Real Salt Lake is firmly in the throes of Summer Fixture Congestion, that terrible malady affecting MLS teams once the weather gets warm and games of every type imaginable appear on the calendar.
By virtue of that ailment and actually caring about the US Open Cup, RSL faced a dilemma this week. With three matches in less than a week — league matches at home against the Red Bulls last Wednesday and away at Dallas on Saturday, followed by a home Open Cup tie with Seattle this Tuesday — how much playing time should the starters get?
Jeff Cassar and his staff clearly prioritized the home matches, fielding the first team against New York last Wednesday. A relatively young, inexperienced roster peppered with a few veterans took the field in Dallas, with some of the usual starters staying in Salt Lake instead of making the trip.
Presumably, the coaches took the view that, given the heat, the travel, and Real’s overall record in the state of Texas, Saturday’s match presented the least risk to experimenting with lineups. A home loss on Wednesday would have been damaging to RSL’s playoff chances, especially after dropping points at home against Portland the weekend before, and committing to the Open Cup meant that Cassar would want his first team rested and fit for Tuesday. In other words, Real took a calculated risk on form at home.
The Red Bulls apparently took a similar approach to its game in Salt Lake as Real would take against Dallas, looking at a particular road match as an “opportunity” to rotate the lineup and give some starters a rest. Jesse Marsch left a number of starters on the bench, including Bradley Wright-Phillips, Dax McCarty, Mike Grella, and Sacha Kljestan.
However, in actual match action, things didn’t quite play out the way one might have expected. RSL’s first team turned in a sluggish performance for the first 60 minutes against New York on Wednesday, forcing another come-from-behind situation and just scratching out a win on Jordan Allen’s deflected shot late in the match.
The Red Bulls’ reserves acquitted themselves well, scoring in the 7th minute and restricting Real to just two shots in the first half. The altitude and heat combined to make the second half more difficult for them, but they might have walked out of Rio Tinto Stadium with a point were it not for a deflection.
Meanwhile, the young RSL group that played in Dallas may have lost by two goals, but they also showed glimpses of their potential. Most of them looked at least looked energetic at the start of the match, unlike the first team in recent matches. They also managed to inject some welcome unpredictability into Real’s passing and ball movement.
Unfortunately, RSL got caught sleeping on a quick restart, with the veterans being equally guilty for Dallas’ first goal, and then simply got beat by a quick, effective FCD attack on the second.
Cassar and general manager Craig Waibel have talked about the importance of the Open Cup to the club’s long-term goals, as they view the competition as the most straightforward way into the CONCACAF Champions League. However, RSL’s history in the Open Cup has been somewhat checkered — the team has lost to lower-level teams on multiple occasions, dropped its only appearance in a final to a DC side that finished at the bottom of the league that year, and fell to its nemesis Sporting Kansas City in the semifinals last year.
Was the move to sacrifice the Dallas match for an Open Cup victory the right one? Nobody will know until Tuesday night, but Real will certainly be hoping to extend the complications of Summer Fixture Congestion into the next stage of the tournament.
