COMMERCE CITY — The soccer field at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park is 120 yards long and 80 yards wide, which makes it probably the biggest chemistry lab in the state at the moment. It is the place Rapids coach Oscar Pareja will go through one last batch of experimentation before this season is deemed a failure.
The Rapids, MLS champions just two years ago, play their next two matches at their home field, and nothing less than victories over the Seattle Sounders and Real Salt Lake will be sufficient to keep their faint playoff hopes alive. The first-year Colorado coach is fully aware of this fact, which is why he might be willing to try new lineup combinations starting with Saturday’s match with the Sounders. Why not?
Tuesday’s 2-1 international friendly victory over the English Premier League’s Swansea City didn’t count in the standings. The Rapids are no closer to first-place San Jose in the Western Conference than they were before the match, but Pareja might have gained something more important from the meaningless contest: hope.
Using a fresh mix of youngsters, such as locals Shane O’Neill and Davy Armstrong, and seldom-used veterans such as Kamani Hill and Andre Akpan, the Rapids showed a spirit that has been largely absent to this point. Is that too easy a judgment for a match that didn’t count? Perhaps. But at this point, Pareja has no time for ponderous philosophy. He needs to find a mix that works.
“As coaches, when we don’t get results, our job is to get some answers,” Pareja said after the match with Swansea City. “Today was a great opportunity to see players that I haven’t seen much, and I saw a lot of positive things. Tonight, I go home thinking we have a lot of good things.”
Not many 18-year-olds come out of high school ready to play pro soccer, but that is just what O’Neill has done with the Rapids. The recent Fairview High School graduate got his first experience of pro soccer Tuesday against a hardened English Premier League team and seemed to run just fine with the big boys — though it was Swansea’s second side that was used most of the second half.
The future rests with the O’Neills and Armstrongs of the club, and not as much with veterans such as Conor Casey, whose latest hamstring malady could keep him off the pitch when his team needs him most.
Casey is not the problem with the Rapids, mind you. But his health issues have forced Pareja to essentially count him as a “maybe” player, and that isn’t good enough for the summer stretch.
Maybe a group of young guys who don’t know any better is the answer.
“The message before the (Swansea) game was: ‘Let’s enjoy the game. Let’s enjoy it. Let’s take all the pressure and the frustration that we’ve been carrying for all these months and leave it in the locker room, and let’s just enjoy the game,’ ” Pareja said. “The joy that we saw on the field — we will build on that for sure.”
If time permits.
Adrian Dater: 303-954-1360, adater@denverpost.com or
