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Sandy • The two pillars of Real Salt Lake have broken their share of league records before. But against their rival, captain Kyle Beckerman and goalkeeper Nick Rimando each broke Major League Soccer records reserved only for the longest stewards, and did so on the same night.
Once referee Jair Marrufo signaled the start of the match, Rimando became the league's all-time appearances leader with 418 — all of which were starts. The 37-year-old in his 17th MLS season had made a habit of breaking records in 2016. In RSL's 3-1 win over Chicago on Aug. 6, Rimando set the MLS all-time record for 181 wins. Earlier this month, he broke the record for most MLS starts.
In the 88th minute of RSL's 2-1 win over Colorado Friday evening in Sandy, Beckerman became the league's all-time leader in minutes played by a field player with 33,143, passing former New England Revolution player Steve Ralston. Not one to gloat about records obtained, Beckerman tried to keep the focus of the night on the win over the Rapids.
"It's great - it's pretty cool," Beckerman said. "If we're doing that … [and] we're winning games, that's all that matters."
RSL coach Jeff Cassar called it a "special night on a lot of fronts."
"Both [Beckerman] and [Rimando] are achieving individual goals that just show what kind of pros they are, what kind of character they have and how much they've meant, not just to RSL but this league in general," Cassar said. "It just shows they're doing a lot of the right things off the field to be able to achieve those."
Both Rimando and Beckerman are in their 10th seasons at RSL.
Schuler makes his return
In the first minute of stoppage time against Colorado, Chris Schuler ran onto the field as Cassar's final sub of the night. By doing so, the 28-year-old center back made his first MLS appearance since last July. Re-signed by RSL two weeks ago after spending the last five months with Real Monarchs, Schuler spent the last three minutes of the match marking Colorado's 6-foot-7 center back Axel Sjoberg as the Rapids pushed for the equalizer.
Schuler was signed to the Monarchs in the spring to ease the recovery time from knee and foot surgeries he underwent a year ago.
Goodbye, 2015
RSL's 2-1 win Friday night showcased just how far the club has progressed from the disappointment of last year. The two goals from Yura Movsisyan put RSL's 2016 goal total at 39 through 27 matches, surpassing the entire 2015 total of 38. Now at 43 points at 12-8-7, RSL also eclipsed its 2015 points total, which was 41.
Twitter: @chriskamrani