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Sandy • There was a game to be bossed on Saturday night. And without Real Salt Lake's captain Kyle Beckerman, Mike Petke zeroed in on who he wanted to best replicate the bite that RSL's leader brings to the midfield.
Sunday Stephen was his target, a player brought in last offseason to play alongside Beckerman in the two-man defensive midfield. Petke said he and the 28-year-old Nigerian midfielder nicknamed "Sunny" talked a lot last week about the role he needed to play in order for RSL to snag three points at home.
"He did exactly what I expected," Petke said.
If there was a tackle to be won, Sunny won it.
If there was a challenge necessary, he went after it.
If there was a full-on counterattack, Sunny was there sprinting 60 yards to ensure the Philadelphia Union didn't have an easy scenario to overload goalkeeper Nick Rimando.
For as important as it was to have RSL see Joao Plata hit the back of the net and score his first goal in Saturday's 1-0 win, it could be argued that seeing Sunny's return to his form of early 2016 could prove just as vital.
The defensive midfielder completed 27 of 34 passes from areas all over the field, won three tackles, intercepted four Union passes in RSL's defensive third and had two clearances from inside RSL's box.
"It is not a luxurious job," Petke said of the holding midfielder's role to roam and quell the opposing team's best players. "It is the unsung hero type of role, and Sunny stepped up [Saturday] and he was huge for us."
Fighting off a small smirk in the RSL locker room, Sunny took a deep breath and explained that the 1-0 win is a feat for a team still trying to find its footing now three months into the season.
"This has been what we needed a long time ago, to put a smile on the face of our fans here," he said. "We hope we can continue this way."
RSL fans hope so, too.
The first half of 2016 put Sunny in the MLS Newcomer of the Year conversation as he showed off his skill set of eradicating other team's attacks and consistently winning duels with some of the top playmakers in MLS.
His impressive first season at RSL was put on hold after he suffered horrific facial fractures in a mid-air collision during a match last June. He missed the next two-and-a-half months and struggled to regain what he had working.
Sunny's performance in the 1-0 loss in Seattle might've been an important building block that lead up to Saturday's win over the Union. He's started five of RSL's last six matches and if he can continue to not only be effective in pestering opposing midfielders but be clean in his possession, it would bode well for RSL as Beckerman returns from suspension this week.
"He broke down every single attack that [the Union] had and he was really strong," midfielder Albert Rusnák said.
Asked why he felt he was so effective, Sunny said, "I was assigned to do something, which I think I try to perfect in that area."
His assignment? Shutting down one of the league's hottest teams and most versatile midfields, which he did a week after keeping Seattle's superstar Nicolas Lodeiro in check, too.
"Everyone has his role on the pitch, where you're assigned to do something," Sunny said. "If you can do it and the other guys have their roles as well, we complement each other."
Twitter: @chriskamrani