Santos Laguna thrashes Rapids in CCL

The Colorado Rapids entered Tuesday night sitting atop their CONCACAF Champions League group with a chance to move themselves in pole position for a quarterfinal place.

Santos Laguna had other plans.

The visitors from Mexico turned Dick's Sporting Goods Park into their own personal playground, demolishing a make-shift Rapids defense with speedy wing play and precise passing on their way to a 4-1 victory.

Daniel Luduena opened the scoring for Santos, hitting a long-range blast past Steward Ceus in the 14th minute. Oribe Peralta made it 2-0 in the 27th when he tapped home a square pass after Darwin Quintero beat Colorado's offside trap. Quintero and Christian Suarez added insurance goals in the second half before Brian Mullan added a consolation goal.

Colorado played its starting attack, but rested goalkeeper Matt Pickens and defenders Tyrone Marshall and Kosuke Kimura. Their replacements, Scott Palguta and Danny Earls, were ravaged by Santos' speedy attack. Ceus also struggled at times playing in place of Pickens.

The Rapids loss, coupled with Isidro Metapan's 2-1 vs. Real Espana, dropped Colorado from first to third in Group B. Now the Rapids face the daunting task of likely needing two wins from their final three group matches to secure a place in the second round. With Real Espana looking unlikely to take points from either Metapan or Santos Laguna, the Rapids will have little choice but to beat Real Espana and then travel to beat Metapan or Santos Laguna on the road.

What did you think of Colorado's performance? Impressed with Santos? Think the Rapids can still reach the quarterfinals?