The Big Picture
San Jose’s Cristian Espinoza struck a powerful effort from outside the box with just over ten minutes remaining to give the Earthquakes a 1-0 win over the visiting Colorado Rapids on Saturday night.
Notable
- Rapids captain Jack recorded his first appearance for the club since Sept. 17, 2022, entering the match as a 64th-minute substitute. The four-time club MVP featured in only half of the Rapids’ games last year after battling through several injuries.
- With his appearance tonight, Price surpassed 10,000 regular-season minutes played with the Rapids since joining the club in 2018.
COLORADO RAPIDS HEAD COACH ROBIN FRASER
On the match:
“I thought we came into the game. Obviously, they're a good team and they're playing at home and we wanted to be solid, try to disrupt them and not give anything up early. And then, as the game opened up, we thought we'd find some spaces to play, which is kind of what happened. They had a few chances early and then in moments we looked like we were growing into the game. And in the final part of the field, I felt like we just weren't quite as sharp as we needed to be. I thought the effort was fantastic throughout the night. The guys just worked hard. I don't think we were as sharp on the ball as we needed to be, but I thought the effort was great. You know, up to the 81st minute, I thought we had a good chance to potentially nick a goal and get out of here with the whole thing. Right as we're getting ready to make some attacking changes, they scored the goal. Fantastic strike. So in the end, it's disappointing because I felt like we probably did enough on the day to at least get a point. But at the end of the day, if you're not firing on all cylinders all over the field, that's the way this league is. There are no easy games and you need to be on it for 90 minutes. And I thought we had some very good moments, and we had some not so great moments and in the end that ended up costing us.”
On having to make adjustments early following Lalas Abubakar’s injury substation in the first half:
“I'm not sure how much it affected us and I say that only because Lalas [Abubakar] and Keegan [Rosenberry] have played together so many years, and have played together so many games, that their understanding is really good. Keegan and Sam [Nicholson] also played together a lot, but they were both out of position. Whereas in the original, Lalas is there and Keegan is a wingback, that's something they've been doing for three years at least. So, in the end, I felt like we were still pretty solid on that side. They were mostly dangerous on their right side, our left side. And it was a big job for [Andreas] Maxsøto have to deal with [Cristian] Espinoza and I thought he did a good job most of the day, a really good job most of the day. So, I would say the change was you miss Lalas’ grit and fight and things like that, but I thought Keegan did a good job and I thought Sam did a good job.”
COLORADO RAPIDS WINGER SAM NICHOLSON
On the match:
“We're all very, very disappointed. It's hard to travel anywhere in this league. We’ve come away here and feel like we've done really well, to be honest. Definitely, I wouldn't say we deserve to get beat. There were chances from both sides. As the game went on, we got a bit more confident and then we got this sort of sucker punch that had done us in, so we're just very disappointed at the moment and we're just looking forward to the next game now.”
On the message he was given from the coaching staff when entering as a first-half substitute:
“The message was just to keep playing on the front foot. Before I came on, I thought we were doing really well, so it was just sort of about staying on the front foot. I feel like we frustrated them to be honest. We didn't really give them a lot of options to sort of play out. They're good on the counter. I think we managed to stop them on the occasion. The message was just to stay on the front foot and then get at them. I've not spoke to Lalas [Abubakar], but hopefully it’s nothing bad."
