter cold to watch the Rapids dispatch of the Crew in a game that wasn’t as close as the 1-0 score suggested. Colorado dominated the game, and created a number of scoring chances in the first half. Omar Cummings got the goal — but there could have been more. Crew forward Andres Mendoza struck the crossbar with a second-half shot; but had it gone in, it would have been cruel to the Rapids, who were clearly the better side. Now, Kansas City has to go into the cold and altitude and actually try to keep things respectable for the second leg. Yes, Jamie Smith left the game with injury, and his physical presence is key to coach Gary Smith’s aggressive style that we saw simply intimidate the opposition throughout the playoffs and the MLS Cup last season. But the Rapids still have enough pieces to actually make themselves the favourites in the East. After last season’s run through the East, would you bet against the Rapids? No way.