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Sandy • No idea. No clue. No club in Major League Soccer will have either until at least sometime Saturday evening, when the regular season ends and playoff pairings are solidified.
Real Salt Lake's final regular-season task of 2014 couldn't be more simple: Beat Chivas USA. Do so, and it gets a shot at finishing with the third seed in the Western Conference. Salt Lake's hold on the No. 3 seed was loosened Saturday when FC Dallas beat Colorado 1-0 to move one point ahead of RSL, who now sits in the fourth spot.
The benefit of avoiding the No. 4 vs. No. 5 play-in game are obvious: Dodging a one-game Wild Card game to see who advances to face the No. 1 seed out West and the Supporters' Shield trophy winner — either Seattle or L.A.
"If we win on Wednesday, we'll have 56 points," said defender Chris Wingert. "That's basically as good of a season we've ever had in terms of regular season. It just happened to be in a year when L.A. and Seattle have been really outstanding. If we finish fourth or fifth overall in the entire league? That's pretty good. We'll regroup and try and make another run at the [MLS] Cup."
Still one-game-at-a-time
RSL's players say they don't much want to entertain the possibilities of facing any one of four teams in its playoff opener — no matter which seed it ends up with and which West foes it sees either next Wednesday or next weekend.
Tony Beltran, however, said he woke up Monday morning thinking about RSL's MLS Cup title run in 2009, when the team was the last seed in the West. Then he thought about the L.A. Galaxy's 2012 championship year when it was the fourth seed.
"Anything can happen in the playoffs," he said. "It's a completely new ballgame, and if we do get the fourth seed, then we're going to play three consecutive games at home, most likely. This Chivas game, the play-in game and the possibly the next game against the higher seed. Really, I think we could be in a really dangerous position and I don't think teams will want to come here and play us."
RSL's third-seed scenario is as follows: A win against Chivas USA and FC Dallas finishing with a draw or loss at home to Portland. If RSL and FC Dallas finish even on points, Dallas owns the tiebreaker (overall wins).
The masked man
Chris Schuler is training fully. But as to when the 27-year-old center back returns to a game-day lineup card remains to be seen. Schuler trained Monday with a unique protective mask after suffering several facial fractures in a collision with teammate Nat Borchers on Oct. 5. RSL coach Jeff Cassar said Schuler has potentially one final appointment with a specialist Wednesday to see which avenue the treatment course will go down.
"I don't know medical terms or anything, but they literally like have to measure his eye again and see if it's moved in the socket," Cassar said. "If it's moved, then they might have to do surgery. If everything goes right, then you just keep progressing him and I think we can get away with not having surgery."
Beating the Goats
Having already lost twice to lowly Chivas USA in 2014, RSL's regular-season finale will not only be a test to see where RSL fits in this MLS Cup postseason puzzle — it will be to avoid what happened in 2007. The last time RSL went winless in a season against the Goats was 2007 (0-3-0).
"The pride aspect comes out a third time," Beltran said. "We're not going to lose to them a third time."
Twitter: @chriskamrani —
Chivas USA at RSL
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