Rapids Earn a Point against D.C. United Thanks to Big Plays on Defense
September 5, 2022 – Major League Soccer (MLS) – Colorado Rapids News Release
The Big Picture
William Yarbrough saved a penalty kick from Christian Benteke to help the Colorado Rapids (8-12-9, 33 pts) secure a point against D.C. United (7-17-5, 26 pts) as they closed a three-game road stand on Sunday night. With the shutout tonight, his 25th in Burgundy, Yarbrough tied Joe Cannon for third-most clean sheets in club history.
Notable Numbers:
GK William Yarbrough recorded his 25th shutout with the Rapids, tying Joe Cannon for third-most all-time in club history.
The Rapids had their 10th penalty kick of the season called against them tonight, the most out of any team in MLS.
COLORADO RAPIDS HEAD COACH ROBIN FRASER
On tonight’s match:
“It was a tough game. It’s the end of a three-game stretch and certainly the results throughout the week have been disappointing, so the players could have come in maybe with a different approach than what they did. I thought they were incredibly dialed in, incredibly engaged and had to fight. It was a really big team with some good players and [Christian] Benteke, none of us have really seen him before, so there was a lot to adjust on the fly. I thought we took a lot of pressure early in the game and as we grew into the game and our possession got better, we were able to put together some good attacks, and in the end, obviously unlucky not to score. I felt like we created a number of chances, but it was never comfortable all night because they were a constant threat. But overall, just proud of the performance. We’ve given up soft goals over the last couple of weeks and I thought tonight was a definite step in the right direction.”
On William Yarbrough’s performance:
“Thought Will was really good tonight. We’ll all talk about the penalty save, which was obviously huge, but just his leadership and his decisions in the back with the ball, I just thought he was really good and was an important part of our team and an important part of why I thought we were so engaged and fought so hard. I think his leadership tonight was excellent.”
COLORADO RAPIDS DEFENDER LALAS ABUBAKAR
On tonight’s match:
“I thought we totally battled, man. We didn’t give them much. We fought to the end and we came out with obviously not the result that we want-we needed a win. It’s football, soccer. We fought and we fought hard and we’re still in. We have five more games to go and we have to focus on Vancouver next week, winning that game and then we just take one game at a time and just win every game. It starts with Vancouver next week. Tonight, we came up short and we fought hard. Credit to everyone-everybody-we were all engaged. We fought hard. Unfortunately, we couldn’t score but we have to keep going.”
On defending Christian Benteke in his home debut:
“Obviously he’s one of the most experienced strikers in the world. You know, coming against him, I loved watching him growing up and he’s a good striker. Our focus was not to give him anything. He’s good in the box. The backline, I thought tonight we were excellent including Will [Yarbrough], Will was excellent. You see he saved the PK. We were focused, we were engaged and credit to all of our guys, man, we fought hard. I thought we did a great job on him. We made it difficult for him and they kept crossing the ball to him and I thought me and Keegan [Rosenberry], we were solid. We did a great job on him and the fullbacks and outside backs like I said, Will, looked excellent tonight. We made sure he didn’t score and I thought tonight we did that.”
Up Next
The Rapids will return home to face the Vancouver Whitecaps on September 10th at 7:30pm MT.
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