Wednesday night at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, the Vancouver Whitecaps will open the second half of their MLS season against the Colorado Rapids.

For the home side, it has been a nightmare start to the season so far, as they’ve secured just 2 wins, and have only secured 4 points at home in 8 matches. The Rapids have always been a team that manages to find good value without making too many flashy signings, and for the past few seasons, this had been working reasonably well under head coach Robin Fraser. In 2023 though, it seems like those margins have become too fine, as despite sitting mid-table in most of the advanced metrics, their results have been nothing short of disastrous.

In particular, it is alarming that the only teams the Rapids have defeated this year in MLS play are two other Western Conference cellar-dwellers: Sporting KC and LA Galaxy. Equally, they’ve suffered two big blowout losses which live long in their memory: 4-0 in Seattle on opening day, and 4-0 in Atlanta more recently, during their current 7-match winless streak. Ultimately, Colorado is much better than they have shown so far this season, but their potential, even if they were to reach it, is a pretty middling MLS side.

In terms of individual standouts, no player has more than 2 goals, which sounds completely crazy at this point in the season. Michael Barrios and Kevin Cabral lead proceedings in terms of creating goal-scoring opportunities, while former Wolverhampton man Connor Ronan leads the team with 3 primary assists. Andreas Maxsø was a big off-season signing in the centre of the defense, but has taken some time to get up to speed in MLS. Overall, Colorado has also dealt with a good number of injuries. Diego Rubio has only made 7 starts, while Cole Bassett has also been limited to 8 starts. On top of this, after a promising 2022, Braian Galván only just made his 2nd start of the MLS season against Orlando. So it is fair to say, as I mentioned, that the Rapids have not been without their fair share of bad luck. The health of this Rapids side is starting to turn around, so we’ll have to see if their play improves accordingly.

Turning our attention to Vancouver, the big question mark is if they can finally start to score some points on the road. While the Whitecaps are an impressive 5-4-1 at home for 19 points, they have just 3 points, and a 0-3-4 record, in road contests. With the way Colorado is struggling at the moment, this is a prime opportunity for Vancouver to secure their first road win in MLS for more than a calendar year. In terms of the roster, this is a mostly healthy side, with both Ali Ahmed and Alessandro Schopf on the road to recovery, Schopf from niggling muscle issues, and Ahmed from the collision which concussed him in the Canadian Championship. Vanni Sartini confirmed that both are back in the mix at training, so we’ll have to see if they get minutes in the altitude on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, the only real area of intrigue for this Vancouver team is at the back, where Tristan Blackmon, Ranko Veselinovic, Mathias Laborda, and Javain Brown (currently away with Jamaica) continue to rotate in different orientations. Will we see something similar to the shape Vancouver debuted against Seattle and deployed against Cincinatti, a 3-4-2-1, or will Sartini return to his default 4-3-2-1 without fitness issues to worry about? Julian Gressel and Pedro Vite, it should be noted, are also away on international duty.

All things considered, this is a prime opportunity for Vancouver to get their road form back on track and continue their climb up the Western Conference standings. While I do think Colorado looks set to improve in the second half of the season, I don’t think it will come as soon as Wednesday in Commerce City. Prediction: Vancouver Whitecaps 3-1 Colorado Rapids.