This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Nobody was quite jumping for joy.But Real Salt Lake was certainly relieved to have finally put an end to its agonizing losing streak at FC Dallas with a scoreless draw at Pizza Hut Park on Sunday night, however unremarkable it might have been to watch — on either side of a 1 hour and 52-minute lightning delay. And nobody was more relieved than coach Jason Kreis.Asked after the game if there was anything special about finally extracting a road point from his former team — his old jersey hangs in a frame near an elevator in the press box — he could not agree fast enough."There is," he said, "because every time we come here, I feel like I'm living a nightmare. I'm in the locker room here, and I'm mad, and I spend all night trying to figure out, why can't we play well in Dallas? At least, now we have the result. I think we need to be honest and say it wasn't a great performance, but it is a positive result."No question, it's better than anything else RSL has ever pulled out of here.Both Kreis and his players were hopeful that the draw was a step in the right direction that can help lift the team out of the recent funk that has seen it score just one goal in their last four games. (The team also is a modest 1-1-2 since its blazing 4-0-0 start.) It managed only two shots on goal against the Hoops, after getting just one in a scoreless draw at home against Houston last weekend.On the other hand, goalkeeper Nick Rimando made two great leaping saves to preserve a third straight shutout, and the team still has allowed just two goals all season — by far the fewest in Major League Soccer."When you're not playing your best, you need two things," Kreis said. "A real resilient effort, and you need guys in the back to make plays. And we've been getting a lot of that lately — from Rimando and Olave and Borchers, tonight Beltran. Wingert, Russell. These guys have been making critical, critical tackles to keep us in games … if we can continue to do that, something is going to go right for us."