Colorado Rapids edged Montreal Impact 1:0 in a Regular Season fixture at Dick Sporting Goods Park on September 13th. Paxten Aaronson converted a penalty in the forty-third minute to hand his side the win, and they held on despite sustained pressure later on. The result leaves the Rapids seventh on 35 points while the Impact drift further adrift in fifteenth with 21.
By then the game had settled into a rhythm the visitors could not quite match. Montreal pressed in numbers and drew the Rapids back, but a single decisive moment — the penalty — changed everything. And here's the thing: the hosts had already created three big chances before Aaronson stepped up to the spot, yet they could only find the net from the spot-kick.
Colorado dominated possession at 59 per cent and registered 2.07 expected goals against 0.73 for the visitors. They took twelve shots, six on target, while Montreal managed ten attempts with five finding the wayward direction. To be fair, the Impact forced five saves from the Colorado keeper, but they created no big chances of their own.
Substitutions came thick and fast as the second half wore on. Montreal brought on Donavan Phillip and Darren Yapi together in the fifty-fourth minute, followed by Wikelman Carmona and Viktor Radojević shortly after. Joshua Atencio entered for Colorado in the sixty-eighth, and Samuel Piette came off in the seventy-sixth as both managers looked for fresh legs.
Discipline issues crept in toward the end. Dante Sealy picked up a yellow in the eighty-first minute, Kosi Thompson joined him in the eighty-fifth, and Wayne Frederick was cautioned on the stroke of ninety. Colorado also saw a second booking, but no red cards were shown and neither side was reduced to ten men.
The standings tell the wider story. Colorado sit seven points clear of the relegation zone after twenty-five games, while Montreal are nine points off safety with twelve defeats already on their record. The Impact have not won since early August and their last five league outings contain just one victory.
