Real Salt Lake regrets a missed opportunity

Sandy » Under normal circumstances, Real Salt Lake's 1-1 tie with the Houston Dynamo, in Houston no less, would've been cause for a bit of celebration. After all, RSL has never defeated the Dynamo on the road, and Houston has forever represented the level Real Salt Lake strives to attain.

On Monday, however, Real Salt Lake coaches and players lamented a missed opportunity. The team had a shot at a monumental win away from Salt Lake City, a breakthrough victory, and a potential season-turning conquest, but that vaporized in the 90th minute when Houston's Brian Ching scored the equalizer on a header.

"With the heat and with the history that we have down there, Houston's definitely a tough place to play," RSL forward Robbie Findley said. "We played a good match and we got the tie. But we definitely wanted the three points that came with the win."

The big news coming from Saturday, and the talk around the club, centered around defender Jamison Olave , and his ejection in the 58th minute due to his second yellow card. With the ejection, Olave will sit out Saturday's home match against Toronto FC. RSL coach Jason Kreis was livid with Olave following the Houston match. On Monday, following a team workout, Kreis said that no further team punishment would be forthcoming following Saturday's mandatory suspension.

"Obviously, the staff isn't happy with it," Kreis said.

"This is the second time this season that Jamison's had an unnecessary ejection. We've had three ejections as a team this year and all three of them in my mind have been unnecessary. We've got to be smarter than that as a team. Overall, however, there's been so much to take from Saturday's game. We played well, we fought with a man down and we controlled play throughout the match."

 

Making the turn

With RSL's seven-game winless streak finally being snapped last week at Los Angeles, the team acknowledges that a key for the remainder of the schedule is a defense that's come up big the past few weeks.

"I think we've had great defensive efforts in the last four or five matches," Kreis said. "We have to keep it that way and we have to defend as a unit. That's a huge key for us. We've had great energy as of late and that's something we have to keep up."

 

An eye toward playoffs

Although the season isn't yet halfway over, it's never too early to start looking at potential playoff implications. Currently, RSL sits in fifth place of the Western Conference, four points behind Colorado. With the top four teams making the postseason, Real Salt Lake knows that it's imperative not to experience another stretch like the seven-game winless streak that crippled the team early on.

"We know what we have to do, and we know that the playoffs are in the back of our minds," Findley said. "At the same time, we have to take things slow, one day at a time and let things fall into place."

tjones@sltrib.com