This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Carson, Calif. • In what could've been his last press conference as head coach of Real Salt Lake, Jeff Cassar sat on the dais inside the StubHub Center and riffed on his club's methodical fade. During those spring and summer weekends filled with goals and wins, it was RSL that was so often on the front foot, making other teams adjust to their dynamic offensive attack.
That was then, a development that hit a grinding halt the final two months of the 2016 regular season. RSL closed its once-promising campaign on an eight-game winless streak, going 0-5-3 in September and October, a slide capped by Wednesday's 3-1 playoff loss to the L.A. Galaxy in a first-round knockout match.
"Just disappointed," Cassar said. "Not just this game, but the last seven. We had done so well, we had positioned ourselves so well. There's a few reasons why we sputtered towards the end. We were never able to capitalize for our good play in the games — that's obviously putting it in the back of the net. And we seemed to start to leak goals, and that's not a good combination."
RSL not only struggled to deliver on the same goal-scoring rate as the first six months, it failed to hold a single lead over the eight-game winless streak. The team's last lead came in its 2-1 home win over Colorado — on Aug. 26. Not counting the 3-3 home draw with L.A. on Sept. 7, RSL scored three goals in its last seven.
"The goal got really small for us," Cassar said.
Defender Chris Wingert could only produce a small chuckle in the locker room when asked how disheartening the eight-game winless streak to close the year was.
"Clearly, we struggled to score goals," he said. "That's the name of the game, right? It was just a bad time to start to struggle as a team down the stretch, and obviously your confidence isn't going to be super high when you're going into games."
That turnaround players and coaches vowed over the final two months never came.
Los Angeles exposed RSL's lingering defensive struggles in a 15-minute span in which the Galaxy's wingers, Emmanuel Boateng and Landon Donovan, utilized their speed on the outside to stretch RSL.
"L.A. was more aggressive tonight in the way they defended, in the way they approached the game, and it took us too long to settle down," Cassar said. "They were operating at a speed that we weren't. It took us too long to get into the game."
Real Salt Lake midfielder Luke Mulholland reiterated that RSL looked at the knockout match as a new opportunity after the struggles of the regular season, but the same mistakes — that during the first six months were overshadowed by goals and come-from-behind results — reared their head.
"I think we showed L.A. Galaxy way too much respect in the first half," Mulholland said. "We were too much in a defensive mindset which made them come at us and before you knew it we were two goals behind and playing catch-up.
"It was a good response in the second half, which has been kind of how the season has gone this year: We have one good half and a bad half."
Twitter: @chriskamrani