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Sandy » Normally, you'd have to question whether Real Salt Lake would have much of a chance to win a playoff game on the road.
Not anymore.
The team proved that for whatever troubles it endured away from home during the regular season -- it was 2-11-2, for the record -- it knows how to muster a huge result when absolutely necessary. That's a trait that should serve it well when it faces the Chicago Fire in the Major League Soccer Eastern Conference final at Toyota Park on Saturday night, after coming back from a two-goal deficit to win 3-2 and eliminate defending champion Columbus last weekend.
"Coaches sometimes look at games like that and say, 'that was the absolute perfect thing that could have happened to our group,'" coach Jason Kreis said. "We faced real, real adversity -- not just to go one goal down, but to go two goals down -- and we fought through it. So I would think ... from where I sit, our team should feel like they can face anything."
Certainly, there's a new swagger within the team, knowing it just changed the complexion of the entire postseason and sits just 90 minutes from reaching the MLS Cup championship game for the first time.
No longer is it the maddeningly inconsistent team that barely snuck into the playoffs. Now, it's the tenacious team that fought back to dump the defending champions.
"We're ready to get this result so we can get to MLS Cup," defender
Coaches and players agreed the Fire are a good matchup for RSL, and that they learned painfully last season that it's hardly impossible for road teams to win a conference final.
Road teams are 5-7 in conference finals since the league adopted its current playoff format in 2003 -- including New York's 1-0 victory over RSL at Rio Tinto Stadium to advance to the MLS Cup title game last season.
But Kreis also noted that the Fire were one of the few teams that were able to steal points at Rio Tinto this season, having drawn with RSL two months ago.
"I thought that we still played a pretty good game in that draw," Kreis said. "So I think our group should have a little bit of a sour taste in our month, because of that. And we lost to them there. ... We have a little something extra to prove, I think."
And the players seem ready to prove it.
"We have to fight just like we did in Columbus," forward Yura Movsisyan said. "Never give up. We know we can score goals. We know we can score goals on the road. It's just a matter of playing this game and just looking at this game only."
Visiting teams have won five of the 12 conference finals since Major League Soccer adopted its current playoff format in 2003, and at least one road team has won in four of the last five years.
Saturday, 6 p.m., Fox Soccer
