The best home field advantage in sports.
Whether it’s the Broncos, Nuggets, Avs or Rapids, it’s a term Colorado sports fans have become familiar with. It’s not particularly about the fan support. It’s typically because the games are played a mile high above sea level.
There is no greater home field advantage in MLS than what the Colorado Rapids have and the stats backed that up.
Cole Bassett scored in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with the San Jose Earthquakes to extend the Rapids’ home goal-scoring streak to 31 games, the highest active streak in MLS and sixth most all-time.
Heading into the matchup at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, they had scored 2.17 goals per home game, which was the most in MLS. They also had the highest shot-conversion rate at home in MLS.
“The key is to have good attacking players,” head coach Robin Fraser said when asked about the streak. “And we have some good attacking players and have guys who are good in approach play and guys that are good in front of the goal. And they work tirelessly.”
The Rapids allowed a goal in the 11th minute and could not overcome that to earn three points despite creating the majority of the chances throughout the contest.
“It’s another game where we’ve scored at home, just disappointed we didn’t get more,” Jack Price said. “But we have great attacking players and we just feel tonight we just weren’t as sharp as we may have been over the last few weeks.”
The Rapids have not lost at home in six matches and have only lost at DSGP once this season, the home opener against Austin FC.
The Rapids know they have a distinct advantage, one they try to exploit by wearing teams down and making the altitude affect their opponents more than it affects them.
“We have to use [the altitude] as an advantage,” Price said. “Everyone knows it’s a big part of us playing at home, and that’s why we’re so successful here and, yeah, like I say tonight we didn’t use that to our advantage
“It’s huge for us when teams come in. Again, I don’t think we used it as an advantage tonight, we have in many games this season … you have to make them run, you have to make them suffer.”
