RSL has cause to enjoy victory

Although it is called a "friendly" when teams meet for a soccer game between two clubs from different leagues or even nations, as in Real Salt Lake against China, there were a couple of events during Thursday night's 1-0 win for RSL that were anything but.

The judgment of some fans caused quite a commotion that even interrupted play for a couple of minutes. The first disturbance came early in the game when a "defect here" sign — it was actually a queen-size bed sheet with a target painted on it — was displayed. But that jab was nothing compared to some of the behavior later.

In the second half, fans staged a mini-protest by waving the national flag from Tibet and getting chants going of "Free Tibet." It upset the Chinese players enough that they stopped play and refused to continue until the display was stopped. The flags were taken down — for the moment. Later, after Real had taken its 1-0 lead, the flags returned and ultimately the bearers had to be removed from the stadium.

While the fans were nearly causing an international incident, RSL had a few reasons to celebrate the victory. There were a couple of firsts for the club as coach Jason Kreis picked up his first win at the helm, and newly acquired forward Alecko Eskandarian scored his first goal with the team.

"This feels like my first win in six games," said Kreis. "But, it is not a league win. Not a league win yet."

Eskandarian's follow-up goal in the 80th minute was the lone tally in the game for the seasoned veteran, and his second on the season, with the first coming with Toronto before being traded to Salt Lake.

"I feel good for him because I know how that is," said Kreis of pressing to get a goal. "I know how it is to want to score so badly and I think he did. Now to get it tucked under his belt is a big thing for us confidence-wise."

The goal may have been a relief to Eskandarian, but he said it was not his priority.

"I am just focused on helping the team any way I can," he said. "Lately, I've been doing a lot of defending. That's been pretty much my priority even though I'm a forward; I've been trying to help defensively and get everything tight and organized and get our pressure right because if you don't give up a goal, your team's got a chance to win. That's where we needed the most help and that's what we've been doing. Now that we have the defense straight, we can work on the offense and be more dangerous and try and score goals."

The team plays next on Thursday when it hosts FC Dallas, returning to regular MLS play.

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E-mail: mblack@desnews.com