The HTHL interviews: Jack Price (Pt. 1)
Rabbi interviews Captain Jack on the season to date and some of the ins and outs of 2022.
Jack Price, Rapids captain and dead ball wizard extraordinaire, is not quite having the season he expected. Coming off a 2021 in which the ball club went 17-10-7 (WTL) and won the Western Conference, and Price finished second in the league in assists with 12, Price clearly had high hopes for 2022.
Things haven’t quite gone according to plan for the Front Range’s own Shropshire Pirlo, but Price is confident that the team has turned a corner in the last few games.
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Soccer Rabbi: Why don't you tell us a little bit of the progress on the calf injury? How's that going? And, you know, how far away do you think you are?
Jack Price: Yeah. I haven't really put a timescale on it. Because, it's been what? Four and a bit weeks now? And it's been a bit slow. I'm getting, you know, decent progress one day. It's almost like - two steps forward, one step back type of thing. I'm a little bit frustrated that this year has been a bit stop-start with me with a couple of injuries I've picked up. It's a frustrating one, but I also know I need to be 100% healthy before I chuck myself back in there. So it's getting there a little bit slower than I'd like for sure.
SR: Yeah, I imagine. And you're such a big piece of the club. There's not an easy way to replace Jack Price and the balls you put in from set pieces on the field. So that must be kind of hard to watch. You want to be out there, and you want to help the club.
JP: That's the ... yeah, I appreciate those words. Well, that's the toughest part for me is when it comes to the game day. And yeah, you’re not out there. We stay in the gym, mostly and watch the games. This is the toughest part because you want to be out there. You want to do your best for the club. You want to do your best for your teammates. And you just miss it. You just miss out - the game day feel of nerves and excitement. And it's a tough one. But - on the set piece part, Bryan Acosta has been fantastic. Delivery has been spot on. And, you know, he's just took the mantle. I feel like we could have scored a lot of goals in the last few games.1 Even though I'm missing myself being out there and taking them out. Bryan has been a fantastic replacement. In terms of set pieces for sure sharpies been very happy with it.
SR: Are you worried that he's going to take away your job at the corners anytime soon?
JP: I hope not! But, the way he's serving those balls in there, I might not be taking them for the rest of the year.
SR: Now that you mentioned set pieces and corners, I'm going to ask a question. I wrote an article a couple, like a year or two ago, on a play you guys have run for a couple of years. One of your Sharpie2 set pieces is what we called in high school basketball ‘Stack.’ And you know what I'm talking about, I think, which is like all the players line up very closely to each other and they'll break out when the ball is hit. Can I ask you if that that has a name in the team?
JP: Yeah, that one’s cool. Russia.
SR: Russia! R-U-S-S-I-A?
JP: Yeah, the country I'm sure. This one where we line up like five or six, like behind each other? Yeah. I'm sure that's the name for that one. Yeah, that's definitely that one.
SR: That's great. That's, that's not as good as the name. I came up with it because I stole the name from Ted Lasso. So in Ted last, so they have the same play. And they call it Loki’s Toboggan, but I'll take it.
JP: Oh, sounds better.
SR: Don't tell Sharpie I didn't like the name of his set piece. Like, as long as it scores goals. That's all that matters. Right?
JP: Exactly that, mate. All that matters is that it goes in.
SP: That's right. So we're roughly halfway through the season. What are your reflections on how the first half of the season has gone? From your perspective, both individually, and also as the team has done up till this point?
JP: Yeah, I'll start with the team. I feel like at the start the season, it was funny, we actually had some really good performances, and didn't quite pick up the results that we warranted at the start of the year. And then you know, we had back to back home games. I think it's Kansas and Atlanta where we actually got the result we've deserved and I thought we were then on an upward scale.3
We then had about a month I'd say where we just weren't ourselves. It wasn’t just results, it was performances and … confidence was lacking. And I felt we had a bit of a dip at that spell. But I give full credit to players … and as much to the players as to the staff, really, because they were the ones that were in our ear you know, saying “be confident,” “be brave,” through all this. You know the normal, cliche sort of words, but it does help and now I feel like we've got out of that sort of dip we were having.
And the last one, three or four games, I feel like especially the one in Salt Lake, where I didn't think we deserved to be two-nil down.4 But we were. And to show the character and the mental toughness to get a point out that… You could just see that the relief from the boys in the changing room after the game. Just that the confidence -even from a result like that - where you’re two goals down and you end up getting a point out of it.
And then we go to Orlando midweek, and we should have won that by three or four and the goalkeeper was standing on his head. Gallese.5
That result against LA Galaxy was coming. Again, it could have been four or five.6
We're so close to blowing a team away like that, I feel. And that's all the manager keeps reiterating to us in meetings - that we are so close to giving a team a proper spanking. And I just feel like that's because our seasons turned, and we’re playing with confidence. And we look like how we played last year, you know? We look like the team that was going to win the West the last couple of games for sure. And we need to keep that now because we're halfway through.
We have a big half of the season to come. A lot of games against Western Conference rivals, and that should shape us up for the rest of the year. But the way we're going now, I have no doubt we're going to be in that playoffs.
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Stay tuned for part two of my interview with Jack Price, dropping next week.
This is interview was recorded July 20. In the 3 previous games, the Rapids scored 5 goals - all from the run of play, none on set pieces. Colorado has 6 goals from set pieces on the year so far - roughly in line with the average for the league (tied for 12th with six other teams). Jack Price and Bryan Acosta each have 2 assists. Acosta had an open play ‘MLS’ assist (the pass before the pass) against RSL on a goal from Lalas Abubakar, and a free kick on July 4 against Austin FC (I was there!) that was finished by … Lalas Abubakar. [Note to Robin Fraser: maybe it’s time to make Lalas Abubakar our striker.]
Chris Sharpe, the Rapids GK Coach, is also their ‘Set Piece Specialist’.
Colorado opened at home against Atlanta and earned a 3-0 win, and followed that up with a 2-0 win over Sporting Kansas City, which Mr. Price endearingly refers to as ‘Kansas’.
On July 9 in Rio Tinto, the Rapids played RSL. At the edge of halftime, Jefferson Savarino got a lovely goal to shift the balance, and then Justin Meram got another on 51 minutes to start of the second half to put the ‘Pids in a big hole. Diego Rubio and Lalas Abubakar would get goals to eke out a point on the road for Colorado.
Gyasi Zardes was robbed by Pedro Gallese at least twice, and the stats tell us that the Rapids generated 2.5 Expected Goals in the match to Orlando’s 0.7. Jack is right.
Colorado beat LAG 2-0 on July 16, and the Rapids put 5 Shots on Target. However, the xG generated by Colorado in this one was only 1.6. So maybe Jack is be irrationally exuberant on this match.