The second straight Desert Showcase MLS match ended in a scoreless draw, as this time Sporting Kansas City and the Colorado Rapids went nil-nil.
The Western Conference foes drew on Saturday afternoon at Kino North Stadium before a crowd of 1,008.
“I thought we weren’t great with the ball, but defensively we kinda did everything we wanted to do,” said Rapids coach Robin Fraser. “I thought we defended well, whether we were defending in our set defending or late in the half we pushed up and really started to get pressure to them and I thought we moved really well and cohesively, but with the ball I don’t think we were really good.”
Sporting KC played their starters for the first half.
“It was good to get 45 minutes under the belt, don’t think it was a great game, said Sporting KC captain/forward Johnny Russell. “There wasn’t many chances but this time of the season you obviously want to get into winning mentalities, but it’s about getting through the game, getting fitness and trying to put on the field what you’ve been working on and the first couple of weeks of preseason.”
SKC reached the conference semifinals of the MLS Cup playoffs last year and the Rapids were the top seed in the West.
SKC, regulars visitors to Tucson for preseason, are training this year in Scottsdale.
“It’s been great, it’s a great set up for us there,” said coach Peter Vermes. “We’ve been here many, many times but the great thing is we always have good competition playing these games Colorado’s a really good team, it’s good for us to play an MLS team, we played the U.S. team our first game.”
Colorado is also preparing for the CONCACAF Champions League, which it starts on Feb. 17 in Guatemala against Comunicaciones F.C.
Freaser said the team needs to improve its offensive choices before then.
“The defending is a huge part of it because regardless of who the competition is, if you defend well you keep yourself in games,” Fraser said. “Our first game is on the road in Guatemala so we want to make sure that we can continue to build on what I thought was a very good defensive performance.”
The Houston Dynamo will face the Colorado Rapids on Saturday Feb. 5 at 4 p.m. at Kino North in the last MLS match of the Desert Showcase.
Corner kicks
• FC Tucson will host a World Cup qualifier watch party doubleheader on Sunday at The Neighborhood DWTN starting at 1 p.m. The first match is the United States men’s national team at Canada followed by the Mexican men’s national team against Costa Rica. Then on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at Pueblo Vida Brewing Company downtown, FC Tucson will have a watch party for the USMNT match against Honduras.
