This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
Sandy
Of all the welcome sights Real Salt Lake could have had Saturday night at Rio Tinto Stadium, only one was more welcome than Jean Alexandre doing something that had happened only twice in the past five weeks: scoring a goal.
Alexandre took a sweet pass from Kyle Beckerman, spun deep and punched in a shot from short range in the 32nd minute, giving RSL an edge on which it would build later. It was Real's first first-half goal since April 9.
The other sight?
The expansion Vancouver Whitecaps running through the tunnel and onto the field to start the game.
Ironic that the Whitecaps would portend mostly smooth sailing for what had been a battered, listing ship.
And smooth sailing, a 2-0 win, was the perfect order of the night for Real, a team coming off its first regular-season home loss — in, what, a bajillion years? — at the feet of Seattle.
A team that never has fully recovered from its crushing defeat on the same home pitch to Monterrey in the Champions League final, with that tantalizing berth in the Club World Cup snatched from its grasp.
Even with the overmatched Whitecaps acting as their tonic, RSL stumbled and bumbled early, but it worked into a nice cadence as the game played through, absolutely dominating by the end, defensively and offensively. Real put up 24 shots against Vancouver's six and held the ball in long stretches.
Afterward, Jason Kreis praised his team, sort of, calling its effort "a step in the right direction."
He added: "There's room for improvement in all aspects of our game."
In truth, Real played like Manchester United compared with the way it had been playing for more than a month. Not only had it dropped two games — also a loss at Portland — since the Monterrey collapse and tied games it might have, in more buoyant times, won, but it had also failed, as mentioned, to hit the back of the net.
In one stretch, it went 271 minutes without a reward.
RSL was grinding away, burning itself up as it dragged in the wake of its huge disappointment.
The smoky-gray aftermath, though, wasn't just a mental sag, it was also laid out in the physical: the writhing form of Real's best player, Javier Morales, twisting in the grass after that memorable — or was it forgettable? — cheap shot put on him against Chivas USA, shattering his ankle and shelving him for the foreseeable future. It is 1-2-1 since his injury. Controversy also has hung thick: In the loss to the Sounders, RSL played down a man when defender Jamison Olave was shown a questionable red card in the second half.
"Yeah, we've had some struggles," RSL general manager Garth Lagerwey said beforehand. "But the players have continued to play and work hard."
Said midfielder Ned Grabavoy: "We're a bit unsure of ourselves, individually and collectively, right now."
But Kreis nailed it to the wall earlier, when he said: "We've got too many guys who are OK with letting somebody else do the job or take the responsibility, or have the final pass or take the shot. We need more guys to step up and say, 'I'm going to do it.' "
That's precisely what Beckerman and Alexandre did. Other offensive chances materialized, too, as momentum built for Real after the jump-start. Near misses, aggressive misses, were everywhere. And in the 79th minute, Alexandre drilled a pass to Fabian Espindola, which he left-footed in for the second score.
Through the fog and slog of sorry times, RSL saw the newbies come through that tunnel Saturday night ... and it saw opportunity come through alongside. In its inaugural season, Vancouver hadn't won a road game in six attempts, and it had scored only three goals and given up nearly three times that many.
Hello. Grins all around for RSL, despite it playing without Alvaro Saborio, Will Johnson and Arturo Alvarez, who were busy doing their international business, and without the suspended Olave.
Let's say it the way it is here: Real is a lobbed bomb from playing the way it did in their better showings, as it became the focus of American soccer in April. It is not the same team without Morales.
Still, after such a terrific run in international competition and an ultimate gut-busting elimination at Rio Tinto, a place where losing never crossed their minds, it was bound for a drop-off. Just like it's bound now for a new ascension.
"I'm pleased with what I saw," Kreis finally allowed.
The Whitecaps won't roll in here every week, but a whole lot more opportunities for Real to win will.
GORDON MONSON hosts "The Gordon Monson Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 104.7 FM/1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com.