Real Salt Lake: Real reserves cruise to win

PARK CITY — Since the MLS Reserve Division was created four years ago, teams throughout the league have adopted differing approaches to the reserve games.

Real Salt Lake assistant coach Brian Johnson said there's a fine line between trying to develop players and winning reserve games. With that said, Johnson said RSL's approach is pretty simple. The new coaching staff is trying to create a culture of winning throughout the organization.

"We want to win every game. Jason (Kreis) always says we're in the business of winning regardless of the game," said Johnson.

That attitude is why Real Salt Lake's reserves held nothing back against the shorthanded Galaxy reserves Sunday afternoon in Park City. Against a Galaxy team with four fill-in players from Southern California, RSL took it to L.A. from the opening whistle rolling to the 5-2 victory.

"We kind of knew the situation they were in with their lack of players," said Johnson. "They actually called in a ton of players and still didn't have any subs, so we knew it was important for us to really go at them."

It took just 35 seconds for the approach to pay off. After the Galaxy turned the ball over at midfield in the opening minute, rookie Tino Nunez one-timed the ball over the top of the defense to Yura Movsisyan who took one touch before burying the ball.

"That kind of sets the tone of the game and it kept going from there," said Johnson. "We were very pleased."

RSL doubled that advantage in the 24th minute on a Kevin Reiman strike from the edge of the penalty kick, and it proceeded to tack on two more goals via penalty kicks to open up the 4-0 halftime lead.

Matias Cordoba extended the lead to 3-0 with his 30th minute PK, and then Movsisyan added his penalty in the 44th minute.

Afterward, Johnson admitted both penalty kicks were a bit questionable. It was only fitting then that Los Angeles' first goal came via a questionable penalty kick in the opening five minutes of the second half. The Galaxy cut the lead to 4-2 in the 67th minute, but RSL's Adam Acosta responded in the 76th minute on an assist from Cordoba to wrap up the scoring.

Even though the win came against an inferior opponent, Johnson is confident it will help the club recover mentally from Saturday's 2-2 tie with the Galaxy.

"To not get the result you wanted on Saturday night, and to come out Sunday morning and get a result, you've got 11 or 15 happier players in the locker room because they had a good result on Sunday, so they're going to influence the other guys," said Johnson.

Two games into the 12-game Reserve Division season, RSL now owns a 1-0-1 record. Its next reserve game is May 25 at FC Dallas.

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E-mail: jedward@desnews.com