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The Colorado Rapids suffered their seventh-straight loss on Saturday night, falling 3-0 at home to visiting LAFC. The visitors opened the scoring early with a header from defender Walker Zimmerman in the 15th minute and midfielder Adama Diomande doubled the lead to 2-0 with another strike before halftime. Diomande earned the brace shortly after the second half opening whistle to make it 3-0 and LAFC went on to earn all three points and a playoff berth following the 3-0 win at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.

Here are three takeaways from Colorado’s 3-0 loss to LAFC:

What more can I say?

As stated above, Colorado has now gone winless in seven games. With the exception of a 2-1 loss to Columbus which included the Rapids’ lone goal of this current stretch – a stretch where Colorado has been outscored 22-1 – Colorado has been largely outplayed and outclassed.

With just 24 points in the table to this point, Colorado is in clear danger of posting the franchise’s worst points total in a 34-game season. One can also argue that this current iteration of the Rapids is the worst in franchise history as the 1996 season (29 points) featured shootouts and the 2001 season (23 points) was shortened due to the events of 9/11.

To date, Colorado’s worst points total in a 34-game season is 32, earned in 2014 under Pablo Mastroeni. At that time, Mastroeni was in his first year having never coached before, which is a far cry from the “experience” that current head coach Anthony Hudson had entering the job at the beginning of this season, experience that the Rapids front office sold the fan base in his introductory press conference.

“If I’m a fan, I totally understand the frustration,” Hudson said post-game. “As tough as its been and it has been tough, that’s the hardest part. Letting the fans down that’s the hardest part, but I do know we’re very clear about what we need to do to improve the team.

Hudson gets the Ax

No, not that one, Rapids fans. The Ax that Anthony Hudson looked at on Saturday night was centerback Axel Sjoberg, making his first appearance since the match against LA Galaxy in early August. It’s been a tough season for Colorado’s 6-foot-7 Swedish defender, who has once again been plagued with injury including his most recent knee issue.

Unfortunately, adversity continued for the 27-year-old and the rest of the Colorado defense in a 3-0 loss.

“It was tough, we tried to pose our game plan on them, but it didn’t really work,” Sjoberg said of Saturday’s result. “We weren’t good enough with the ball and then couldn’t really figure out how to press them properly. They have a lot of good players and they broke our press repeatedly, it was a long night of chasing.”

Sjoberg was one of the few to offer explanation regarding the Rapids’ current issues and his frustration showed in his postgame meeting with media.

“It’s very hard if you’re not coherent and you work as a unit, I think we were all playing a little bit too much as individuals out there tonight, which I think showed,” he explained. “When you have enough good players on the other team like [LAFC] do, they just exploited us.”

The long and winding road

To avoid the worst point total in franchise history, the current Rapids must win out. Their remaining schedule features an upcoming two-game road trip with matches against Minnesota United and San Jose, teams which Colorado has included among its six victories in 2018. The season finale at home is against FC Dallas, a team that could either have the top seed locked or still be engaged in a battle for positioning with SKC and LAFC.

The games against Minnesota and San Jose are arguably the most winnable, but none of the Rapids’ remaining matches will be a walk in the park. Despite their low rankings in the table, Colorado’s upcoming road matches will be against teams which are likewise looking to right the wrongs of 2018 and road points are always the hardest in MLS.

After the match, Rapids midfielder Kellyn Acosta stressed the importance of the team’s upcoming three-game stretch run.

“It’s huge, each week we’re going in there with the mentality that it’s a final and that we need to win,” Acosta said. “Tonight was definitely disappointing but we still have a few more games left and we have to regroup, rebuild, and keep pushing forward. Minnesota [United FC] is going to be a tough game and then we have San Jose [Earthquakes] on the road and finish off with [FC] Dallas. Every game is going to be tough, Minnesota and San Jose are kind of in the same boat as us so they’re trying to plug away with some results and we’re trying to get back on the right foot and finish the year strong. It’s going to be a battle nonetheless and we have to be prepared for it, playing away is definitely not easy, under the conditions it’s probably going to be pretty cold over there, playing on turf is a little bit different, so we need to be mindful of the little details and find a way to get a result.”

The post Different opponent, same story in Colorado Rapids’ 3-0 loss to LAFC appeared first on Pro Soccer USA.