Real Salt Lake vs. New York (match preview)

OK, for the past few months there has been match after match that have been called the most important match of the season, and each time the RSL appears to be on the verge of eliminating themselves from the playoffs, they seem to find help from someone else. Well without a win tonight, the odds of RSL making the playoffs drop so far off the chart that there will be no recovery. Tonight, RSL will need to do something they never have done, tonight they will need to get a measure of revenge for last years ,both the opening draw against, and the Western Conference Final loss to, the New York Red Bulls.

If you look at the last 3 matches RSL has played you have to wonder which team will show up after the 18 day MLS layoff? Will it be the scrappy, high energy team that earned a draw against the dirty goats last week? Will it be the never say die, go until you drop team that almost came from behind against Houston? Or will it be the team that looked disinterested, confused, and slow against FC Dallas? When facing a team that has nothing left to play for, at least as far as team accolades, anything can happen. If you don’t believe me just ask Toronto that couldn’t finish off San Jose, or Houston who failed to get all 3 points when facing KC a couple weeks ago.

For RSL they are as close to full staffed as they have been all year, with only Ned Grabavoy listed as questionable with the foot contusion suffered last week. New York is not so lucky as Bouna Coundoul out on national team duty, Goldthwaite and Wolyniec out and Rojas and Juan Pablo listed as Questionable. If you were to simply look at the numbers, you would assume a huge RSL win in this match as New York is winless on the road (0-12-2) and have scored only 3 goals in 14 matches while allowing 25. RSL on the other hand has only a single loss at home (7-1-5) with 29 goals for and only 11 against, but nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Did you know that New York has a better record than RSL over their last 6 matches (2-2-2), while RSL is 2-3-1? With the struggles in the last two league matches, RSL has allowed 8 goals in the first 15 minutes of matches; New York is only one behind with 9 in the first 15 minutes. For RSL a quick start will be the key, New York has allowed 27 goals in the first half of matches and just 18 in the second half. RSL has depended on scoring in the second half as 27 of their 38 goals scored have come in the second half, New York is even with 11 scored in both the first and second halves of matches.

The projected lineups from the match guide are:

I have to say that I would be very surprised if there are not at least 2-3 changes to the RSL lineup, but for me this really is a matter of the team not only has to win but they really need to work to build their goal differential back up. It is very possible that the final playoff spots could very well be determined by that tiebreaker, for me I would love to see RSL get a measure of revenge for the 8/26/06 6-0 thrashing that New York laid on RSL. We have shown that we can score goals in a bunch and tonight we have the perfect opportunity to do so as Danny Cepero has a 1.71 goals against average is in front of a defense that has gotten better as the year has gone on, in fact they have 1 goal or less in their last 5 matches.

The history of this matchup is one where 6 of the 9 regular season matchups have ended in draws and with the exception of the 6-0 match only once has the margin of victory been more than 1 goal, and that was the controversial match this year in which both New York goals were on questionable plays. A lot of fans have questioned the heart of RSL this year, do they have the passion and desire to play as a team and to win as a team, and there have been plenty of matches were it as looked like there has been no real passion or heart driving RSL’s performance on the pitch. This is a match were the team can not only control their destiny, but can do a whole lot to impress their fans and make a push towards actually earning a post season spot.

I think RSL blows them out tonight 5-2, and uses some momentum to get a result on Saturday.

OFF MY SOAPBOX
3-0-0 and shut the haters up

This entry was posted on October 14, 2009 at 5:25 pm 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.