Real Salt Lake: Who's laughing now?

Barely three weeks ago, the idea sounded downright laughable. Two weeks ago, it remained all but impossible. Last week? Only then did it start to feel -- what's this? -- plausible.

Now, it's simply undeniable.

Once the bumbling laughingstock of Major League Soccer, Real Salt Lake is suddenly playing for the MLS Cup championship next weekend after a stunning playoff run that even the coaches and players surely couldn't have seen coming -- even though they insisted otherwise in a champagne-soaked locker room following their dramatic shootout victory over the Chicago Fire at Toyota Park on Saturday night.

"I don't think it's a Cinderella run," goalkeeper Nick Rimando said. "We believed. We put pressure on ourselves

at the beginning of the season. We had to take it to the last game and once we knew we were in there, and we'd made it to the playoffs, we knew we were a good enough team to make it to the final. We're not done yet. We have one more game. We're not happy enough with this win, we want to continue."

Rimando was the biggest hero of the victory over the Fire, stopping three of seven penalty kicks after extra time of a scoreless draw and allowing teammate Ned Grabavoy to rip home the winning goal nearly three hours after the game began.

Most of the 21,723 fans sat in stunned silence as RSL celebrated its first trip to the title game after five long seasons of mostly disappointing soccer, knowing it will face the glamorous Los Angeles Galaxy in the league's premier event at Qwest Field in Seattle on Sunday night -- barely a month after believing it had torpedoed its own playoff hopes by losing a crucial game in Toronto.

But RSL unexpectedly sneaked into the playoffs on the final weekend of the regular season, and has been defying the conventional wisdom about its championship chances ever since. Dozens of fans welcomed the team back home at the Salt Lake City International Airport on Sunday afternoon.

"It's awesome," midfielder Kyle Beckerman said. "We're really excited. It's just a great feeling. We worked hard this year, we earned it. We got into the playoffs just like everybody else did, and then it was, 'Who was going to get into form?' It seemed like we got into a good form right at the right time, and we're riding on it. So we'll see what happens."

What has happened so far has been remarkable enough.

The team that almost never could win on the road has won back-to-back road games in the playoffs -- including its staggering three-goal comeback from two goals down to eliminate defending champion Columbus last weekend. The team that always seemed to make a crushing defensive mistake has kept clean sheets in three of

its last four games.

And the team that had never won more than three games in a row is -- just like that -- riding a four-game streak that seems to give it all the momentum heading into the title game against Landon Donovan, David Beckham and the rest of the high-profile Galaxy.

"Obviously, there's some satisfaction there, but it's not going to be gratifying if we don't win" the championship, veteran midfielder Clint Mathis said. "We went through the whole season where we would play well but didn't get some of the results that we wanted to get, then we come down to the wire and ... the stars aligned and we were able to make the playoffs.

"The funny thing about the MLS -- the way the playoff system is -- it doesn't matter if you're first or eighth," he added. "It's about going in and winning those few games, and now we're four in a row. So let's just make it five and be done with it."

mcl@sltrib.com