Our boys played like lions! I saw the game at a downtown bar, then went home with friends and watched the whole thing again on the DVR. Native Salt Lakers, my friends knew this Real Salt Lake championship was huge for Utah and were irrepressible in their enthusiasm. I'll never forget it. Sunday night, and we stayed up very late.

During these Major League Soccer playoffs I had an interlude -- brief, intense and ultimately glorious -- with no mixed emotions about Real Salt Lake. But for years I have suffered painful regrets.

As a Salt Laker, lifelong player and former high school coach, I was a total fanatic in RSL's first year. Hook, line and sinker: the game in my blood, the brashness of Dave Checketts, the generosity of the community.

But when Real Salt Lake became Real Sandy, many hearts in the capital city were crushed. Personally, I lost it, the day the deal that sent the stadium to Sandy was announced. Disorientation, dizziness, the sickness of betrayal. How was a stadium in the suburbs a good idea?

Now that I'm in Salt Lake City government, I know how much financial damage to Salt Lake City that deal caused. The loss of tourist tax money diverted from SLC to the Sandy stadium is putting real hurt on the city. So we raise taxes and fees on our own residents to pay for services that visitors and nontaxable entities also enjoy. Last month's huge $125 million property tax bond for a public safety complex is the perfect example. Believe

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it: We care about the rest of Utah.

Regardless of all the power struggles and resentment, this team is bringing people together. Like the famous soccer song, "ole, ole, ole, ole," the club has a real Latin face now -- did you notice the TV coverage of our fans in Seattle?

The bright spot of the regular season wasn't the performance of the team, which was mediocre (.500 is not good enough for this town). It was the energy in the stands, the explosion of Barra Real, ultras from Utah County bouncing the south end of Rio Tinto in Spanish. Pop! go the drums, songs and smoke bombs.

And you know what? The luxury box for Sandy City government is just an eye-shot away. This is Utah's team. Viva Real Salt Lake! Viva Utah!

Luke Garrott is a soccer player and the city councilman representing downtown Salt Lake City, District 4.