Real Salt Lake vs. LA Galaxy preview
Is This The Most Important Match Of The Season?
Well here are the Western conference standings and simply put RSL must perform on the road and there will be no better chance than this weekend.
RSL’s most direct threat in the west is Chivas who are on the first leg of a 3 match road trip and facing a Toronto FC squad that is missing 9 of their starters due to international duty and one due to injury. Now Chivas is also a bit shorthanded with 2 players gone for international duty, but 5 main players are out with injuries, but for both teams this is a critical match and their attempts for a playoff spot.
For RSL the situation isn’t as drastic, but according to sportsclubstats.com a RSL win would mean that they have a 81.7% chance of making the playoffs (an increase of 15% over their current chance) a loss however would be a huge blow and reduce RSL’s chance to 53.5%, a draw would hurt RSL by dropping their chance down to 65.2%. For the Galaxy a loss would drop them to only a 10% chance of making the playoffs, and even a win would barely get them to a 1 in 3 chance of ending their two year playoff drought.
For LA the thought of having to face these odds without their star players (½ of their goals and just under ½ of their assists), there will be no Landon, no Beck’s, no Jazic, and no Lewis all of whom are on national team duty this weekend. Injuries will also impact the LA lineup with their first string keeper Steve Cronin, and backup Charles Alamo are both out, along with Gavin, Franchino, and possibly Pires. In fact according to the game guide 5 of their 11 starters have less than 900 minutes of playing time this season, including their 3rd string keeper Josh Wicks who has 45 minutes of 1st team action.
Add in the pressure of a 10 game winless streak, a new coach, and the possibility of missing the playoffs for the third straight year and RSL could be facing a team that has been backed into a corner and has nothing to lose, some young players trying to catch the eye of the new coach. It will not be a walk in the park for RSL, but RSL is posed to pick up their second road win of the season.
Real is still missing a couple key pieces with injuries, Beltran, Joy, and Sturgis are all listed as out, and Demas is listed as questionable. Also missing will be Andy Williams who is back with the Jamaican national team. RSL will have to rely a lot on Will Johnson who will be getting his second MLS start, he looked solid against Colorado and played well in the Tigres friendly match on Wednesday. I do worry that LA might be able to take advantage of our midfield if we are forced into starting Cutler as our d-mid, but with Joy out it looks like Robbie Russell will play on the backline and since Andy is gone Kyle will move to play on the wing, I would expect a move at the half to move Kyle back to d-mid and bring in Mathis to assume an offense role in the midfield.
RSL has a little bit of history in their favor; they have beat LA twice at the HDC and scored 8 goals, while LA has 4 wins and 10 goals. Then you have to consider that the Galaxy have only a 4-4-3 record at home, and they have given up 19 goals at home this year. For RSL this would mean a road win against both teams that call HDC home, having beaten Chivas 1-0 on June 14th.
RSL will have to deal with Edson Buddle, who is having the best year in his MLS career with 12 goals and 2 assists, but RSL’s defense has stepped back up and helped Nick Rimando get his 8th clean sheet of the season. LA has only two clean sheets and neither of them belongs to Wicks, and RSL has scored 7 goals in their last 4 MLS matches, while LA has given up 8 in their last 4 matches.
This one should be a win for Real Salt Lake, anything less really will not be acceptable and I am predicting a 3-1 win as LA simply can’t win with their superstars, so what would make anyone think that they could win without them.
Game Guide
OFF MY SOAPBOX
This entry was posted on September 6, 2008 at 12:53 am and is filed under MLS Predictions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.