Dreadful away from home in 2018, RSL’s latest shot at getting its road groove back is at bottom-dweller San Jose

He’s only been in the league a little over a year, but already Albert Rusnák knows that standings don’t mean all that much when you’re the team boarding a flight to somewhere to try to tip the scales in your favor and get a result on the road in Major League Soccer.

“This league,” he said this week, “is a little bit crazy.”

The Real Salt Lake midfielder voiced what many players in the league would: If you’re on the road facing the top team in MLS or the bottom one — as RSL is Saturday night at San Jose — you’re the automatic underdog. For RSL especially, the road has been a continued bugaboo in 2018.

The club, stocked with young talent much more comfortable under the lights at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, has not played well when RSL steps on a plane for an away match. Lining up against the league-worst Earthquakes on Saturday — a team that has just 12 points in 20 matches and one win at home in nine attempts — winning should seem doable for RSL.

It has been anything but, though.

RSL is 1-8-1 in 10 away matches this year, and the club’s road form has really hampered its ability to climb higher in the Western Conference standings. A win or a couple draws here or there and RSL is a bit more comfortable heading into the dog days of summer. Something eventually has to give, right?

Fans thought it was RSL’s 1-0 win at Seattle in late May, a potential building block to storm through the summer with its usual home-heavy schedule on tap. Instead, RSL has lost three straight on the road.

“We will try, 100 percent,” midfielder Damir Kreilach said. “Unfortunately we haven’t had like 20,000 fans behind us [on the road]. We have to be more concentrated.”

Especially in the wake of coughing up what will be two crucial points later on in the season as RSL allowed bottom-dweller Colorado to come back from a two-goal deficit last weekend at Rio Tinto Stadium to steal a draw in Sandy. San Jose is coming off a more disappointing home result on Wednesday, falling to the Sounders, 1-0.

The only home game the Quakes have won this year? The season-opener against Minnesota United on March 3. So yeah, if RSL was to stumble upon a match in which it can get its groove back on the road, this one is undoubtedly it. San Jose came to Rio Tinto Stadium last month, and like the Rapids, stole a point from RSL, too.

“We look at it is maybe we lost two points here at home and so we know we’ve got to make it up,” acting bench coach Freddy Juarez said. “Not only is it that, it’s a chance to win the series, it’s a chance to stay above the playoff line. There’s a lot of motivation.”