Sandy

One of the most remarkable aspects to Real Salt Lake's season has been their way of dealing defeat at Rio Tinto Stadium. There's being comfortable in the friendly confines and, then, there's whatever it is that RSL is at home.

An almost-unbeatable beast.

And they ended up being unbeatable -- although a bit tentative -- again on Saturday night in the first round of the Major League Soccer playoffs, downing Columbus, 1-0.

Of course, in the European-influenced world of MLS, actually winning a game at this stage isn't the most significant thing. It's punching balls into the goal, as many times as possible.

We already went through this last postseason, but the concept of aggregate scoring in a two-game series is still foreign, quite literally, to a lot of American sports fans. Having the Phillies play the Yankees in a two-game set, and ignoring who is ahead at the end of each singular game, but just adding up the total number of runs scored from both and declaring a winner is ...

Weird.

Real general manager Garth Lagerwey came up with an even better description.

"Goofy."

He traced the half-and-half-equals-a-whole tradition to championship games on the continent being considered unfair because of the enormous advantage the home team enjoys in a one-and-done.

"They always want to be fair in Europe," he said. "So they came up with this system. They're socialists."

Fittingly enough, in the case of RSL and the defending league champion Crew, the same ridiculously one-sided home-field advantage exists. And Real went ahead and played on Saturday night, at least at the end, the way they usually do here: Like they own the world.

Now, they'll see if they can own Columbus, Ohio.

"This is big," said RSL coach Jason Kreis. "It gives us a little bit of a cushion."

Both teams take the whole thing back to the Crew's stadium for the second stanza to see who advances to the next round.

Keeping the momentum going there will almost certainly be a problem for RSL. For as good as they've been at Rio Tinto, they are equally lousy everywhere else. The record during the regular season was divided thusly: 9-1-5 at home and 2-11-2 on the road.

Maybe the aggregate-scoring deal will help them, not having to actually win the game at Columbus, rather just limiting the damage there.

Kreis said his team's trouble on the road stems from a lack of confidence, adding that it plays "scared."

He also thought RSL played that way in the first half Saturday night, when they struggled to hold possession, fiddle-faddling around with the ball and making too many bad passes.

That changed through the second half, especially in the final minutes, when Real slowly took over, creating more scoring chances, and finally cashing in when Yura Movsisyan fired a pass along the end line from the left side to Robbie Findley, who popped the pass in for the game's lone goal in the 88th minute.

At that moment, the modest-sized crowd at Rio Tinto went Rio Whacko.

For most of the game, the Crew had pulled off almost exactly what they wanted to do: counter RSL's aggressiveness with sound-and-steady, almost mind-numbing prudence.

It was a battle of flash-versus-fundamentals.

"They're the [San Antonio] Spurs," Lagerwey said.

The Crew, in fact, uglied up the game as long as they could -- until the aforementioned Findley game-winner. Uh ... the half-game-winner. Whatever.

Kreis said he just "wanted to go for it," adding that he "wanted to win in the worst way."

He no longer needs to do the nearly impossible, to out and out win a game in Columbus. All he has to do now is stay even.

GORDON MONSON hosts the "Monson and Graham Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com .