Rapids looking forward to challenge of FC Dallas as closing stretch of MLS regular season arrives

The gears have been ground to bits — time to find another one.

The Colorado Rapids are inching toward their first MLS Playoffs berth since 2021 after a run to third place in Leagues Cup.

With eight games left in the regular season, the Rapids are fourth in the Western Conference — good enough for home-field advantage in the first round. But by no means is the position comfortable.

Vancouver, in sixth place, is only three points behind Colorado in the standings with two games in hand. Seattle has steadily crept up the table and is now just one point behind the Rapids.

The Leagues Cup run was as exhilarating as it was exhausting, with the Rapids securing a CONCACAF Champions Cup berth. For coach Chris Armas, there is no satisfaction yet.

“Complacency can kill any organization,” Armas said. “We’re well aware of that. That’s real, but that’s not us. We deliberately don’t get too high or low. We love the winning and we enjoy it, but we look hard, win or lose, at how to get better and we also look at the good that’s going on.

“This is not a group that naturally behaves that way, but it’s real. When you have some success, it could creep in, but we’re right back to work.”

For players like midfielder Cole Bassett, the mindset is the same. Third place in Leagues Cup was nice, but the Rapids didn’t add a new trophy to the case.

Tuesday’s training was the team’s first since returning from Leagues Cup, and it was lively and competitive. As the playoff race tightens, there is a belief the intensity at training is where it needs to be. Now it’s just a matter of keeping it up through another month and a half.

“We all said after (the third-place game at Philadelphia), that we’re not done yet. We didn’t want to finish in third, we wanted to win,” Bassett said. “But now we know it’s tight in the league and teams are caught up in games with us, and before, we felt like we had a little bit of a gap and now we don’t.”

Of the eight remaining games, five are against teams between seventh and 11th place within the conference standings. The other three are against conference leader LA Galaxy, fifth-place Seattle and playoff longshot Sporting Kansas City.

First up is a match at FC Dallas Saturday at 6:30 p.m. Dallas, coming off a wild 4-3 win over D.C. United a week ago, is in 10th place in the west, only a point behind Austin in the final wild-card spot.

While the Rapids won’t face many top clubs to finish the regular season, the jostle for playoff position, particularly for teams like Dallas, presents a unique challenge. One Armas thinks his team is ready to meet.

“We’ve seen it all year. (33) games and we have not had one easy game,” Armas said. “We just came out of a month where every game feels tougher than the last. Every Mexican team was tricky, big-time teams and rosters like Club América, LAFC, Philly, there’s nothing easy there and there’s nothing easy left for us.

“This is what it’s going to be and we’ve actually had a lot of reps — seven months — of this (stuff). But it’s good, we honestly love it. It’s pushing these guys as young men and as young footballers, it’s pushing the coaches to manage the locker room, manage anxiety, manage the fear and manage guys not playing as much. It’s not easy, but this is an iron-sharpens-iron type of thing.”

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