Real S.L. now training in Utah

PROVO — After five weeks of training camp in Florida that saw Real Salt Lake whittle its roster from 39 hopeful players to 29, the team is back in town this week for a handful of training sessions.

Salt Lake is scheduled to practice at BYU's Haws Field throughout the week, even though 18 of the players will be leaving Thursday for an exhibition game in Louisiana against the Columbus Crew this Saturday.

In the past five weeks, RSL has played 10 exhibition games, and compiled an impressive 7-1-2 record. Saturday's game in Louisiana will be the first opportunity for coach John Ellinger to see RSL's full complement of players together for the first time.

Not only will Chris Klein and Eddie Pope be available after spending all of February with the U.S. National Team, but doctors have cleared Jason Kreis to play 45 minutes as well.

"He'll definitely go 45," said Ellinger. "It's Louisiana, it's where he's from. I may as well start him."

Aside from goalkeeper Scott Garlick, who is still a little bothered by some back spasms, Ellinger may end up starting the 11 players against the Crew who will start in the season-opener at Chivas USA on April 2.

Even though there's still four more weeks of training camp remaining, Ellinger acknowledged Monday that his ideal back four at this point are Daniel Torres, Eddie Pope, Carey Talley and Chris Brown.

In the middle, he's leaning toward Douglas Sequeira at holding mid, Andy Williams at attacking mid, Chris Klein wide right and rookie Mehdi Ballouchy wide left.

Even though Ballouchy, the No. 2 overall pick in the January draft, never played left midfield in college, Ellinger said, "Mehdi's all over the place anyway. The only thing about playing wide is you have to be a little more disciplined."

Seth Trembly would've been the likely starter, but he'll be out at least six months after tearing his ACL in an exhibition game against Danish club Viborg two weeks ago.

If Kreis is fit enough to play on opening day, he'll be the likely starter along with Jeff Cunningham.

At this point, Ellinger is pretty committed to the 4-4-2 formation.

"We've played one half of one of our games in a 3-5-2, but for the most part we've stayed with the 4-4-2," said Ellinger. "It seems to be working fairly well for us. Defensively our shape has been pretty good, and our goals-against has been pretty good. It kind of suits our team."