Real Salt Lake season breakdown by teams

The Mighty Eastern Conference

So all year the commentators were ranting about how good the teams in the East were and they did secure both of the wildcard playoff spots, but Real Salt Lake held their own against the top teams in the East. Only the Wizards and Red Bulls were able to get clear season matchup victories over RSL, and for KC it was the unfortunate own goal by Tony Beltran that gave them their win against us. Should RSL make it to the MLS cup to face off against a foe from the East, no team could be considered a heavy favorite over RSL.

The Messy Western Conference

Coming down to the final match the West featured the biggest guns (goal scorers) but also featured the two worst teams the Galaxy and the Quakes. Real Salt Lake beat the teams they should have San Jose, Dallas, and got robbed by bad calls against LA, but against the top teams in the West RSL struggled. In Houston it was a knock down drag out fight to the finish in the 3-4 loss, but at RES the Dynamo could only come away with a scoreless draw. Chivas benefitted from two matches at the HDC, and RSL pulled out a win on the road against them, but dropped their only home match of the year to Chivas in a 1-0 loss on a bad communication mistake between Nick Rimando and Nat Borchers.

How will all of this impact the playoffs

Well in the first round we have a chance to redeem ourselves against Chivas and I believe playing the first match at home will be an advantage for RSL, they are getting used to the pitch at Rio Tinto, they should have a good crowd to support them and in the last two encounters between these teams RSL was clearly the better team. In the match up at RES despite the 0-1 score Real Salt Lake took more shots 17-8, had just as many shots on goal 4-4, and the only way Chivas scored was a rare communication mistake on RSL’s end. In the 1-0 victory at the Home Depot Center, RSL played well but was outshot 8-4 and had one fewer shot on goal 3-4, but we controlled the pace of the match and held onto the lead for almost 60 minutes without giving up a goal.

RSL is playing well and have not lost a match in their last 5 (2-0-3), and while the offense has been impressive scoring 10 goals, the defense has allowed 7 goals and for RSL to take a big advantage into the second match at LA, they will need to not give up an early goal. The first 20 minutes of this match will be huge as RSL has struggled at the start of their last 3 matches giving up the lead too early and being forced to come back and chase the match. In each of those matches one of the big keys for RSL has been the play of Andy Williams coming in to boost the attack, and I wonder if Jason will simply start Andy and allow us to push forward and attack from the very start of the match?

With just 13 starts this season Yura Movsisyan has claimed the team golden boot with 7 goals, Javier Morales ends the year with 6 goals and a team leading 15 assists. Javi’s 15 assists were the second best in MLS, just 4 behind Guillermo Barros Schelotto of Columbus with 19, GBS is likely to be the league MVP, so not a bad effort from Javi and enough to get him the honor of being my team MVP. So to continue the awards, I think I have to give defender of the year to Chris Wingert, who only missed one match all year, but to be honest this could have gone to Jamison Olave who stepped in and made a huge impact and gets my Newcomer of the year award.

OK, I have to get ready to go watch practice, so that is it for now. I am going to try to post some pictures and info from practice live this afternoon if I can get access to the Rio Tinto wifi network. Until then, go buy your playoff tickets and get your flags, signs, and streamers ready because Saturday is going to be a historic matchup.

OFF MY SOAPBOX

This entry was posted on October 28, 2008 at 11:09 am and is filed under The soapbox. 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.