COMMERCE CITY — At the conclusion of his first season as a coach, Pablo Mastroeni looks as fit and lean as he did when he was a fiery Major League Soccer midfielder. Going for runs after almost every Rapids practice could be one reason for his negligible body fat, although one wonders if the team’s three-month winless streak ruined his appetite, too.
He would run on trails adjacent to the training field, clearing his head and reflecting on what his team needed to turn things around.
“I’ve many times come in here and (said): ‘Guys, let me talk to the four of you. I just had this epiphany on the run,’ ” Mastroeni said last week in his office at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. “It’s a great tool for me to detach myself from the things that are going 100 miles per hour and to assess myself, and also relieve a lot of stress and anxiety.”
There has been a whole lot of that. A team that played well the first half of the season went into a tailspin in August. The Rapids went into Saturday night’s season finale at Vancouver winless in their past 13 games, with 11 losses and two ties.
Sifting through the wreckage, the reasons are pretty obvious.
The team’s most exciting player, Vicente Sanchez, was in and out of the lineup with minor injuries.
Talented young center back Shane O’Neill, who formed a stout tandem in the middle of the defense with veteran Drew Moor, injured a knee July 4 and missed nine games before returning Sept. 13.
Moor, the team’s captain, went down for the season with a knee injury Aug. 17.
As the defense turned porous through the middle and losses mounted, a young team lost confidence. A team lacking confidence hesitates in making on-field reactions, and that’s a killer in a fluid game such as soccer.
“It’s frustrating to see,” said one of the team’s older players, midfielder Nick LaBrocca. “That definitely happened. At the beginning of the year, there was no hesitation. As we didn’t get those breaks, we got unlucky breaks and the losses mounted, there became a hesitation. If you hesitate, you’re going to lose your battle 90 percent of the time.”
O’Neill could see the change when he returned to the lineup.
“Everyone had kind of lost confidence,” O’Neill said. “Injuries definitely derailed us a little bit, which is unfortunate, but there’s no one to blame. Honestly, if we had stayed healthy all season, there’s no question about it, we’d be in the playoffs.”
Mastroeni’s job appears secure. Agents representing coaches looking for jobs have contacted Rapids management asking for their clients to be considered if the team were to make a coaching change. Rapids president Tim Hinchey has been adamant in telling them the club is committed to Mastroeni.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Hinchey said. “That first half of the season, he did a wonderful job. Players did a wonderful job. Then, yeah, it fell off the rails. We’re all accountable to that. It’s painful, and we all hurt from it. It doesn’t mean we just scrap the plan.
“We need to give him a full offseason, and we need to invest in his professional development.”
Next month, Mastroeni will go to England with vice president of soccer operations Paul Bravo to attend a performance seminar at Arsenal, the team’s sister club. Both clubs are owned by Stan Kroenke.
Hinchey said the roster will be upgraded, possibly with a high-priced player.
“We do need to get better in depth,” Hinchey said. “We’ve relied on a young core, and let’s be honest: The young core, to some degree, has probably outperformed the veterans we’ve put around them.”
Mastroeni second-guesses himself in only one area: the rare occasions when he second-guessed himself. There were a couple of games when he went against his gut in making decisions about lineup, formation and tactics. Those, he said, were the only nights he had trouble sleeping.
“One thing I’ve learned: Stay true to what you believe. Come hell or high water, don’t ever waver,” Mastroeni said. “We’ve lost with me following my gut, (then) I sleep easy. There’s probably two games in this run of form where I have not been able to sleep. I’m standing over myself as I’m laying in bed, going, ‘You are an idiot.’ “
Mastroeni could use some R&R, but there is that trip to Arsenal coming soon, and the Rapids must decide which players to leave unprotected for the MLS expansion draft that will stock new teams in New York and Orlando. Finding time away could be difficult.
“Never in my life have I experienced such a tough run of form,” Mastroeni said. “I think for my well-being and everyone else’s well-being, it would be an unbelievable opportunity to walk through the wilderness and just listen to the birds sing, just get away from the game.”
John Meyer: 303-954-1616, jmeyer@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johnmeyer
Sad stats
Before Colorado’s 13-game winless streak began in late July, the Rapids had the league’s fifth-best goals-against average (1.2 per game). Now they are last in goals-against (1.85). Injuries to center backs Shane O’Neill and Drew Moor are a big part of the reason.
