With its roster seemingly shrinking every passing day, Real Salt Lake was expecting to act quickly when the Major League Soccer transfer window opened today.

So there.

That fast enough?

General manager Garth Lagerwey confirmed the team already has made offers to two international players, and one already has agreed to a contract. Lagerwey would not identify that player, since he still must clear immigration and receive a work permit, but it's believed to be Rachid El Khalifi -- a winger with SC Cambuur Leeuwarden in the Netherlands who trained with RSL during the preseason.

"It's one of those things where we're going to see some natural turnover in the middle of our season," Lagerwey said, "and hopefully, we can get better."

With about half the season remaining, RSL is sitting just four points out of a playoff position heading into its game at Columbus on Saturday.

But it has been dealing with some serious roster turmoil lately, with three players still away at the Gold Cup, two others released -- defender Ian Joy was the latest, over the weekend -- and striker Fabian Espindola serving a red-card suspension. Midfielder Andy Williams is gone, too, attending to his ill wife while she receives treatment for leukemia in Seattle.

Still, coach Jason Kreis believes his team can perform against the Crew.

"We have a group that really believes in each other and we feel like we can go into this game this weekend with the exact players that we have available and we can be fine," he said.

Yet the transfer window could be the key to vaulting RSL into the playoffs for the second straight season.

With Joy having had his contract terminated over the weekend so he could move back to Germany to be closer to his young daughter and RSL not picking up a contract option on striker Luis Miguel Escalada recently, the team freed up nearly $200,000 in salary commitments to potentially use on transfers.

The team could have had even more money available, had it accepted a buyout of striker Yura Movsisyan's contract that would have allowed him to leave immediately for Randers FC in Denmark.

But team officials said they did not feel that would generate enough room under the league salary cap to lure an appreciably better player in the summer transfer market -- Movsisyan is making a modest $71,000 this season -- so they turned down what they viewed as a low offer for a transfer fee. Movsisyan will play the rest of the season for RSL before joining his new club, and RSL will receive no compensation.

While Lagerwey and Kreis have said the team has faith that Movsisyan can stay focused and help RSL reach the playoffs again -- he was the hero of the historic postseason push last season -- Movsisyan's agent said the team played the whole scenario poorly.

Agent Patrick McCabe said RSL dragged its feet on re-signing his client, making Movsisyan feel as though he was not a priority by not offering him a contract extension until four months after McCabe requested one at the end of last season. McCabe also said RSL tried to trade Movsisyan during his slow start to this season, and sought a transfer fee that was "so far out of the depth of reality" that Randers FC regarded it as an insult.

"I can't say that I'm happy with the way it has all turned out," McCabe said.