This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Sandy
Seven years after a thrilling finish launched Real Salt Lake's remarkable run as a Major League Soccer playoff contestant, the team's 2015 season basically ended early in the second half Wednesday night.
A red card for RSL and a successful penalty kick for Portland converged as the end of an era for a franchise formerly known for its consistency. Needing a win at Rio Tinto Stadium, RSL absorbed a 1-0 loss that means the team's season will conclude in October after two more MLS games and a Champions League match, and then the rebuilding will resume in March.
The asterisk is that RSL is not mathematically out of the playoffs. So the only official conclusion is coach Jeff Cassar's summary: "This one hurts, there's no getting around that, but we have jobs to do."
Just not for much longer in 2015, realistically.
Eight straight playoff bids would have been quite an achievement in this expansion era of MLS, when a lower percentage of teams qualify than in the old days. The franchise deserves appreciation for having remained at a high level for so long. Yet that performance became the standard around here, making any non-playoff season feel like a failure.
Some decent teams will miss the playoffs in the highly competitive Western Conference. The question is what label to give RSL (11-13-8) after a season of amazing inconsistency. This defeat short-circuited a mild rally in September and October as the players responded well to Cassar with four wins in six games. They also kept battling while at a disadvantage Wednesday, continually threatening to tie the game — even though a draw really would have been insufficient.
"I'm not upset with the way our players played, absolutely not," Cassar said.
That's a good sign for Cassar, but he will have to live with an early end of his second season since replacing Jason Kreis. And now the regrouping of RSL will continue with a new cast, now that Kreis, general manager Garth Lagerwey and president Bill Manning have moved to other clubs and the roster has changed considerably.
If nothing else, this uneven season will make RSL's next playoff appearance — whenever it comes — seem like an accomplishment.
Real's run of postseason qualification started on a cool night in Colorado in October 2008, when Yura Movsisyan followed a rebound of Andy Williams' shot and delivered a tying goal in the 90th minute, sending the team into the playoffs for the first time and creating an emotional moment for Kreis and Williams, two original RSL players. The draw gave RSL a 10-10-10 record, just good enough for a postseason berth. In Wednesday's case, RSL was trying to get to 12-12-8 and extend this season's possibilities, but that did not happen.
That '08 breakthrough came in defender Nat Borchers' first season with RSL, so he has been part of all of the biggest moments in this franchise's history. Ironically enough, Borchers was in the middle of Wednesday's action as a member of the Timbers' defense, and now Portland is solidly in playoff contention.
Borchers had produced the only goal in the teams' first two meetings this season, giving Portland a victory at Rio Tinto in August. That distinction remained intact until the 55th minute Wednesday, when Fanendo Adi's penalty kick sent the Timbers ahead. The red card for Jamison Olave also meant that RSL would play a man down the rest of the night, making its recovery exponentially more difficult.
Cassar's complaint was with the spot of the penalty-kick call, not the red card itself, but he said, "I think it would have been a different result, [if] we had 11 players."
Different enough, though? Probably not.
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