TIRANA, Sept. 26 – Albanian international Shkelzen Gashi was named man of the match after scoring a double for his Colorado Rapids in the U.S. Major League last weekend in an away fixture with Vancouver Whitecaps.
The Rapids were unlucky as they conceded an injury time goal after striker Gashi had given them the lead twice in the second half after converting a penalty kick and scoring a superb left-footed long-range free kick.
Gashi, who joined the Colorado Rapids in early 2016 from Switzerland’s Basel, is now the Rapids’ top scorer for this season with seven goals following last weekend’s brace.
“It’s definitely been the toughest result we’ve taken all year,” said Rapids coach Pablo Mastroeni. “I think we played some fantastic stuff tonight, we really did, and I think coming to a place that’s very difficult to play. Gashi was fantastic, we had some good attacking play today, but the one thing that we pride ourselves in is being difficult to play against, and tonight, against 10 men, we were poor.”
The 28-year-old striker looks back to old times in Switzerland where he was named the league’s best player in 2014. With two games in hand Colorado Rapids rank second in the Western Conference, but still have a chance to become Conference champions with five other matches to go and are almost sure of making it to MLS Cup Playoffs.
Gashi who joined Colorado Rapids as a Designated Player last February is second Albanian international to play in the Major League Soccer after Hamdi Salihi’s 2012-2013 spell with D.C. United.
Since joining Albanian in 2013, the Swiss-born attacker of Kosovo origin has scored three goals in 11 appearances for the national side, including a game-winning goal against Armenia in Albania’s Euro 2016 qualification campaign.
