The Colorado Rapids' 5-0 win over Real Salt Lake on Saturday was a long time coming. More than six months, to be more specific.
Colorado hadn't won an MLS game since way back on March 7, their final game before the league suspended play due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The club were handed a difficult group at the MLS is Back Tournament and picked up just one point and their first four games back in Phase 1 of return to play resulted with three draws and a loss.
Despite the barren run without a win, head coach Robin Fraser remained upbeat and saw his side pick up a commanding win over RSL to move back in a positive direction.
"I think if you look at the last four games, we actually played pretty well and put ourselves in a position to win those games," Fraser told reporters on a virtual press conference on Tuesday. "Obviously we hadn’t (won) in the first three, but the performances were good. The team has been playing better as a whole and things came together on the weekend.”
Colorado's attacking outburst saw Diego Rubio score a brace while talisman Younes Namli picked up two assists.
“The result is nice, everyone likes how the scoreline looks but for us within the club, we focus on the performance," Fraser said. "More times than not, if you get the performance right you’ll get the result right. I don’t think we’ve talked about the score, we’ve talked about the performance. That needs to be our focus.”
The Rapids now turn their focus to FC Dallas on Wednesday night (8:30 pm ET | MLS LIVE on ESPN+ in the US; MLS LIVE on DAZN in Canada), a team also coming off a rivalry win with an encouraging performance. Dallas saw past the Houston Dynamo 2-1 with goals from key new signings Andres Ricuarte and Franco Jara.
“Dallas is a very talented team, a good team," Fraser said. "They have a lot of weapons and adding [Ricaurte] strengthens them even more. We have to be cognizant of all the ways they can hurt us as we go into the game.”
