Real Salt Lake: Road win, tie at Columbus would give club improbable run into MLS playoffs

November 3, 5:53 PMUtah Sports ExaminerBrian Shaw

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Real Salt Lake needs to stay focused if it has any chance of meeting the winner of Chicago-New England in the second round of the 2009 MLS Playoffs. (AP/Archive Photo)

True to form, Real Salt Lake decided to give its patient but increasingly weary fans--as evidenced by the ghost of a crowd on Halloween afternoon at Rio Tinto Stadium--heart palpitations by winning late and taking a 1-0 advantage to Columbus on Thursday.

Never mind the fact RSL slayed the Crew 3-1 the last time the two teams played at Rio Tinto; this version was all about waiting until the last minute, when Yura Movsisyan--not the most favored in the club and headed soon to Europe--slipped a pass through to Robbie Findley, who curled a slow toe-roller past the Crew keeper into the side netting in the dying minutes.

You could hear a shriek coming from somewhere, and it wasn’t necessarily the 11,499 who were there cheering. Perhaps it was the ghosts of seasons past in the thousands of empty seats that filled the 20,000-capacity stadium.

Or perhaps it was the fact that tying, let alone winning its game at Columbus on Thursday is something that only two teams (RSL was not one) have managed. The good news for RSL is that four teams have tied against the Crew, so at least the odds are double for that to happen.

The bad news is RSL has only won twice away from home and have tied just the same. So, a rare run of form will be necessary for RSL to have another Eastern Conference run against either New England or Chicago (no New York Red Bulls this time around).

Never mind the fact RSL is 2,000 miles west of their Eastern Conference foes and is actually west of Denver, another Western Conference foe, because you can throw away all the geography in Major League Soccer, apparently.

Realistically, it will take “mental toughness“, according to what RSL GM Garth Lagerwey told the Deseret News.

Taking it at least 10 steps further, it will take the performance of a lifetime against the reigning MLS Cup champion in a hostile environment where virtually nobody in their right mind thinks Real Salt Lake stands a chance of winning.

In sum, it’s exactly the kind of moment RSL needs to make another Eastern Conference run and surprise everyone. It’s the stuff that dreams and movies of the week are made of.