Real Salt Lake coach Jason Kreis took a break from scouting talent to offer MLSsoccer.com a few insights about the 2011 season, one that saw Salt Lake advance to the Western Conference Championship.

In what was easily tagged a roller coaster season, RSL lost its best player Javier Morales for the entire summer with a painful ankle injury, gloried through several winning and losing streaks before hitting the skids prior to the MLS playoffs.

Here are a few of the highlights from the interview at RealSaltLake.com.

About Morales: "...I would say that many of the things that he brings to our team have nothing to do with passes, shots, free kicks and those sorts of things – it’s the 'glue' that he is to our group."

About RSL reaction to losing Morales as well as losing the CONCACAF Champions League final with days of each other: "I think those two things point out how important the psyche is in professional sports. Even though we still felt we had a deep team, and Javier’s just one player and we can move past that and just getting into the final, what a great accomplishment [it was] just to get there. Those are things that with just the Xs and Os and the talent we have on the team, we’re still plenty good enough. But that doesn’t give any weight to all the emotional and mental [trauma] of those two grave disappointments in such a short period of time."

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