Real Salt Lake: Kreis shoulders blame

Real Salt Lake coach Jason Kreis brought the heat upon himself last weekend when he second-guessed his tactical choices of a 1-0 loss at Toronto FC. He expected a much different approach from Toronto and therefore RSL came out in a cautious, defensive shell and eventually lost 1-0.

Why was the approach to weather the storm in the first place? Not only was RSL confident coming off a four-goal win in Salt Lake City the week before, but its opponent was hardly intimidating after a disappointing 2007 expansion season.

It's all about mentality.

There used to be a time in soccer when teams were awarded only two points for a victory and one for a draw, giving credence to the adage that ties are good for visiting teams. In the mid-'90s FIFA upped the incentive to go for victories by making them worth three points. The value of ties plummeted, but for whatever reason visiting teams still come out conservative, playing not to lose instead of to win.

Kreis says he doesn't really like the cautious mentality and believes you should go into every match to win. For whatever reason though, there's a prevailing attitude that you play for the win at home and a tie on the road.

"There are still some psychological issues, it's still there in all the players' minds that a successful outing on the road is a draw," said Kreis.

Simple mathematics proves that the occasional tie, like the one Chicago earned at Rice-Eccles Stadium in the waning minutes on opening day, can still be good. However, making a living on stalemates will get you nowhere.

Over the course of a 30-game Major League Soccer season, if a team finished the year undefeated with 30 ties it would end with 30 points in the standings and might finish with the worst record in the league.

Conversely, a team with 15 wins and 15 losses would finish with 45 points and make the playoffs quite easily.

So why would a coach who says he doesn't like to play for draws instruct his players to play so conservatively in the first half against Toronto?

Kreis believes it's still a necessity to be cautious sometimes.

"We have to figure out how to play that way as well, we won't be able to go play high pressure everywhere we go for 90 minutes, you just can't do it, physiologically it's impossible," said Kreis. "So we've got to figure out how to sit back and be very difficult to play against, and how are we going to attack out of that."

This Saturday against a fired-up D.C. United team which it beat 4-0 two weeks ago, don't be surprised if RSL comes out with a similar weather-the-storm mentality.

At the end of the day, it might not be a bad idea. D.C. United is definitely a better team than Toronto and it will most definitely come out and play high pressure from the opening whistle. The question is, will Kreis and the coaching staff counter that with its own form of high pressure, or instead sit on its heels and hope for counterattacks for 90 minutes?

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E-mail: jedward@desnews.com

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