Serna Ready to Turn the Tide

By Brian Jennings

Oh, what a difference a year makes for the Rapids?  A complete 180 in fortunes has befallen Colorado in a season that has seen the squad ride the fine line they rode last year only to fall on the downside of many results that were successes prior to 2017.

“This is a perfect reminder for us that last year was a lot of hard work,” Rapids midfielder Dillon Serna told The Voice of C38 early in the week.  “That paid off when we needed some luck to go our way.  This isn’t going to come easy and it’s not going to come by chance.  We have to earn it, work for it, and I think we’re doing all the little things right and keep doing that to make it happen.”

While Colorado has made improvements the last few matches in playing even or ahead late into matches, it’s the one missed pass, the one step behind an attacker, the one hesitation that has burned them recently in keeping the Rapids out of the win column since the season opener.

At the post-match press conference following the loss to Vancouver last week, Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni hinted at the willingness to move pieces around and expected competition for spots to heat up and be battles more than usual.

That will suit Serna just fine as he has worked himself back into pre-injury condition and is eager to grab more and more playing time.  “Guys aren’t satisfied with the way the results have gone so we’re definitely putting in the work and getting after each other a bit, but it’s good-it’s going to bring out the best in the group  and hopefully start turning things around.”   Where experience has won out in roster decisions so far in 2017, it could start to feature best-performance-throughout-the-week leading up to the match that determines the first XI come matchday.

Dillon feels like Colorado isn’t far away from starting a new home unbeaten run given how close they’ve been in the past few matches.  It may just take some ability to relax, open up, and be willing to try different things in order to turn the tide and build confidence.

“We have a chip on our shoulder, kind of the attitude we’re going to have to grind, going to have to work harder than we’ve worked before,” admitted Serna.  “We can’t be down on ourselves because I thought we’ve had some pretty good performances that haven’t gone our way.  I think eventually one of these results are going to go our way and turn things around for us, get some confidence back, and string together some results.”

While that doesn’t mean the team won’t take their poor results or training days seriously, in fact, there’s definitely a more serious tone to the training sessions as everyone understands the gravity of where they sit in the standings. 

However, Serna for one would like to show a bit more flair, a bit more taking of chances whether they are directly in front of them or not.  “I think this is the perfect time for us to just play free.  I don’t think losing 6 games straight people are going to expect much from us.  We don’t have much pressure on us, all the pressure is on the team coming in here, so we’ve just got to play with confidence and play free.”

One message he has for fans who are down on the team or doubters of this group of Rapids is that they haven’t given up so now is not the time for anyone else to do so.  “It’s still early enough in the season, it’s still May, we’re not panicking yet but we’ve just been unlucky.  Last year on the other edge of things-we had good performances and things were going our way, so I think we’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing and things will come together.”