Colorado Rapids storm back from two-goal deficit twice to defeat New York Red Bulls 5-4 in monumental comeback

There were two games in Major League Soccer last weekend that were eight-goal thrillers.

The Colorado Rapids and New York Red Bulls opted to turn the chaos-meter up one notch more and produce a nine-goal spectacle Tuesday night at Red Bull Arena in New Jersey.

Facing a two-goal deficit on two separate occasions, Colorado (7-9-6) stormed back with four consecutive goals to take a 5-3 lead and held on for a frantic 5-4 win. It was the Rapids’ first win away from home since August 2021.

“It felt like tonight that our team was playing with a different purpose,” Rapids head coach Robin Fraser said. “That different purpose is, you’re getting down to the end of the year. Obviously, every play counts at this point and I felt like they took that to heart tonight.”

While there were plenty of unsuspecting moments, the match-clinching goal came from 18-year-old Homegrown Dantouma “Yaya” Toure, who scored in the 89th minute for what proved to be his first goal in MLS and the Rapids’ final goal of the night.

Colorado hardly could have had a worse start to the game, despite shaping up with five players in the back line for extra protection. It didn’t last 10 minutes before the Rapids were down 2-0, as Dru Yearwood (6th minute) and Aaron Long (9th minute) scored for New York.

Diego Rubio opened the scoring on 21 minutes after the Rapids pressed high and won the ball in a dangerous area. Bryan Acosta found a cutting Rubio, who scored to make it 2-1 on the Chilean’s 10th goal of the season.

It was the Red Bulls’ third game in eight days, and Rubio knew they didn’t have the legs to keep up, so he continued encouraging the group to attack.

“To be honest, it was like, from the start we knew we could win this game,” Rubio said. “We said that it was a moment where we could show character away (from home). This was the moment that we knew we wanted to go at them and we did it.”

There would be two more goals before halftime, as Lewis Morgan scored on a penalty kick to make it 3-1 at the 28th minute as Colorado defender Lalas Abubakar had a potential red card-offense downgraded to a yellow. On the other end, Keegan Rosenberry hit a screamer of a shot to cut it to 3-2 in the 38th minute.

The Rapids stormed back late in the second half, as Collen Warner poked home his first goal of 2022 in the 77th minute, while Michael Barrios helped give Colorado the lead at 4-3 four minutes later, and Toure added a fifth.

The Red Bulls added a second penalty kick in stoppage time, and thought the found the equalizer, but the attack was ruled offside and the match finished 5-4.

Colorado will host Minnesota United at 7 p.m. Saturday at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.

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