San Jose Earthquakes vs. Colorado Rapids Preview

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In the words of the immortal We Are Scientists, the all too short Darren Huckerby era is over in San Jose. The Quakes take their first Post-Hucks steps tonight as they take on the Colorado Rapids tonight at 8pm on ESPN2. The past two weeks have been hard on the Quakes even having not played a competitive match since August 29th. Since their last match, San Jose has lost Huckerby to season ending surgery, Arturo Alvarez to a nagging hamstring and released Brazilian defender Fabio Da Silva who never quite acclimated to the speed of Major League Soccer.

The Colorado Rapids come to the Estadio Buck Shaw in the thick of the playoff race, tied for the 8th and final spot in the MLS with only two points separating them from joining the Earthquakes in early vacation. Colorado arrives in Silicon Valley badly needing maximum points to create some distance between them and the other playoff contenders. The Rapids will however be without talismanic midfielder Pablo Mastroeni who will be serving the last game of a three game suspension tonight. Colorado has an easier schedule than many of its playoff competition but will look to avoid a hiccup against San Jose.

Despite the recent negativity, Frank Yallop will have a few positives as Shea Salinas and Bobby Convey will be available despite recent injury troubles. The risk for the Earthquakes will be how much rust the team will have accumulated having endured a stretch of 20 days between matches. Speaking to Centerline Soccer's Jeff Carlisle earlier this week, Yallop stated that, "There’s going to be a little bit of rust just because we haven’t played. But I think our energy will be good. Whatever you do in practice is never like playing matches, but I feel we’ve trained the group well, and they’re at their peak and ready to play. Hopefully it will show in the performance.”

These two teams will be able to get very familiar with one another as the Quakes and Rapids will also face off at Dick's Sporting Good's Stadium in Colorado next weekend par of a home at home series. As always be sure to follow along with BSB tonight for our Liveblog as well our post game analysis and interviews.