Friday marks exactly a month to the day since the Colorado Rapids last played an MLS match. In the time since their resounding 5-0 win over the San Jose Earthquakes on September 23, Colorado were scheduled to play six matches.
Instead, the club suffered a COVID-19 outbreak.
The Rapids came close to playing a number of times, with the first few games postponed no more than a day in advance. Head coach Robin Fraser was among the club's ranks to test positive for the virus which has been impacting the globe for months. He is fully recovered, as is the rest of the club, and the Rapids are finally on the precipice of a return to action on Saturday against Sporting Kansas City (8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN+).
"We’re extremely excited to have the opportunity to play again," Fraser told media on a virtual press conference on Thursday. "I don’t even know what normal is anymore, but we’ll start with being able to play games.”
Way back when the Rapids were in the swing of things, they were rolling with three wins in their last four games, as well as just one loss in their previous seven matches. Rising talent Cole Bassett had four goals and three assists over that seven-game stretch while the defensive unit had conceded more than one goal in a game just one time.
“We were playing quite well when this happened," Fraser said. "To not play games was one thing, but to lose our ability to train was difficult."
The Rapids will resume a sprint towards the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs. The club sits in 11th place in the Western Conference with 19 points, but would be in fourth place in points per game. Colorado have played 13 matches while the rest of the conference has played between 17 and 19 games. Nothing has been determined how playoffs and seeding will be impacted if the club is unable to make up the rest of their games.
“It’ll be a struggle to get up to speed quickly," Fraser said. "We’d be fooling ourselves to expect to go into this game and be as good in the first minute as we were in the last minute a month ago.”
