COMMERCE CITY — There are two or three reasons the penalty kick that gave D.C. United a tie with the Rapids on Saturday should not have been called.
There was, perhaps, one reason it was given: make-up call.
With the Rapids leading 1-0 midway through the second half, United’s Chris Pontius and Colorado right back Kosuke Kimura bumped shoulders at the edge of the penalty area. Both went to the ground, and referee Terry Vaughn pointed to the penalty spot.
I thought it was a perfectly legal shoulder charge initiated by Pontius, not a foul. I thought Pontius knocked Kimura down and then took a dive. And finally, I think it’s debatable whether the collision occurred in the penalty area.
United might have gotten the benefit of the doubt because of an earlier play. Some thought an entanglement involving Jeff Larentowicz and D.C.’s Joseph Ngwenya warranted a PK for United.
“I think the decision before maybe was playing in Terry’s mind,” Rapids coach Gary Smith said of the PK call. “He was probably, over and over in the back of his mind, thinking: ‘Was it? I said no, but maybe it was.’ Now the one moment it can be remedied, he’s there. Unfortunately, it’s not a foul. In any walk of life, two wrongs don’t make a right.”
The Rapids did make it through a run of three straight road games with a win and two ties. They have three games in seven days next week — home vs. Toronto FC on Sunday, at New York on Wednesday and home vs. Sporting Kansas City on Saturday.
Moor scores.
Center back Drew Moor gave the Rapids the lead on a set piece midway through the first half when a deflection landed in front of him and he put it away. It came in the 10th game of the season, as did his last goal a year ago, when he scored the game-winner in a 1-0 victory over Columbus.
“I’m not sure who knocked it down, but it landed right in front of me,” Moor said. “Time kind of stood still for a second, it had been so long since I’d put one away. It was a big goal, especially first half, early, away from home, when we’re on the back end of three-game road trip.”
Rousing rivalry.
The first MLS match between the Seattle Sounders and expansion Portland Timbers drew 36,593 fans to Seattle’s Qwest Field last week.
Hundreds of Timbers fans made the 3-hour journey up Interstate 5 on 10 buses. Portland mascot “Timber Joey” was prohibited from bringing his chain saw into the stadium.
Teams with the same names were rivals a generation ago in the old North American Soccer League, and later in the United Soccer Leagues First Division. They played to a 1-1 draw in a steady rain last Saturday.
Those teams and the Vancouver Whitecaps — another expansion team playing with a nickname dating to the NASL — are natural rivals, and the best team in their three-way competition will receive something called the Cascadia Cup.
