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Sandy • When the Portland Timbers visited Rio Tinto Stadium last October, their victory basically destroyed Real Salt Lake's playoff hopes and punctuated a discouraging season for the home team.
Another win for Portland in this venue would have been less damaging, but more surprising and just as disappointing in its own way for RSL. That's why Yura Movsisyan's penalty kick in the 70th minute meant so much to Real, salvaging a 2-2 tie Saturday night.
RSL's first Major League Soccer home game in seven weeks was an opportunity to validate the team's strong start, with the MLS Cup's defending champions looking vulnerable. But when the Timbers exploited RSL's mistakes with two first-half goals and led deep into the second half, the home team's performance was threatening to undo a lot of the good things RSL had done in its first 13 games.
"They scored two goals and could have scored a couple more," said RSL's Javier Morales.
Movsisyan's tying goal was just enough to compensate for the sloppiness. He almost added a game-winner four minutes later, but Portland goalkeeper Jake Gleeson made a clutch save. Anyway, that's getting greedy from an RSL perspective.
"Probably, a tie was the right score," said RSL coach Jeff Cassar, who was compelled to deliver "another spirited halftime talk" just to get that result.
The Timbers, meanwhile, thought they "deserved better," said coach Caleb Porter, citing a late goal disallowed by an offside call.
RSL's schedule, skewed by the team's absence of more than a month while a new grass field was being installed, has made every home game a convenient checkpoint. That was especially true of the Timbers' appearance, with former RSL stalwarts Nat Borchers and Ned Grabavoy part of Portland's core.
Borchers, one of Real's all-time favorite players as a steady defender, is unbeaten in five meetings with his former team — including two victories at Rio Tinto, with one of them created by his rare goal last August. A third win for Borchers would have been tough for RSL to take.
Coming into Saturday's play, the Western Conference standings seemingly were upside down — with Colorado at the top and Portland, Seattle and Sporting Kansas City below the playoff cut as the halfway point of the season approached.
RSL remains third, representing an achievement for a team that played nine of its first 13 games away from Rio Tinto. Real pretty much had done all it could with that early schedule, taking four home victories and then winning two of five games during the extended road stretch.
Portland's visit launched RSL's run of six of eight league games at home in what's becoming a busy summer of soccer for Real fans. Yet that schedule is truly favorable only if the home team follows through on this opportunity. RSL was 5-1-2 as of an April 30 victory over Houston in its last MLS home game prior to Saturday and is 7-4-3 now.
Real still has played fewer games than most teams in the West. So even though he standings are gradually tightening, this tie was not harmful.
Saturday's game started promisingly for RSL, with Joao Plata repeatedly applying pressure and forcing Borchers to make some nice defensive plays to prevent shots on goal. And when Burrito Martinez's header turned Javier Morales' perfect corner kick into a goal in the 17th minute, RSL appeared on its way to a fifth straight home win.
By halftime, though, Portland (5-6-5) had surged ahead. The Timbers converted a turnover into Fanendo Adi's goal, then Lucas Melano's rebound follow of a shot that hit the goalpost gave Portland the lead.
RSL goalkeeper Nick Rimando was disgusted with the turnaround, and there was enough blame of RSL's players to go around after those breakdowns. The defense responded well in the second half, making a tie possible — and reasonably acceptable, even at home.
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