RSL: Magical finish

Real Salt Lake forward Yura Movsisyan (14). Real Salt Lake vs. LA Galaxy, MLS Cup Sunday, November 22 2009 at Qwest Field in Seattle. (Trent Nelson / The Salt Lake Tribune)

"Magical season" is hardly the best description of the route that Real Salt Lake traveled on the way to its first Major League Soccer championship.

But "magical finish?"

Now, we're talking.

The team that had never won more than four straight games did not lose any of its last five in the final month en route to the MLS Cup, coming from behind twice away from home and twice surviving overtime and heart-wrenching penalty kicks. Yet it was precisely the aggravation, disappointment and frustration that the team endured along the way that made that staggering title run so tantalizing.

Just as the coaches and players were happy to remind others at every opportunity, nobody expected they were going to even reach the playoffs -- never mind run away to the championship. And there was something about the sheer surprise of it all that seemed to make the achievement far more special than if RSL had led the league from start to finish and entered the playoffs as the prohibitive favorite.

"We proved the whole world wrong," forward Yura Movsisyan said.

Of course, all of that leaves open questions about the value of the regular season and the team's inability to excel during it.

But surely the thrill of watching the soccer equivalent of an acrobat crossing the high-wire for the first time played a role in all the excitement, from the hundreds of fans who made late travel plans to attend the title game in Seattle to the thousands

It wasn't just the fact that RSL won the games that mattered, either.

It was the way it won them: Overwhelming first its biggest rival to reach the playoffs, then the defending champions on their home field, before surviving two overtimes and the pair of penalty-kick shootouts that made a star out of veteran goalkeeper Nick Rimando.

Along the way, RSL's collection of modestly paid role players dispatched some of the brightest stars in the league -- from Columbus' Guillermo Barros Schelotto and Chicago's Cuauhtemoc Blanco to the Los Angeles Galaxy's Landon Donovan and David Beckham -- and validated coach Jason Kreis' oft-repeated motto that "the team is the star."

"For us to be champs right now is just incredible," defender Chris Wingert said, "especially after the year we had, with so much adversity. It's just due to our character, and hanging tough."

Never was that toughness more evident than in the title game victory over the Galaxy at Qwest Field in Seattle, when everything was going against RSL.

Not only were the Galaxy overwhelming favorites, but they scored first just before halftime, and had not been beaten all season when scoring first or leading at the break. Worse, RSL had lost midfielder Javier Morales to a knee injury in the opening half-hour, and midfielder Will Johnson to the lingering effects of food poisoning at halftime. The team was 1-8-1 in the regular season when trailing at halftime, too, and 2-12-2 when allowing the first goal.

In other words, it was surely doomed.

But midfielders Clint Mathis and Ned Grabavoy came on as substitutes and helped RSL steady itself. Forward Robbie Findley scored an equalizer in the 64th minute on the rebound of a shot by Movsisyan, Rimando stopped two penalty kicks and defender Robbie Russell scored the winning penalty in the seventh round of the shootout, despite having never scored a goal for RSL.

Meanwhile, the team shut down Donovan and Beckham -- the superstars whose combined $7.4 million salary was more than three times that of the entire RSL team -- and Donovan even missed a penalty kick in the shootout, something that had happened only twice in his nine-year career.

In retrospect, it seems fitting that Donovan failed to even put his shot on frame, sending it instead high over the crossbar, to everyone's disbelief.

"He usually buries those," Rimando said.

The victory completed a staggering 6-1-0 finish that belied the 9-11-7 record the team had compiled to that point, engendering mild skepticism in some quarters and outright derision in a few others.

When a reporter asked Kreis on a pre-game conference call about the prospect of RSL becoming the first major American professional sports team to win a title despite a losing regular-season record, the coach responded sarcastically.

"Wow, it sounds like we better not even go," he said, with mock concern. "I mean, we don't have a chance, do we?"

Clearly, the team fed off the sense of disrespect it felt, however justifiable it might have been.

After all, RSL had strained all season to stay in the playoff chase, enduring a seven-game winless streak early and going just 2-11-2 on the road in the regular season to counter its league-leading 9-1-5 record at home. Even its own coaches and executives had figured its playoff chances were ruined after a loss at Toronto in the penultimate game of the season.

But an amazing series of other results went just the right way to allow RSL a path into the playoffs, and the team did not hesitate in following it. It hammered rival Colorado in the season finale and received enough help from other teams to sneak into the postseason.

"It's a new season," midfielder Kyle Beckerman said at the time. "We're ready. We believe. We thought if we win, things are going to happen for us. Why not? It had to happen for somebody ... so why not us?"

By then, of course, the team was hitting its stride.

It upended the defending champion Columbus Crew in a two-leg first-round playoff series, largely because it was able to play at home first and claim a victory that put the pressure on the Crew. But its comeback from two goals down to win the second leg on the road stunned everybody, and helped convince the players that they could do just about everything.

"We're a great team," midfielder Andy Williams insisted.

That confidence showed in a dramatic penalty-kick shootout victory over the Chicago Fire in the MLS Eastern Conference final. Rimando made three huge saves, and the seldom-used Grabavoy struck for the winner -- and again against the Galaxy.

By the time the glittering confetti was falling to the field and the players wore gold medals around their necks, RSL had made believers out of everybody.

"It's a championship, and there's nothing better," Russell said in the tunnel, on his way to celebrate in the locker room. "This gold medal, it just symbolizes all the work we put into it, and it just feels so good. ... It's all the credit to the guys on the team. We came together when it counted. Teams come together, and this is what happens."

mcl@sltrib.com