In soccer, great teams find ways to win when the going gets tough. Real Salt Lake managed to do just that against the New York Red Bulls at Rio Tinto Stadium Saturday evening in front of a lively home crowd. The 3-0 victory for RSL was convincing and needed after a pair of disappointing results. RSL Head Coach Jason Kreis and his team weathered the storm, responded and got back on track.
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“I think that we finally got back to what we do well,” Kreis said after the match. “Individually, I think that a lot of the players took the message on board that we gave them yesterday about ‘why you are here.’ So many players on our team do certain things extremely well and need to stay within themselves when they are playing for us.”
The key for RSL’s victory was getting out to a fast start and not conceding the first goal. Defender Nat Borchers headed home a Kyle Beckerman corner in the 13th minute. Borchers worked hard, lost New York defender Tim Ream and scored the goal. Beckerman, who was recently called up to the U.S. Men’s National team had a fantastic game for RSL. The RSL captain would assist on Luis Gil’s goal, who at 17 years, 265 days of age, became the youngest player to score a regular season goal in team’s seven-season history.
“I thought, ‘I can’t let this one go,” Gil said. “Get it on target and we’ll see what happens,’ and I got the goal. It’s finally done.”
It was a night to remember for the youngster who made a difference for his side. The future looks bright for the second year midfielder.
“Anytime anyone scores their first goal for us we get a little bit emotional with the moment,” said Kreis. “Luis is a kid that has worked extremely hard for us for a year-and-a-half. He’s done a great job keeping his head down and not listening to other people around him telling him he should be playing all of the time.”
Álvaro Saborio’s second half penalty kick brought him even with fellow forward Fabian Espíndola for Real Salt Lake’s scoring lead, each striker now hitting the net six times in league play. Defensively, the team held New York in check. Nick Rimando kept a clean sheet, the 11th for RSL this season. Credit to the RSL back line as New York managed to place just one shot on goal in this match.
“After giving away two games like we did to Columbus at home and Kansas City away, I think we got our heads down a little bit,” Borchers said. “We knew we had to come out with some energy tonight and we really just wanted to improve from how we’ve been playing, which wasn’t hard to do with the way we played against Kansas City. I’m really happy with the result and the three points are so big at this point of the season.”
It is never an easy journey in Major League Soccer when playing on the road and now the RSL team will hit the road for three consecutive matches. In RSL’s case it is vital to keep the positive momentum going forward as the results must be attained.
(image courtesy of Melissa Majchrzak/Real Salt Lake)
