Real Salt Lake’s quest for a Major League Soccer playoff spot will come down to its final regular-season game, after RSL lost to the host Seattle Sounders 1-0 on Saturday night.
Seattle’s Paul Rothrock scored in the fourth minute with assists from Pedro de la Vega and Jordan Morris, and Seattle goalkeeper Stefan Frei made five saves to earn the shutout.
Real Salt Lake (12-17-4, 40 points) sits in ninth place in the Western Conference — in wild-card position — and will visit St. Louis next Saturday. A victory for RSL would would clinch a fifth straight postseason berth.
But the 10th-place Colorado Rapids (11-15-7, 40 points) and 11th-place San Jose Earthquakes (10-15-8, 38 points) are both within striking distance of RSL. At this point, RSL holds a tiebreaker advantage over Colorado, with 12 wins to the Rapids’ 11.
Colorado will host LAFC next Saturday, and San Jose will host Austin FC.
After Seattle’s fast start on Saturday night, RSL goalkeeper Rafael Cabral stopped Morris’ penalty kick in the 14th minute to keep the game close, but RSL could not score and had its two-game win streak snapped.
RSL and Seattle each had 14 shots in the game, while RSL had a 5-2 advantage in shots on goal.