One year after the stomach-churning home defeat that ended its dramatic playoff run as well as its season, Real Salt Lake gets another chance to reach the Major League Soccer championship game when it plays the Chicago Fire in the MLS Eastern Conference final tonight at Toyota Park in Bridgeview, Ill. The winner will meet the winner of Friday's Los Angeles Galaxy-Houston Dynamo game in the MLS Cup title game next weekend in Seattle.

"We've been here before," forward Robbie Findley said, "and we know what it's going to take."

Actually scoring a goal, perhaps?

That's the one thing RSL could not manage against the New York Red Bulls in the MLS Western Conference final at home last season, despite blasting away with two dozen shots -- three of which hit either the post or the crossbar and bounced uselessly away.

What's more, RSL has not won any of its five previous games in Chicago, and has gone 335 minutes without scoring a road goal against the Fire. Coach Jason Kreis was the last RSL player to score against them on the road, in fact, back in 2006 before retiring to take over the team.

But RSL has been buoyed by its stunning comeback victory at Columbus last weekend that propelled them into tonight's game, and has Findley enjoying the best stretch of his young career with four goals and three assists in his last five games.

His amazing speed could cause trouble for the banged-up Fire, who finished just five points higher than RSL in the standings.

That suggests the matchup is pretty even, although nobody expected RSL would advance this far.

"It's a soccer field," midfielder Will Johnson said. "It's the same size as [ours] that we've been so good on. We have a good team. We have nothing to lose, you know? Just go for it, 90 minutes, and try to get us a place in the final.

"We can't get outworked," he added. "No silly turnovers. No mistakes. Just play our game. We have good enough players in the midfield to get the job done."

Both teams have versatile attacks, with Findley, Yura Movsisyan and Fabian Espindola featuring for RSL -- the second-highest scoring team in the league with 43 goals in the regular season. The Fire are led by forward Cuauhtemoc Blanco, and have plenty of other dangerous weapons in forwards Brian McBride, Chris Wolfe and Patrick Nyarko, whose late header beat RSL in its last visit to Toyota Park.

"You just have to go out and do your best," defender Chris Wingert said. "We've had some pretty good defensive efforts against them the last two years, but it's going to be a different game, a different atmosphere. We're just going to try to do our best to stay compact and then attack when we can and hopefully out-possess them."

Kreis has preached that RSL has no reason not to believe in itself, after finally breaking through with its huge road result after playing well down the stretch. Nobody on either side expects motivation to be a problem.

"The only thing that matters in this game is that the winner goes on to the finals," Chicago goalkeeper Jon Busch said. "That's motivation enough for both teams. You're one step away from playing for a championship, that's all that matters."

That, and the accuracy of those shots.

"This year, we can't hit the post," RSL goalkeeper Nick Rimando said with a smile. "We have to make sure they hit the net."

mcl@sltrib.com