The Colorado Rapids take aim at clinching a Western Conference playoff berth when they visit the San Jose Earthquakes on Wednesday night.
The Rapids (12-13-6, 42 points) can get in by beating the Earthquakes and having both the Portland Timbers and Real Salt Lake lose or tie their respective matches.
Colorado resides in eighth place in the West, just one point behind the seventh-place Seattle Sounders and one ahead of the ninth-place Los Angeles Galaxy.
“To get to the playoffs, we have to go there and compete and perform well and hopefully come back with three points,” Rapids coach Matt Wells said Tuesday. “We’re just going to focus on the performance and see what we can do.”
Colorado has been a porous team on the road all season with a 2-10-3 record. That might make clinching on the road a more challenging proposition.
“We want pressure at this stage of the season,” Wells said. “If we didn’t have pressure, it would mean we were at the bottom of the table.”
The Rapids registered a 1-0 home victory over the first-place Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday. Morgan Whittaker scored the lone goal with a header in the 81st minute.
Colorado is unbeaten in its last four matches (1-0-3), and the stretch includes a 1-1 tie against the visiting Earthquakes on Oct. 10. Donavan Phillip scored a goal for the Rapids and Dave Romney had the tying goal for San Jose.
The Earthquakes (13-9-9, 48 points) are winless in their past four matches (0-1-3) after being outplayed 3-0 by host FC Dallas on Saturday.
San Jose is in fourth place in the West and stands three points behind third-place St. Louis City with its next two matches at home. The Quakes host Real Salt Lake on Saturday.
“Those are two important home games,” Earthquakes coach Bruce Arena said. “We’ll take the first one and try to get three points, but certainly they’re critically important.”
Midfielder Niko Tsakiris is expected to see an increase in playing time Saturday. He played 12 minutes off the bench against FC Dallas in his first appearance in five weeks due to injury.
Tsakiris, 21, has three goals and 11 assists in 20 matches.
“Obviously, everyone’s happy to have Niko back,” San Jose midfielder Ronaldo Vieira said. “He’s a very important part of that team. We’re all happy that he’s back. He’s going to keep training and getting back to his best, and we’ve just got to move forward. I hope that he can come in and keep helping the team as he’s done for the whole part of the season.”
–Field Level Media
