He's also the new general manager of Real Salt Lake who will be responsible for turning the team into a winner.

The team announced his hiring just a few hours before its dramatic 2-2 tie with the Los Angeles Galaxy at Rice-Eccles Stadium on Wednesday night - in a game that featured newly acquired RSL striker Yura Movsisyan, but no David Beckham. The absence of the injured Galaxy icon limited the crowd to perhaps 18,000, though RSL announced paid attendance at 24,633.

Nevertheless, owner Dave Checketts heralded his latest hiring as a major part of the rebuilding effort that will ensure RSL "will be better" next season, even though the 34-year-old Lagerwey was not among the long list of candidates Checketts said he interviewed for the position.

Instead, Checketts became acquainted with Lagerwey while negotiating the sale of part of his St. Louis Blues hockey team to a minority investor.

Lagerwey represented the investor, as an attorney at the same international law firm - Latham & Watkins - that produced MLS founder Alan Rothenberg, league deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis and president Mark Abbott.

Soon, Checketts learned that Lagerwey spent five years with three teams in MLS, mostly as a backup goalkeeper who also had worked as a representative for the players union. (He once wrote on SI.com that "MLS cooks its books better than Reaganomics bluffed a balanced budget.") Lagerway played with current RSL coach Jason Kreis both in college at Duke - they played in the Final Four together - and with the Dallas Burn.

"I found somebody who is absolutely passionate about the game," Checketts said, "and really very smart about the game."

Hiring Lagerwey filled a void that had existed for 4 1/2 months since Steve Pastorino resigned amid a front-office shake-up that included the firing of John Ellinger as coach.

But it also represents the addition of another inexperienced team official.

Both Ellinger and Pastorino were new at their jobs with RSL, and Kreis had to retire as a player before replacing Ellinger. Checketts said he has a "special place in my heart" for inexperienced hires, though, having himself been hired years ago as general manager of the Jazz with practically no experience.

"There will be a learning curve," he acknowledged. "But I like our chances with somebody who wants it so bad."

Checketts insisted the team's "soccer I.Q." has improved drastically with the hiring of Kreis and assistant coach Robin Fraser, and Lagerwey said his perceived weaknesses are actually strengths.

Working as an analyst for D.C. United games the past seven years has allowed him to speak off-the-record with every opposing coach in the league about their teams and tactics. Playing in only 51 games - with a modest 25-22 record as a starter - for three teams in five years? That helped him understand the plight of players hungry for playing time, he said, never mind get to know almost everybody in the league.

"I'm a pretty lucky guy," he said.

Lagerwey played with eight of the 12 coaches in MLS, as well as three current RSL players - goalkeeper Nick Rimando and midfielders Kyle Beckerman and Andy Williams - and dealt with league officials on labor issues.

And he knows a work in progress when he sees it.

Though Lagerwey believes RSL has improved from the start of the season with its massive renovation, he said that "there's more work to do" with a team that's only 4-13-8 and all but certain to miss the playoffs for a third straight year.

"You have to upgrade the sort of 'base level' of talent in this organization," he said. "It's going to be a slower building process."

mcl@sltrib.com

IN SHORT - After a frantic finish that included three goals in the final 21 minutes, Real Salt Lake manages a 2-2 tie with the Los Angeles Galaxy after blowing a lead by allowing two goals in a seven-minute span.

KEY STAT - RSL takes 19 shots, including nine on goal.

KEY MOMENT - Not even a minute after striker Gavin Glinton gives the Galaxy a 2-1 lead in the 85th minute - the teams had traded penalty-kick goals before that, by Carey Talley and Landon Donovan - RSL's Javier Morales blows a sizzling free kick past diving goalkeeper Joe Cannon from 25 yards out to salvage the tie.