Real Salt Lake disappoints but gets playoff help
Well in what may be the biggest egg of the season laid by RSL, a “must” win or get a result road match against one of the bottom teams in MLS and living up to their horrible on the road reputation, RSL gets beat badly 3-0 by FC Dallas. It starts with Nat Borchers failure to clear a ball, Chris Wingert’s inability to even get a touch on it and wham just 5 minutes in FC Dallas and Jeff Cunningham are celebrating. Then just minutes later Wingert fails to get back into position and Robbie Russell watches as FC Dallas go up 2-0, in under 15 minutes. I can’t lay all the blame there as the others were just as awful, from nobody running onto crossed balls in the area, gotta love when 2 RSL players stand at the top of the box and watch great balls go by without moving a foot, or how about Pablo Campos getting one on one with the keeper and kicking softly to him. Heck I understand players missing plays, I can understand mistakes, but what upsets me was the apparent lack of caring by the RSL players, I saw a team just a week ago battle back against the best team in MLS after giving up early goals, even more after going a man down. Nope facing a team they had come back on just 8 weeks ago, they simply looked like they didn’t care.
For RSL it seems like the soccer gods want to keep granting chances, and when our last two results should have sealed our fate on the outside of the playoffs, yet there is still a realistic chance if you look at the playoff standings:
To make the playoffs RSL will need to do a couple things that to put simply I have real doubts about now, if you asked me two weeks ago I would have told you getting a result in their final 3 matches was a real possibility, now I am not so sure. RSL faces New York next a team they have never beaten, a team that despite being out of the playoffs for over two months have battled back and started to play the role of spoiler once again. They did this last year on October 9th when they ruined RSL’s home opener by holding RSL to a 1-1 draw, so far this year in the last 5 matches they have played they are 2-1-1 (RSL is 2-2-1). They have beaten Columbus, and gotten draws against New England and Chivas. New York will play one more match before they head to Rio Tinto, they will face another spoiler team in San Jose, and RSL owes a lot of their slim playoff hopes to San Jose who have earned two draws with Colorado and a win over DC United to keep these teams within catching distance of RSL.
It is going to take a major change of attitude and performance for RSL to take advantage of the last two weeks results when none of the teams they are fighting for playoff spots with have buried them, only New England has taken advantage to move up into a playoff spot and they still have 5 matches left. RSL have to win their matches while hoping that Seattle, Chivas, and Colorado continue to struggle. Seattle has just one win in their last 6 matches and two of their remaining three matches are on the road, Chivas has just one win in their last 5, but have 5 matches remaining with three at home, and Colorado also has just one win in their last 5 matches and two of their final three matches are on the road including the season ender at Rio Tinto. Real will need to catch two of these teams to likely get into the playoffs and get themselves back in front of DC United and Toronto, a large task but not impossible as two of the teams we must pass are teams we play and those “6″ point matches could be the key. None of it is likely to matter if RSL can’t beat their New York curse, perhaps facing the PDL side BYU on Friday will boost their confidence, and a good showing against the real Chivas might be enough to shake the funk that has haunted RSL for the past few weeks, if not we can look forward to 3-27-10 and the first roadtrip of the new season.
OFF MY SOAPBOX
3-0-0 or early off season
This entry was posted on September 28, 2009 at 12:22 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.