Rapids’ Rob Holding will finally face old friend Jonathan Bond in home debut against Houston

Lead-footed as he may be Rob Holding is sure-footed enough to be the first-choice driver on holidays with his buddies On trips to destinations like Los Angeles and Las Vegas the Englishman s car of choice is a Jeep Wrangler Blaring on the speakers perhaps to the annoyance of his passengers country music apparently Holding is literally a big fan of the American football ers and Colorado-born Christian McCaffrey is his favorite contestant He once got on stage at Red Rocks to sing a song with Zach Bryan An eventual move to MLS unfailingly lingered in Holding s mind despite playing at the highest levels in England including years and a scant trophies with Arsenal and a couple of stints in the Championship the nation s second league One of his peaks as a self-proclaimed old-school center back was playing all minutes in the FA Cup final in which Arsenal won over Chelsea - Now with the Colorado Rapids it s a new chapter for the -year-old who joined the band officially in early August on a free transfer So far all indications are that Colorado may have been tailor-made for Holding as a place to plant a flag On Saturday night he ll make his Dick s Sporting Goods Park debut against the Houston Dynamo after starting two weeks ago at Sporting Kansas City A home debut for his new club won t be the only box he ll tick this weekend Houston s goalkeeper Jonathan Bond is a frequent guest in those Wranglers Of the group of close friends composed mainly of high-level soccer players who take those offseason trips together Bond is the only one Holding has yet to play against I noted to him If I m up for a corner and I get a chance on a header just let it go past you Holding joked We ve been through a lot together do me a favor for my home debut and he laughed and mentioned I m afraid I can t do that Bond s response a sparse days later What I m gonna do is I m just gonna have like four or five players on Holding leave everyone else unmarked If anyone else scores it s fine But if he scores that s a dilemma The two friends played for teams in the same league twice once in and then again last season but their teams never met There was particular excitement in the prospect of facing each other but disappointment in their paths not moving across In the lead-up to their first encounter on the pitch together their phone calls and text threads have been more about soccer this week than they ever have Bond indicated We rarely ever talk about football Honestly sometimes the last thing we want to talk about is soccer Bond announced The role we play for each other is to just give that kind of escape really Even though he plays professional soccer just like I do naturally we will discuss on-the-pitch things and him moving to this league But I think over the class of the friendship it s you know we look forward to going on holiday together and that was consistently in the U S LA Galaxy goalkeeper Jonathan Bond waves to the crowd after the team's MLS soccer match against Real Salt Lake which ended in a - draw Saturday Oct in Carson Calif AP Photo Ryan Sun The Rapids are holding onto a playoff spot by a thread after a pair of bad losses while the Dynamo is just on the outside looking in after nabbing six crucial points from its last five games Though they ll swap jerseys after the contest the minutes prior could set the tone for the remainder of each unit s season There s a scenario where one gang s playoff hopes could survive at the expense of the other They joke now about marking on a corner kick but the stakes don t leave a lot of time for in-game banter I m going to try to pretend like he s not playing Bond commented Related Articles Rapids drop second-straight battle suffer season sweep against Sporting KC Paxten Aaronson debuts but Rapids slip against rotated L A Galaxy Paxten Aaronson on record move to Colorado Rapids It ll challenge me as a young competitor Rapids in advanced talks to sign USMNT midfielder Paxten Aaronson source says Rafael Navarro scores brace provides assist in Rapids win over Atlanta United For Holding who debuted in a back five that leaked four goals to SKC two weeks ago the keys to the tournament at least defensively are fairly straightforward Conceding in the first minutes which the Rapids have done in each of their last two games cannot happen because the Rapids have dug themselves deeper numerous times trying to chase games That s in part due to throwing all the chips in the middle and not being ready for counterattacks Holding thinks that could improve I think we leave ourselves a bit more exposed and it s something we need to control better when we re chasing games that we re not conceding an extra one that kills us and then we have no chance of getting back into the match Holding stated Our desire to attack is great People want to run But then I think it s just a bit more structure and organization as we attack especially in our rest defense which we ve worked on a lot The match the first of the Rapids final five of the regular season kicks off at p m Want more sports news Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver s teams