Mulholland and company struggled to score against Vancouver
From a Real Salt Lake-centric perspective, there’s not much earth-shattering to say about Saturday night’s loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps. After all, when you end up with only nine men on the pitch at the end of the match…
Poorly executed tackles aside, this was the second consecutive game that RSL struggled to score against a well-organized opponent. While Javier Morales’ absence was clearly felt, Real did manage to generate a few opportunities. Alvaro Saborio found some space for himself in front of goal, for example, but the execution was lacking on that front as well.
Morales’ absence was also obvious when it came to set pieces. While RSL has been generally quite good with set pieces in 2015 with Morales taking many of them, corner kicks and free kicks weren’t particularly dangerous against the Whitecaps, either.
Real did start to generate some momentum in the second half, and Sebastian Saucedo showed some promise when he came on in the 64th minute. Even after Saucedo was sent off only a few minutes later, RSL was playing with more urgency and pressing more effectively.
Darren Mattocks’ game-winning goal wasn’t exactly a surprise, as Real was playing a man down at that point, but it came in the wake of an unexpected deflection and appeared to catch the defense off-guard.
One of the worst moments of the match came late, when Jamison Olave received a second yellow card and was sent off, leaving RSL with only nine men on the pitch. That effectively killed off any hopes of finding an equalizer, dooming Real to its first loss of the season.
The two red cards and their subsequent suspensions for next week dealt a huge blow to the team’s depth, which was already depleted from injury. Olave’s suspension means that Elias Vasquez is the only certainty at center back, as Chris Schuler was a late scratch after injuring his knee in warmups on Saturday. Schuler will undergo an MRI on Monday.
Saucedo’s suspension is less catastrophic for the team, but does affect depth. Jeff Cassar had few attacking options off the bench already, and combined with Jordan Allen’s call-up to the US U-20 side, may force Cassar to make some additional adjustments.
Altogether, Saturday was a night RSL would like to forget. However, with the consequences of two red cards to deal with, that will be difficult to do.
