This pic sums up the night at Rio Tinto Stadium (realsaltlake.com)
So as someone who is both an RSL fan and someone who at least tries to be a fairly unbiased blogger about the beautiful game, I've been doing a lot of thinking in the last 24 hours about what I was going to say in this space. Last night when I left Rio Tinto Stadium, cold and absolutely soaked to the bone, I was struggling with another feeling that I'm not all that used to when departing an RSL match: disappointment, bitter disappointment.
I've felt it before of course. This campaign has had it's share of ups and downs. The farce of a match that was the US Open Cup loss to Minnesota was absolutely horrid. Of course many of us, including myself, think back to the Ultimate Disappointment: dropping the CONCACAF Champions League final second leg to Monterrey at home in April 2011. That memory, that bad taste in my mouth, will never quite go away. I'm sure it's even worse for the players that participated.
Now obviously last night was not a disappointment of that magnitude, for me anyway. A lot of MLS pundits were throwing that around last night and this morning, but trust me, it's different. Certainly reaching the CCL knock out round was one of the team's goals this year, but failing that is a whole different world from being that close to a major trophy and not touching it, to be that close to going to the FIFA Club World Cup and maybe a match against a club like Barcelona or Chelsea.
So what happened? What were the fatal flaws for the Claret and Cobalt this time around? I have a couple of ideas. It's really tempting for me to overly critical, still just 24 hours after the final whistle. However, for the most part I'm going to try and take a bit of a high road, highlighting some general trends instead of picking apart individual performances. Heaven knows there were a couple of performances that need to be picked apart, but anyone with more than a remote interest in and knowledge of RSL can easily pick them out.
First off, this team is absolutely toothless without Alvaro Saborio. I highlighted this several weeks ago, and then Fabian Espindola and Javier Morales picked up a couple of goals and the thought faded a bit. Well guess what? RSL scored zero goals at Seattle up a man, and zero goals against Herediano on their home turf. Let's face it, the Herediano 'keeper made some really nice saves, but it really wasn't that close.
This has to be addressed. The book on stopping RSL in the playoffs is now wide open and obvious. Stop Saborio and you stop RSL. As close to Superman as Sabo sometimes seems, he'll have a tough time cutting through MLS's better defenses if we have no other viable scoring threat. This brings up a question. Why are we bothering to pay Justin Braun? I get it. He doesn't have the system down. Coach Kreis says he needs to be more consistent in training. Couldn't these things have been known earlier in the season when we acquired him, theoretically adding depth to our forward corps? Braun is not Sabo, not anywhere close, but as our guys sent desperate cross after desperate cross into the box late last night, it was obvious that we were missing the target man. One would think after a few years in MLS a player like Braun would at least be able to fill that roll in a rudimentary fashion.
Secondly, the team lacks the depth it had in the 2010-2011 CCL run. That was obvious last night when Kreis's hand was forced on two of the three subs. While I think Sebastian Velasquez might indeed have a promising future with RSL, the spot was too big last night, and at any rate, he wasn't the type of player we needed. As for the forwards, Espindola and Paulo Jr are too similar, especially considering the park the bus strategy that Herediano wisely employed during the second half. Neither of those speedsters were going to get in the box and mix it up with the white shirts. Espindola did try, and got clocked when going in for the attempt. He took an NFL sized hit going for a header late in the match. Can't fault him for trying, but it's not his game. I'm sorry, Emiliano Bonfigli isn't the answer either.
This lack of depth first reared it's ugly head during the aforementioned US Open Cup match, when RSL was missing a number of guys to international duty. The thrashing they took was ugly, and sparked some changes. Braun was added. Kwame Watson-Siriboe was added. Kenny Mansally was added. I've discussed Braun, and obviously Watson-Siriboe was a great catch and helped save this team's bacon as Olave and Schuler were both injured. Mansally took a nasty injury against Tauro FC, but has looked pretty impressive when he's had the minutes.
The midfield depth is there, but is young, albeit capable, I think. The concern is forward. RSL needs another target man to back up Sabo. The problem they now have is, how do you go out and get him without the extra allocation money?
Finally, I think one of the biggest things working against RSL this time were the high expectations. High expectations are great, and they deserved to be high. RSL has remained focused on this tournament since losing the 2011 final. Since they had success before and had the veteran class to get it done, it was natural that the team, the fans, and the league expected RSL to excel this time around as well. It just wasn't to be, but those high expectations, perhaps too high for a team a bit long in the tooth, leave bitter disappointment in their wake, as opposed to the "we were just happy to be here" feeling that so many sports teams delude themselves with.
In the end, you can't fault the effort of the players on the pitch. There was not once in 90 minutes last night that I questioned whether our guys were giving 100%. They knew what they had to do, and just couldn't do it. Some credit has to go to Herediano as well. That team was not messing around. They were a very capable club both on offense and defense. Unfortuantely they did result to the typical CONCACAF tactics of diving and delaying late on, but by that point RSL was doing nothing but scrambling.
As my friend and I turned onto the street where I live, about an hour north of Rio Tinto Stadium, I remarked that it was still possible to smile, that after all, it wasn't 2011. That seems like it might be a weird spot for a supporter's recovery to begin, but I realized something: to really grasp the excitement of the highs, they have to be contrasted with the horrible disappointment of the lows. The peak RSL climbed in 2011 was huge, and they so nearly stood on the summit and took all of us with them. They fell a few steps short, but we were still proud. This year, they didn't get as far up the mountain, but it wasn't for lack of effort. This time they took us along as well, and in the end we are still proud. You'll never make the summit without taking the climb, and there will be more summits ahead for RSL and her proud fans.
