Colorado Rapids have endured an extremely taxing season, yet their playoff place is secure even before Sunday's Decision Day meeting with the Houston Dynamo.
After pausing their season along with the rest of the league in March amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Rapids faced another break after the campaign restarted.
Colorado went a month without a match from September 24, losing 4-0 to Sporting Kansas City on their return.
But they made the postseason by beating Portland Timbers in midweek, providing "validation" in the eyes of coach Robin Fraser.
"Certainly I have felt, and we as a club have felt, that this is a group that is a good group and can be a really good team," he said."We feel like we're making strides. We're not where we want to be yet, but we're certainly making strides and I think getting into the playoffs is a bit of validation."
On the stop-start season, he added: "Coming off the break that we had and all the conditions that surrounded it, it was always going to be difficult to get ourselves up to speed quickly.
"Really tremendous credit to the team for doing everything they needed."
The Dynamo have nothing to play for this weekend having exited the playoff race last week, with Tab Ramos bemoaning their league-high nine draws.
"I felt like seven of those should have been wins," he said.
"Once we didn't get those wins, eventually there are going to be games where you're not up to par, and the ones you're not up to par, you're normally going to lose.
"We couldn't get over the hump in the games that we were really competitive in.
"That could have been another eight, 10 points from where we are now. That would have made it a completely different season. Unfortunately, that didn't happen."
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Houston Dynamo - Darwin Quintero
Ramos has hinted at an offseason of change and it will be interesting to see where Quintero fits in next year. He has seven goals and 10 assists in 2020 but has been unable to regularly make the difference in those tight games and is now 33. He needs a big finish.
Colorado Rapids - Kellyn Acosta
At 25, Acosta is no longer the up-and-comer he was at FC Dallas, but he can have a crucial role to play for the Rapids. Featuring for the first time since September against Portland, his goal from the bench clinched a postseason place. Now, the midfielder must finally kick on.
KEY OPTA FACTS
- The Dynamo have not lost any of their past five matches against Colorado (W2 D3), although the previous two meetings ended in a draw, including a 1-1 result in Colorado in September. Prior to this run, the Dynamo could not even go two straight without a loss to the Rapids from 2009 to 2017.
- Houston have won just one of their past 13 matches (D5 L8), including none of the past six (D2 L4). This is the Dynamo's third six-match winless run this season after starting the season without a win in six (D4 L2) and then recording no wins in six from September 9 to October 3 (D3 L3).
- The Rapids are coming off back-to-back wins against Cascadia opposition, including a win in Portland on Wednesday. Colorado have not won consecutive away MLS matches since beating Vancouver Whitecaps and Toronto in April 2014 (109 matches ago).
- The Dynamo have conceded an MLS-high 23 goals in the first half this season, with 13 of those being scored between the 16th and 30th minutes. Only Portland (14 from the 75th to 90th minutes) have conceded more goals in any quarter-hour segment of matches this season.
- Only the Philadelphia Union (10) have had more goals scored by substitutes than the Rapids this season (eight, tied with Houston and Portland). Jonathan Lewis is one of five players with an MLS-high three goals off the bench, with those accounting for more than half of his joint-team-high five goals (tied with Cole Bassett).
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