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Kimura lifts Rapids to 1-0 win over FC Dallas

Jul 12, 2009 - 5:07 AM By DALE BUBLITZ STATS MLS Correspondent

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. (STATS) - The Colorado Rapids were in need of a goal with time running down against with FC Dallas. It came from the most unlikely source.

?? Kosuke Kimura scored in the 79th minute to lead the Rapids to a 1-0 win on Saturday night.

"If someone had given odds on Kosuke Kimura scoring a winning goal, I'm not sure too many people in the stands would have taken that bet," Colorado coach Gary Smith said. "And he did it playing with a lot of energy and a lot of hard work."

?? Kimura's second goal of the year helped end a three-game winless streak for Colorado (6-4-6).

The tally was his first since May 2 against Real Salt Lake, and was the product of a change in his game strategy.

"I am a defender and recently I've been asked to attack more as a defender," Kimura said. "I've seen it done by defenders in Europe all the time."

?? Kimura took a pass from Mehdi Ballouchy just outside the crease and sent the ball over goalkeeper Ray Burse's left shoulder.

?? "He started the play by getting between two guys," Ballouchy said. "I watched him make a great run, passed it to him after I saw him look at me and he roofed it on top of the goalkeeper."

Good eye contact also helped.

?? "I knew he was going to pass to me when I looked up at him and he looked at me," Kimura said. "He put the ball in to me, I kept my head down and smashed it."

?? FC Dallas (4-8-4) fell to 1-5-2 away from home after being 2-0-1 overall in its previous three games.

?? "This was a game where we didn't get enough scoring opportunities," FC Dallas coach Schellas Hyndman said. "We didn't get ourselves into the attack enough."

?? Scoring chances were hard to come by in the first half. Burse came out of the crease to smother the ball on a breakaway by Conor Casey in the 19th minute, and stopped a low shot by Jacob Peterson from 25 yards in the 24th minute.

?? FC Dallas was held without a scoring chance before the break. Rapids goalkeeper Matt Pickens picked up a pass that rolled to him in the 14th minute and caught an errant pass by Dave van den Bergh in the 28th minute.

?? Ugo Ihemelu and Nick LaBrocca of the Rapids received yellow cards three minutes apart in the first half.

?? The Rapids had two more scoring chances slip away early in the second half. LaBrocca sailed a shot wide right in the 54th minute and had another just miss the right post in the 57th minute.

?? FC Dallas' Jeff Cunningham missed the right post after receiving a pass from van den Bergh in the 69th minute.

?? Colorado was without Omar Cummings, Colin Clark and Cory Gibbs. Cummings was playing for Jamaica at the CONCACAF Gold Cup, while Clark was away with the U.S. National team and Gibbs was serving a suspension for a yellow card earned in the team's recent game with Chicago.

?? Kenny Cooper, the leading scorer for FC Dallas, also was away with the U.S. National team.

?? "Dallas has always been a difficult team to beat," Smith said. "That isn't a team you can blow away."