No Fan Alone Colorado Rapids Supporters

For those of you unable to get to the only viewing location for the Honduras-US World Cup qualifying game last night, at the British Bulldog in Denver, there was always the online coverage. Ives Galarcep, who runs the site www.soccerbyives.net, was at the game in Honduras, blogging the game for ESPN, starting a half hour before game time. Twelve minutes before the start, he had this prediction when asked who would score for the US:
“if Conor Casey scores, USA fans’ heads will explode.”

At the 42nd minute of the game he says this:
“I think it’s safe to say we will see some changes at halftime for the USA, at least one. Casey has done a few things but looks tired already.”

I was reading this and thinking: Tired? No, Casey is just doing what he always does, and any of us Class VI/C-Firm and other Rapids fans knows exactly what that looks like. Casey is lurking. He hangs out up front. He wanders around in a seemingly random manner, watching the action. He does not waste energy. Then when he sees the chances developing, he goes into action. But most of what is written on that website seems to be by people who haven’t ever actually watched Casey play, and have no idea about his style. Apparently Galarcep is in that group. Before halftime, he put up a poll asking what substitution the fans would like to see at the half, and 85% picked Altidore subbing for Casey. And a few minutes into the second half, Casey did his usual thing, making them all look foolish and ignorant.

You can watch the replays here. Casey’s first goal is pure Casey. He runs in and collides with the keeper while heading the ball in an arc towards the net, where it drops nicely under the crossbar. He second goal is even more Pure Casey, something we’ve seen at DSGP: he takes a nice forward pass and runs away with the ball, fakes out the keeper with a little change-up step, and shoots for the net.

So my question, and maybe yours is “Why hasn’t he been doing this for the Rapids lately?” He made it look awfully easy in Honduras, so how come teams like Kansas City or New England can shut this down? One explanation: the Honduran team didn’t do their homework. Not suspecting that Casey would play, let alone start, why worry about him? Perhaps this is why Bradley started him; Casey was an unknown element. No so in the MLS, which is why defenders are always swarming him.

The game was over before 10 p.m. here, and so I checked to see highlights on local news. None of the local channels even mentioned the game, let alone showed clips. Not one word about the US men’s team qualifying for the World Cup, and not one word about (now) world-famous local Conor Casey making it happen. You can bet other teams around the world are paying attention and will be doing their homework, even though the Denver sports media is oblivious.