From Deseret News archives:
Real Salt Lake: Real's road woes continue in loss to Toronto
Fully expecting Toronto FC to come out aggressively in its home opener at sold-out BMO Field, RSL's coaching staff approached the game conservatively to weather the storm. It turned out to be totally unnecessary.
The home side didn't pressure the ball like the visitors expected, and by the time RSL made the appropriate adjustments at halftime it already trailed 1-0, and Toronto bunkered in nicely in the second half and made the result hold up.
"I fault myself completely for that. I was really expecting a little bit of a different response from Toronto, I thought they would be all over us, I thought they'd be high-pressing us and they weren't," said Kreis, whose team fell to 1-2-1 on the season with the loss.
By sitting back and absorbing the pressure that wasn't there, Kreis said, "I think we created our own pressure by sitting back, we allowed them to come at us and be in our half for long stretches of time."
RSL adjusted its approach at halftime and dominated possession outshooting Toronto FC 8-4 in the second half, but its cautious approach shortened the game from a 90-minute level playing field to a 45-minute uphill climb. The scenario could've been different had Real Salt Lake played better despite the conservative opening half, but it was a half it never threatened to score.
Asked whether he thought about making tactical changes to his team's low-pressure mentality earlier in the game, Kreis said he didn't think about it until halftime.
By that time RSL trailed 1-0 thanks to a deflected free kick by Toronto's Laurent Robert in the 31st minute. Following a foul at the top of the box by Matias Mantilla, Robert lined up his free kick with an eight-man RSL wall standing between him and the goal. Robert hammered the low-driven shot into the wall, which took a deflection off Ian Joy's leg and rolled harmlessly past Real keeper Nick Rimando, who was diving the other way.
"It's one of those bad bounces I guess," said Rimando.
Toronto had two excellent opportunities to double its lead late in the first half, but the first was thwarted by defender Chris Wingert on a counter-attack run by Rohan Ricketts in the 36th minute. Just before halftime Rimando made a diving save on a Marvell Wynne shot about 12 yards out.
Even though it doesn't reflect on the scoreboard, the second half was an entirely different story.
"Jason (Kreis) turned things around and told us to go at them, and you could tell what happened, we had our chances and we didn't put any away," said Rimando.
