Real Salt Lake hopes home will provide cure

SANDY — Seventh place in the Western Conference is not where Real Salt Lake expected to be at this point in the season.

Even with a brutal schedule that included four of five games on the road to open the season, the defending MLS Cup champions were confident they could pick up points nonetheless. It didn't work out that way, though, and now RSL has some catching up to do.

A lengthy home stand couldn't have come at a better time.

The league's best home team in 2009, Real Salt Lake hopes to turn things around when it hosts Toronto FC tonight at 7 p.m. at Rio Tinto Stadium.

"It's a good game for us to get back on track and get our fans believing we're still the same team," said RSL captain Kyle Beckerman.

Through five games, Real Salt Lake (1-3-1) only has four points and already trails West-leading Los Angeles by nine points. With seven of its next nine games at home, however, the next two months are the perfect time for RSL to make a move and become relevant in the standings again.

Coach Jason Kreis doesn't want his players to get too caught up in looking at the big picture.

"It would be an easy thing to look at the whole stretch and to talk about what a bad month it was last month for us and what a great month it could be for us this month," said Kreis. "But I don't want that to be the case at all. We have made it very clear to the players that we only want to be focused on this very first game against Toronto."

Toronto is a confident team right now, coming off a 2-0 win over Seattle last Sunday and a 2-0 win over first-division club Montreal in the first game of the Canadian Championships earlier this week. Both games were at BMO Field, however, where Toronto is very good.

South of the border, Toronto is traditionally one of the worst teams in MLS. It's 0-3 on the road already this year with a minus-seven goal differential. In its only visit to Utah last year, Toronto was soundly beaten by Real Salt Lake, 3-0.

Despite what seems like a mismatch, RSL can't afford to take anything for granted.

"We're really looking forward to this first game with Toronto. I don't think we want to look any further than that 'cause Toronto's a very good team. We know we have to get points against them," said defender Nat Borchers.