Owner Dave Checketts could hardly believe his eyes.

There he was, standing in the corner of the locker room, cradling the MLS Eastern Conference championship trophy while his Real Salt Lake players and coaches celebrated one of the most unexpected achievements in Utah sports history -- reaching the MLS Cup title game in Seattle on Sunday.

"It was incredible," Checketts recalled.

It's about to get even wilder for a team that for so long was viewed as one that couldn't do anything right.

Not only did it reach the championship game for the first time after believing just a few weeks ago that it wasn't even going to qualify for the playoffs -- nobody on the team was named to the MLS Best XI all-star team Monday, either -- but it will play the Los Angeles Galaxy, the glamorous drama queen of Major League Soccer.

That's about as glitzy a match-up as RSL could want, and it has elevated what's usually a niche event into something a lot closer to mainstream magnitude.

Tickets are relatively scarce in a city that has embraced soccer like a long-lost girlfriend, with demand to watch the Galaxy's David Beckham forcing officials to put another 6,000 on sale for the game, in addition to the 36,000 that already had constituted a sellout. Meanwhile, ESPN will televise the game nationally on its flagship station, no doubt spotlighting Beckham and Landon Donovan and legendary coach Bruce Arena -- one of the greatest architects of American soccer.

For RSL, though, the achievement comes close to validating almost every aspect of its operations, from its coaching change and roster tear-down to its controversial fight to build Rio Tinto Stadium and its middling performance during the regular season.

All of it is on the verge of being absolutely worth it.

"We're not done, by any means," midfielder Clint Mathis said.

Checketts said having the chance to win a title is precisely what he envisioned when he hired coach Jason Kreis and general manager Garth Lagerwey, who have steered the franchise back to respectability from its dismal days as a seemingly clueless expansion franchise.

"You'd have to look at that now and say, 'Wow, those guys have done some job together and put us in a position where we can bring a championship back to the people of Utah,' which is what I'd really like to do," Checketts said. "They've been great."

Players and coaches evidently feel the same way about their boss.

In the locker room after beating the Chicago Fire on penalty kicks last weekend to reach the MLS Cup, they presented Checketts with the trophy they had just won and thanked him for his faith in the team he brought to Utah five years ago.

"They expressed gratitude to me for believing in them and sticking with them," Checketts recalled. "It was very, very gratifying. It was also very humbling."