Match Preview - Colorado Rapids
Game Info
Kickoff: 8:39pm CT
Watch: Apple TV
Location: Dick’s Sporting Goods Park - Commerce City, CO
All-Time H2H Record
Austin FC has a 3W-2D-5L record against Colorado Rapids.
These two teams met for the first time earlier this season at Q2 Stadium, a 1-0 victory for the visiting Rapids. DP striker Rafael Navarro scored the lone goal for Colorado in the first half before right back Mikkel Desler injured his hamstring in the second half, forcing him to miss more than two and a half months of play.
Of course, when Colorado pops up on the schedule we always have to revisit Austin FC’s first ever win in club history, a 3-1 road win back on April 24, 2021. Happier times!
Colorado Rapids Recent Form
Since we last saw the Rapids in March, they’ve had a similarly rocky road to get to the halfway point. While Colorado sits in eighth place in the Western Conference table, they’re just two points above struggling Austin FC. They’ve had a few signature wins, like a home victory over San Diego FC and a 1-0 clean sheet against St. Louis City SC. Colorado has also had some disappointing results, such as a 3-0 home loss to Portland, a 2-1 road defeat to DC United and a 2-0 road loss to San Diego. Sound familiar?
The comparisons between these two middling teams don’t end there. Both clubs are near the bottom in average possession, with Austin FC ranking 26th (46.3%) to Colorado’s 28th (44.2%). The Rapids are 18th in MLS in expected goals (xG) while ATX sits 19th. Colorado is just 25th in shots on target per match, averaging just 0.1 more shots on target per match than the Verde and Black.
So what is going to separate these two under-performing sides on Saturday night in the elevation? It could come down to the defensive side of the ball. Colorado has taken on the eighth most expected goals against (xGA) at 27.1 and are overperforming that number, conceding just 22 to this point of the season. Austin on the other hand is seventh best in xGA at 21.1, conceding 20 goals.
The Rapids have also been the beneficiaries of four penalties being awarded to them, an average of one every four matches. Austin has won two penalties in league play, but if you watched the highlights back of this matchup from March you’ll remember that ATX was initially given two penalties in that match only to have both (rightfully) overturned by VAR due to Myrto Uzuni being offside and then Diego Rubio’s simulation. To add one more similarity to the list before moving on, both clubs have conceded just one penalty in league play.
The home team should have fresh legs in this match, as Colorado’s regularly scheduled Saturday match against LAFC was postponed due to the Club World Cup “play-in” match between LAFC and Club America. The Rapids last played on Wednesday May 28 against Portland Timbers, a game that ended as a 2-1 loss for Colorado after midfielder Wayne Frederick was shown a red card midway through the second half.
Colorado is led in goal contributions by DP midfielder Djordje Mihailovic, who has seven goals and three assists. He’s the only player on the roster who has appeared in and started all 16 of the Rapids league games. He’s a slick passer, with vision to play his speedy forwards in behind a back line with precision. Mihailovic is also deadly on free kicks from distance. He’s got two in all competitions this season, with a 21-yard screamer against Seattle Sounders near the end of April in a 1-1 draw and another from a similar distance against LAFC in the first round of CONCACAF Champions Cup back in February. Mihailovic came off early in Colorado’s last match on the road against Portland due to hamstring cramps and is expected to be ready to go on Saturday. He’ll be the most important player for Austin FC to be aware of in the Rapids midfield, we all saw what he can do to a back line with a little bit of time and space at Q2 back in March.
Fellow DP Rafael Navarro has got five goals to his name in 2025, a number that would likely be a bit higher if Navarro didn’t spend the last three weeks injured. He made his return to play off the bench against Portland last Wednesday. Navarro was the on the receiving end of the Mihailovic assist in the first meeting between these two teams in 2025, finishing off the chance with a chip over the top of an oncoming Brad Stuver.
There will be some differences in the Rapids lineup compared to what we saw back in March. First, goalkeeper Zack Steffen is out due to international duty and reportedly picked up an injury he sustained in training with the USMNT this past week. He’ll be replaced by Nicolas Defreitas Hansen, a 23-year-old who came up through the Everton youth system, has been great in relief of Steffen (who was injured prior to his national team call-up) over the last three games, allowing just one goal over 247 minutes of full-strength football.
They’ve also got one of their U22 Initiative players back in the fold in the form of midfielder Ted Ku-DiPietro. The former DC United man was acquired in an offseason trade for $1.125 million and spent the first seven weeks of the season sidelined due to injury. Through the first 16 matches of the season “Teddy KDP” has only appeared in seven of them. Watching some of his limited action, the talent upside that previously made him one of DC’s best assets is still on display.
Ku-DiPietro’s presence, along with fellow U22 Initiative midfielder Josh Atencio, can somewhat mitigate the Rapids other notable absence in the middle of the park. Cole Bassett, who has given ATX trouble multiple times over the years, picked up an ankle injury a few weeks back and is expected to miss this game.
This match kicks off a home stand for Colorado that will see them host four of their next five league matches. Like most teams, you’d imagine seeing a 10th place Austin FC on the schedule elicits a “must-win” feeling for a club that is equally as middling as the Verde and Black are at present. Tensions from the home fans will be high at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on Saturday night.
Austin FC Recent Form
If you’re still feeling nothing but negative vibes around our favorite team at the moment, I don’t blame you. Nothing but five days stands between where we are now and our midseason assessment on Episode 229 from Sunday, which quickly devolved into an old fashioned bitch-session.
But as the second half of the regular season arrives on Saturday, I’m injecting some classic North End optimism into my outlook for the Colorado match. As the frustration filled rants on Ep. 229 wound down, we examined what we consider to be a favorable schedule for Austin FC the rest of the way. After nine matches in a 29-day span in the month of May, it will take 63 days for ATX to complete the next nine games on their schedule, including the July 8th US Open Cup quarterfinal against San Jose Earthquakes. There is only one midweek match remaining on Austin’s MLS schedule and the majority of the team’s above them in the Western Conference table will have to contend with Leagues Cup games later in the summer.
All of that is fine to look at and speculate on while taking a big ol’ huff of hopium, but nothing is going to change with the direction of this team until nearly every person involved raises the level of their performance. It starts with the coaching staff, who have failed to install a consistent identity with the team’s style of play. For all the talk head coach Nico Estévez did in the preseason in an interview with Verde All Day about how he was focusing on instilling principles of play into his team rather than focusing on formational rigidity, maybe he should try some of the latter.
Estévez has been making tweaks game-to-game, which is something that I would normally welcome from a coach, in any sport. Adjusting your game plans slightly in an attempt to take advantages of the perceived shortcomings of the opponent is smart on paper. But if you don’t first have a clear identity established on which to draw said tweaks from, then you’re just rudderless, destined to drown in the sea of MLS parity.
But hey, I’m just a guy with a basketball background trying to catch up to the more seasoned soccer minds I’ve tried to surround myself with over the last few years. So don’t take my word for it, just look at the results. Austin FC is not only the lowest scoring team of the 30 currently in the MLS ranks, they’re on pace to be the lowest scoring team in the history of the league, a league that has been around for 30 years now. With half of the season in the rearview mirror the Verde and Black wouldn’t even make the wild card game, much less the playoffs, if the season ended today. When you’ve only scored multiple goals once in 17 tries, you get an F on the midterm.
To the coaching staff’s credit, it’s not just failures on the tactics board that is plaguing our favorite team. As I mentioned earlier, they’re middle of the pack when it comes to xG. While that stat is just a piece of the very complicated puzzle when dissecting a team’s results, it is indicative of an underperformance by the player personnel over the first half of the season. The 10 field players out on the pitch have to do a much better job of finishing the chances that are created. As ugly as things have looked, capitalizing on a chance here or there instead of the consistent whiffs we’ve seen would be propping ATX up into at least a wild card position at present. Ugh, this was supposed to be some North End optimism!
Let’s get back to said speculative optimism, just let me take a quick huffffffff the hopium, nice and deep… that’s good stuff.
This is the first time since late April that Austin FC has had a chance to actually conduct full practice sessions. For a team that was working in a lot of new pieces to begin the season, going five weeks through the toughest part of the schedule with no time for real training is not a recipe for stopping a winless streak. Having the entire week to go through a “normal” progression towards match day is a bigger factor than some might realize.
The team is also nearing full health. Despite Julio Cascante going down with a hamstring issue against San Diego last Saturday, coach Estévez did mention that everyone else (outside of Myrto Uzuni, who is on international duty with Albania this weekend) is “ready to start.” That should mean that we see right back Mikkel Desler, who is (in my opinion) the team’s highest quality asset on the back line, assume his starting spot for the first time since his injury against this same Rapids team in March. Jon Gallagher is an iron man and an integral part of this Austin roster, but in ATX’s ideal scenario, Gally is a super-sub. It appears we will get to see what that looks like for the first time in months on Saturday.
Team captain Ilie Sanchez and fellow midfielder Besard Sabovic are back from yellow card suspension, presenting Estévez with tough decisions in the middle of the park. We’ve seen Austin run a four man midfield sparingly this season, so that outcome is certainly possible, but it’s likely that there will be an “odd man out” between those two and the pair of Owen Wolff and the recently recovered Dani Pereira. These are good “problems” to have!
Another option in a more advanced role who just got healthy is Robert Taylor, who was acquired in a trade with Inter Miami at April’s transfer deadline. Taylor was injured in Austin’s US Open Cup win over El Paso Locomotive and just recently returned to the team. With Estévez declaring everyone “ready to start,” it should not be a shock to see Taylor get the nod for the absent Uzuni. Jáder Obrian could also slot into that spot opposite Osman Bukari on the wing, but the fan in me wants to see Taylor get the call.
There is more than enough talent on the Austin FC roster for them to go beat this middling Colorado squad, even in the elevation of the Rocky Mountains. But as has been displayed for the last three and a half months, the games are not played on paper, time to go out and perform up to the level of expectations and get the second half of the season started on the right foot.
Injury Report
These are estimates until the league releases official injury reports on Friday afternoon.
ATX:
Julio Cascante (Out - Hamstring)
Myrto Uzuni (Out - International Duty)
Micah Burton (Out - International Duty)
COL:
Cole Bassett (Out - Ankle)
Zack Steffen (Out - Knee)
Alex Harris (Out - Ankle)
Ali Fadal (Out - Ankle)
Wayne Frederick (Out - International Duty)
Colorado Rapids Players to Watch
Rafael Navarro - The 25-year-old striker has been a huge boost to the Colorado attack since he arrived on loan in the 2023 summer transfer window. The Rapids triggered his purchase option around this time last year and brought Navarro on for good, signing him to a deal through 2027. Since the beginning of 2024, Navarro is averaging slightly more than a goal contribution every two games, putting him among the league’s best. He’s been Austin FC’s kryptonite in this matchup since then, scoring in all three games between the two clubs since the start of the 2024 season.
Theodore Ku-Dipietro - The young midfielder has come along slowly in his new digs, but the stats over his last calendar year of play paint a rosy picture for the Rapids’ U22. Ku-DiPietro’s two most comparable MLS kin (according to FBref) are Philadelphia’s Quinn Sullivan and Austin’s Owen Wolff. While I personally think “Teddy KDP” falls a bit short of those two names when it comes to ceiling upside, the stats point to him being in that tier of prospects. He’s yet to find his footing in Colorado, Austin must make sure to be physical with him both on and off the ball and not let him get comfortable this Saturday.
Austin FC Keys to the Game
Score Early - With just 11 league goals scored through 17 matches, you aren’t likely surprised to hear that Austin FC has only scored three times in the first 25 minutes of a game this season, two of which came in the same game (the only time ATX has scored multiple goals in 2025). You may be even less surprised to hear that both games that saw early goals from the Verde and Black resulted in wins, with the two quick goals against San Diego propelling ATX to a home win and Guilherme Biro’s header against LAFC in the 13th minute leading to a road victory. It’s a very small but telling sample. Score early and put some actual pressure on the opponent in their house.
Then Score Again - If we’re dealing in small sample sizes, how about this one? Austin FC is a perfect 1-0-0 when scoring two or more goals this season. If Austin FC is able to snag the opener, I want to see them visibly push for an insurance goal. I have faith that the overall acceptable defense we’ve seen in the first half of the season is here to stay. But you can’t climb back into the playoff positions without scoring goals, plural, in at least a handful of the remaining matches! For the love of all that is Verde, we need it. If you listened to Episode 230 in the midweek previewing this match, then you already know I think the offensive tide is going to start to turn on Saturday.
Predictions
ZG - 2-1 Austin FC
E - 1-0 Austin FC
