Colorado drops RSL 5-0, earns first Utah win in 13 years

The Colorado Rapids hadn’t earned a victory against RSL in Utah since 2007, back in the Rice-Eccles days. Tonight, they grabbed their first-ever win inside the confines of Rio Tinto Stadium as they steamrolled a listless Real Salt Lake with a 5-0 stomping. The Rapids just danced their way through RSL’s defense time and time again as the home side just watched the scoreline go up. Honestly, RSL is lucky the Rapids only got five in — this could have easily been much, much worse.

RSL got things started early by giving up a goal in just the third minute, giving Diego Rubio his first goal of the season, thanks to a combination of a well-placed corner kick and a couple defensive mistakes. The corner kick sent the ball right toward Andrew Putna who jumped and tried to tip it away with his hand, but the ball fell to the left side where Donny Toia attempted to head it away. Unfortunately it took a bounce right in front of the net and Rubio was able to get his head on it, sending it right over Putna to lift the Rapids to an early 1-0 lead.

Rubio doubled Colorado’s lead in the 10th minute when a long ball found its way to his feet near the top of the box. Justen Glad tried to throw him off of it but Rubio found a way around him, and let a shot rip from the top of the box that sailed past Nedum Onuoha, and into the back of the net past Putna for a very early 2-0 lead.

The teams went into the locker room at halftime at 2-0, with RSL unable to log a shot on frame in the first 45.

After a couple of good chances for RSL to start the second half, the Rapids increased their lead to 3-0 courtesy of Sam Vines who scored his first-ever MLS goal. Hamli dribbled the ball at the RSL defense on the right side, and when he was challenged, he sent a pass straight across the front of the goal to a streaking and unmarked Vines who was there for a quick and easy tap-in.

Just six minutes later, substitute Braian Galvan ran into space completely unmarked, received a pass and easily slotted it in past Putna putting the visitors up 4-0 with 35 minutes left to play. Galvan had been on the field for one minute at that point. RSL’s defense seemed to be completely non-existent, making it all too easy for Colorado to put on a clinic in the attacking third.

It got even worse for RSL when Douglas Martinez was handed down a red card for a shove after the referee went to video review, opening the door for the Rapids to run even more rampant for the final 25+ minutes.

Galvan nearly got another goal just a few minutes later as he found himself in front of a completely empty net with no defenders in front of him. Somehow, from what seemed like five feet away, he sent the ball into the post and back out into play when the game by all counts should have been 5-0.

The Rapids made that happen late in the game thanks to youngster Cole Bassett who was on the end of a pass in the middle of the box completely unmarked by RSL’s defense again.

RSL will play the third of four straight home matches next Saturday against the Vancouver Whitecaps in hopes they can salvage some more points out of this home stretch.

Lineups

Real Salt Lake
Putna; Herrera, Glad (73’ Holt), Onuoha, Toia; Luiz (56’ Ruiz), Kreilach; Chang (81’ Ramirez), Rusnak, Meram (HT Martinez); Baird (73’ Johnson)

Colorado Rapids
Yarbrough; Rosenberry (65’ Kelly), Abubakar, Wilson, Vines; Acosta (77’ Warner), Price, Shinyashik (77’ Mezquida)i; Namli (54’ Galvan), Rubio (65’ Lewis), Bassett

Discipline

54’ - RSL - Donny Toia
64’ - RSL - Douglas Martinez
69’ - COL - Jack Price

Scoring

3’ - COL - Diego Rubio
10’ - COL - Diego Rubio (Younes Namli)
49’ - COL - Sam Vines (Younes Namli)
55’ - COL - Braian Galvan (Cole Bassett, Diego Rubio)
88’ - COL - Cole Bassett (Jeremy Kelly)