COMMERCE CITY — For a week after the Rapids were beaten in the Western Conference finals last November and denied the chance to host the MLS Cup Final that was theirs for the taking, coach was in a state of shock. A turnaround season that made Colorado the surprise team of the league came to a stunning end because the Rapids could not score at home in their final game.
“I was shocked, which is a good thing,” Mastroeni said, “because my expectations were to win.”
He allowed himself a week to process the crushing closure to a season that saw Colorado post the league’s second-best regular season record. Then he began preparing for his fourth season as Colorado’s head coach, which begins Saturday with a home game against New England.
“Following that week, there was a bit of reflection on who we are as a team and what allowed us to get where we were as a group,” Mastroeni said. “And, where do we need to improve to become multi-dimensional, yet not lose the essence of who we are as a team?”
The answer was simple: Score more goals.
The “essence” of last year’s team was its fighting spirit. Mastroeni affectionately calls them “grinders.” That personality gave Colorado a staunch defense — its 32 goals allowed last season was best in the league by far — but only one team scored fewer than Colorado’s 39.
Mastroeni spent weeks in a dark room this winter watching video of teams from all over the world, looking for ideas to make his team more fluid and productive in the attack.
“Without turning the whole thing on its head, how do we add just a bit more structure in the attack (with) clearly defined roles and responsibility?” Mastroeni asked himself. “Whatap the mentality in the attack? Whatap the end goal, whatap the objective in this whole build-up process?”
The solution came down to getting more attackers into the opponent’s penalty area. It’s about player movement and predictability in “structure” (or formation) so that when a man has the ball, he will know what his options are, and those around him will know their options if he delivers it to them.
Striker Kevin Doyle said more men in the box means more chances to score.
“If you’ve got three people in there, itap a lot harder to defend,” said Doyle, who scored six goals last season but sometimes seemed a little lonely in the attack for lack of support. “We kept possession very well, I just don’t think we gambled enough with putting people in the box. We had a lot of players who would look to get on the edge of the box and shoot. Over the course of the season you’re going to score more goals by having numbers in there. If I’m a No. 9 and you’re just crossing it to me and everyone else is waiting on the edge of the box, once every 10 games you might score a big header or whatever, but itap not going to be a consistent thing.
“If you get three, four people in there and you put the ball in there, itap just simple math. Thatap what we’ve worked on: Get people in (the box) and have one waiting on the edge instead of having three waiting on the edge of the box and one person in.”
At one point early in the implementation, Mastroeni considered scrapping the idea because his players might be more comfortable playing the way they did last season. Ultimately he decided “complacency is the killer of greatness,” so he challenged them to grow.
“I can’t even explain how good it feels as a coach to get a bunch of guys that give you the opportunity to integrate something new after the season that we had,” Mastroeni said. “It speaks to the leadership of this team that says, ‘I’d like to just keep doing what we’re doing, but I’m listening.’ ”
Mastroeni concedes the new plan will take time to bear fruit, but in training sessions players seem to have a better schematic understanding of where others in the attack are moving and where the next pass might go.
“We’re going to be grinders because I think thatap the essence of our group,” Mastroeni said, “but we want to take the next step, which is: With the ball, we have a good idea how we’re going to score goals, as opposed to just playing it sideways without any kind of ideas.”
