The coaches and players pretty much agree, Real Salt Lake is going to have to finally win another game on the road if it's going to return to the Major League Soccer playoffs.

Tonight might be their best chance.

Playing the last of three games in seven days, RSL heads to Kansas City tonight to meet the sinking Wizards, who themselves are battling long odds to reach the postseason. In fact, considering the Wizards have scored only once during a six-game winless streak that cost coach Curt Onalfo his job, RSL might not face another opportunity as good as this one to pick up points away from Rio Tinto Stadium.

"It's about us," coach Jason Kreis said.

By that, he means that RSL will have a chance if it shows the kind of energy and intensity it did while wiping out Chivas USA 4-0 at home on Wednesday. But if it reverts to the lethargic form it showed during a 3-1 loss at New England last week -- or during a home loss to the Wizards back in May -- it's in trouble.

"We have to be humble coming into this situation," defender Nat Borchers agreed.

Certainly, no team that has gone a miserable 1-8-2 on the road should feel it can coast to victory. And though the Wizards appear to be the weakest of RSL's remaining road opponents, they have never lost to RSL at home.

It's not as if RSL is at full strength, either.

Striker Yura Movsisyan remains out with illness and a shoulder injury while midfielder Javier Morales is questionable to return from a groin injury. Midfielder Will Johnson is out with a yellow-card suspension, too, while the rest of the team will be trying to overcome that hectic schedule this week.

"We have to play better than we did" against New England last weekend, forward Robbie Findley said. "We have to come out with the intensity level high and a lot of energy."

Midfielder Kyle Beckerman -- who, along with Findley, was named this week to the U.S. national team that will play El Salvador and Trinidad & Tobago in a pair of upcoming World Cup qualifiers -- said that RSL will be able to help itself if it can somehow find a way to score early.

Both teams are undefeated when scoring first, but RSL has done so on the road only twice.

"We're going to try our best," Beckerman said. "We're going to fight, and hopefully we can get an early goal or get a goal before the other team. That's one of the big things. I think we've scored once or twice away from home first, and we got a draw and a win. So that's important for us right now.

"They're a team that's kind of been iffy this year," he added, "so maybe we can get after them early and get their heads down and get on top of them early and really send them home."

mcl@sltrib.com