Real Salt Lake’s week went from bad to worse.
After losing 3-1 in a US Open Cup semifinal — and the team’s best chance at hardware this season — at Sporting Kansas City on Wednesday, RSL’s playoff chances took a fatal blow on Saturday night with a 1-0 defeat at home at the hands of the Portland Timbers.
The result on Saturday sent Real sliding down the Western Conference standings again, with only the Colorado Rapids sitting below RSL in the table. Although the team has not been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention yet, Real would need to win out and hope for those sitting above them to have some spectacular collapses in order to realistically sneak into the playoff slots.
So what’s been going on with Jeff Cassar’s side? Many have cited the injuries, international call-ups, and the recently-completed travel odyssey that took the team all over the continent within a few short weeks.
But there’s clearly something else at work — the mental aspect of the game that’s been lacking for most of the season.
Whether it shows up in the form of missed goalscoring opportunities, conceding goals late in matches, poor giveaways, making runs too late, or red cards, RSL just hasn’t been all there at crucial moments this season. There’s a certain amount of mental discipline that’s been lacking.
This past week has pretty much run the gamut in terms of just flat-out blowing it. In RSL’s midweek US Open Cup defeat at Sporting Kansas City, it was the defense that collapsed. Against Portland, RSL controlled the first half but couldn’t put any of the myriad chances created away. That would come back to haunt the team later on, as Real conceded a late goal, as in so many matches this season.
Although there have been some bright spots — Luis Silva looked good on the wing starting against Portland, Nick Rimando continues to pull saves out of nowhere, and Jamison Olave finally returned to action — they’ve been completely overshadowed by the individual mistakes made from front to back.
In his post-match press conference on Saturday, Cassar talked a lot about confidence and his players’ lack of it at the moment:
Building confidence – we’ve had some tough results. Everybody’s confidence is just a hair off, so as a staff we’re going to try to build their confidence and continue to keep working.
To a certain extent, that’s true — Aaron Maund, for example, looked like he’d lost his confidence on Saturday — but it can’t explain everything. Real has been a largely inconsistent and undisciplined side all season long, from the home draw against Philadelphia in March to the loss on Saturday to Portland.
Is it an issue with the relatively inexperienced coaching staff? Complacency among a core of players that may not face enough challenges for starting spots? Physical issues or constant tiredness?
Without being in the locker room, who knows. But the growing disquiet among the fans and RSL’s diminishing reputation in the league ought to be cause for concern for the organization to address in an off-season that looks like it will be starting sooner than anyone had hoped for in 2015.
