"It feels like a loss," midfielder Kyle Beckerman said.

In a way, it was, because they let a win slip away in the final minutes. Not that the result can take anything away from the effort of defense, especially the back line.

The RSL defense did its job - which is exactly what coach Jason Kreis had hoped for going into the new season, especially because he had dismantled the entire back line for a new and improved one. In the first half of the 1-1 tie against the Fire at Rice-Eccles Stadium, RSL defenders Chris Wingert, Nat Borchers, Matias Mantilla and Ian Joy did a fabulous job in keeping their opponent out of the game, as Chicago had only five shots compared to RSL's 11.

And for goalkeeper Nick Rimando, it was nice to not have the ball around his area of work too often.

"It's weird that I didn't have to make six or seven saves in the game," said Rimando, who faced 183 shots last season, the most of all goalkeepers in Major League Soccer. "All in all, our defenders did exactly what [assistant coach] Robin Fraser and Jason [Kreis] wanted them to do."

In the end, Rimando had to make just one save.

But perhaps it'll be difficult for the 20,272 fans to forget about what happened in the second minute of stoppage time, when Chicago's Cuauhtemoc Blanco scored off a rebound inside the penalty box. It turned an impending win - possible because of an own goal by the Fire about 20 minutes earlier - into a repeat of last season's opener, when RSL gave up a late goal to Dallas to also settle for a tie.

"We let a cross come in," said Borchers, "and we didn't deal with it good enough."

In the second half, RSL allowed only three shots, but two of them were on goal.

But Kreis wasn't going to take anything away from his defense either, saying that his offense should have capitalized on the many opportunities it had - it finished with eight shots on goal - and should have finished with two or three scores.

"Our defense really pushed on," Kreis said.

csun@sltrib.com