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Sandy • The Captain made his opinion loud and clear Wednesday afternoon following what he described as a hot and humid training session at America First Field. Kyle Beckerman was asked what can be fixed regarding Real Salt Lake's awful road form in 2015.

The 33-year-old midfielder in his ninth season at RSL wiped the sweat from his brow, took a sigh and said, "I got no idea, man." Beckerman is one of the few remaining pieces of the core that made RSL relevant, an eventual champion and perennial postseason threat. This season is a step backward, one many league pundits predicted in the preseason with the departures of so many integral figures gone.

RSL is 8-11-8 through 27 games, sitting at 32 points and 10th place out West, a single point behind rival Colorado for the unfortunate position of cellar dweller. Entering Saturday's road match at Houston, RSL has lost eight straight road games. Beckerman continued his answer, pointing to former RSL general manager Garth Lagerwey, who had a hand in making personnel decisions at the club last December until he joined the Seattle Sounders.

"Talk to Garth maybe," he said. "We had a different team [in recent years]. We're rebuilding this year. We've gone away from what we did in the past, so we've got to rebuild it again, so that's what we're trying to do. It took us a little bit in 2007 and 2008 … we were playing decent, we weren't getting results and then it wasn't until like 2009 after we won that we really started getting consistent. At least four or five wins on the road. So it's going to take some time."

Since the end of 2012, RSL has parted ways with Will Johnson, Fabian Espindola, Jamison Olave (reacquired last offseason), Nat Borchers, Ned Grabavoy, Chris Wingert, Robbie Findley and several others part of that 2009 MLS Cup title team.

By the way Beckerman described the state of the franchise Wednesday, RSL has a lengthier road ahead of it in terms of reassembling an annual title contender.

"We built it once, so hopefully we can build it again, but it's got to be done again," he said. "We broke it down, so now we've got to build it back up."

-Chris Kamrani

Twitter: @chriskamrani