A tie at home on opening day isn’t the worst possible result, nonetheless it left me a bit unsatisfied.

First Half

The Rapids looked enterprising in the first half, and managed to go ahead 2-1 on two goals by Thunder (Casey on a PK) & Lighting (Cummings on a delicious strike). Mr. Vaughn gave the visiting Fire an equalizer in the 2nd half after Patrick Nyarko went down on a Marvell Wynne challenge. It looked soft live, and still looks soft on replay. Take a look below and tell me what you think.

Cummings opens the scoring

John Collins equalizes

Casey makes it 2-1

Second Half

Crappy-ass call gives McBride and the Fire the equalizer

Maybe…maaaaybe their feet got tangle, but totally incidental. I think he may have just dove.

Takeaways

Smith is still experimenting with the backline. Our attack is solid and looked enterprising for all but 20′ in the middle of the 2nd half (when Ballouchy went out I’m surprised to say). But along the back there was a good bit of space for Collins and others to make mischief.

I’m voting for Baudet and Moor in the middle, with Wynne and Earls on the outside of the defense. Then again, this isn’t a democracy and my vote doesn’t count.

Rapids News and Analysis Brian McBride, Chicago Fire, Conor Casey, Gary Smith, Marvell Wynne, Omar Cummings