RSL Loses Close Match in Kansas City to End Their Playoff Run
Although the score ended 4-2, this was not a game that Real Salt Lake couldn’t have won.
From the first kick of the ball, it was clear that Real Salt Lake was going to be in for a long day at the park. Within the first seven minutes of the game, Sporting Kansas City had already forced RSL to give up four corner kicks. They smothered RSL on defense and didn’t allow them to complete more than a few passes on K.C.’s side of the pitch. They were in complete control the for the entirety of the first half. Although Kansas City forced them completely out of their comfort-zone, the most glaring weakness in the first half was RSL’s back line.
Both of the two goals scored by Kansas City in the first half can almost completely be attributed to defensive mistakes, more specifically, poor position and marking. On the first goal, Kansas City caught center back Nick Besler out of position and they took full advantage of the open space in the middle of the pitch. Besler was cheating over to the left side of the pitch helping Nedum Onuoha mark forward Diego Rubio when K.C. made their attack. This left a massive gap in the middle of the pitch that forward Felipe Gutierrez snuck through with the ball and then went on to play a great chip back to Rubio for the goal.
Another lapse in communication and marking led Sporting to score their second goal in the 19th minute. A giveaway by RSL on their half of the pitch was quickly turned into pressure from Kansas City. A quick through ball from Gutierrez was played beautifully into Daniel Salloi who slipped right behind right back Brooks Lennon and center back Besler and slotted it past keeper Nick Rimando for the second goal of the game. Kansas City’s pressure proved to be too much for Real Salt Lake to handle in the first half and they held onto their 2-0 lead until halftime.
Questions arose from those who cover RSL and fans alike as to why coach Mike Petke started Besler, a player who has traditionally been more of a defensive midfielder. This decision being especially odd with center back Justen Glad on the bench who played in 33 games for Real this season, starting most of them. Petke spoke briefly about this after the game.
“As a coach, you have many tough decisions to make looking at matchups, who you feel is more in form, who you feel can impact this game a bit.” Petke went on to say, “Going back to Nick’s performance the last time we played them, the 1-1 tie here, it was a very tough decision.”
To the credit of RSL, they came out in the second half looking energized and hungry to get back into the game. They flipped the script on Kansas City and turned this match into a gun fight, constantly putting pressure on K.C. and getting shots on goal. This culminating to a beautiful piece of play that led to a goal in the 60th minute by freshly subbed on Sebastian Saucedo. Forward Joao Plata worked his way down the left side of the box past Kansas City defenders and found enough space to snap a ball to the center of the box where Saucedo was waiting. With a quick flick of the left foot, Saucedo was able to get enough pace on the ball to slide it past the keeper and into the bottom right corner of the net. RSL was back in the game, if only for a little bit.
In the 65th minute Kansas City mounted an attack into RSL’s zone, playing a ball into the middle of the box to forward Rubio who appeared to get his legs tangled up with center back Onuoha. Penalty on RSL. Replays showed that this was a questionable call at best, but nonetheless, the one the referee decided to go with. Kansas City midfielder Ilie Sanchez stepped up to the spot and took a great attempt that sent Rimando completely the wrong way. Just like that, Kansas City is back up two goals. However, this was not the last that we would see from Real Salt Lake.
After the third goal from Kansas City, RSL took the speed of their play to another level. They were winning almost every ball from K.C. and immediately heading down the field to get into the attacking zone. This type of play isn’t sustainable as it looked quite sloppy at times, but it was exactly what they needed in the moment. Five minutes later, RSL earned itself a corner kick which Plata whipped into the box with great pace. The ball flew completely over the heads of the K.C. defenders and richoted off the head of Damir Kreilach and into the net. 72nd minute, Kansas City up 3-2.
The attack pressed on and RSL looked like they were poised to even up the score with another goal and send themselves to the conference finals. They weren’t without some great looks, two coming directly in front of goal. First, in the 82nd minute a ball played in from a corner kick bounced around in front of goal and unfortunately for RSL, no one could get a clean shot off. Nick Besler took a shot but it went wide and hit the side netting. Two minutes later, a ball was played in over the shoulder of Damir Kreilach, who couldn’t get a shot off, but was able to cut a pass over to Jefferson Savarino in the box. Unfortunately for Savarino, his shot went just wide of the far side post and RSL was still down 3-2 heading into stoppage time.
With seven minutes of stoppage time given, RSL had an ample number of chances to score one more goal but was unable to convert anything into points. For most of the period Salt Lake wasn’t able to get the ball out of their own zone and create any decent scoring opportunities. In the end, Kansas City’s defense proved to be too much for RSL to handle. Just for good measure, K.C. put one more into goal off of a mistaken backwards pass from Lennon to Rimando. That is how the game ended, and Real Salt Lake’s season.
Takeaways from the game
Injuries and suspensions played a huge part in RSL’s personnel decisions. Having starters Marcelo Silva and Albert Rusnak out, not to mention MLS rookie of the year Corey Baird usually off the bench, left huge gaps in the lineup that Kansas City made good work of exploiting.
Sebastian Saucedo, Bofo as most call him, looked great when he came on in the 46th minute. He scored RSL’s first goal and was alive in most of their attacking attempts in the second half.
Although coaching decisions can be questioned after this game, RSL was still in the game until the end. This team showed a lot of heart and when fully healthy, should be a true contender in the western conference next year. There are a lot of good pieces to build off in this team, filling some of the holes in the lineup and finding their best starting 11, could see the team take another leap towards making it back to the MLS cup finals. Until next year.