Real Salt Lake misses berth in U.S. Open Cup

WASHINGTON — On the road, in the heat and with four missing regulars, Wednesday night's U.S. Open Cup qualifier against D.C. United was always going to be a tough task for Real Salt Lake.

RSL fought through the adversity admirably, but in the end actually made a tough situation worse.

With an approach primarily geared toward stealing a late victory at RFK Stadium, RSL failed to finish a winner in regulation and ended up falling to D.C. United 2-1 after 30 extra minutes.

D.C. United substitute Andy Najar provided the winning goal with a fantastic individual effort in the 107th minute as he dribbled between Will Johnson and Tony Beltran and buried a low drive shot past keeper Kyle Reynish.

The victory officially qualified D.C. United for the 40-team Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, while RSL will once again be watching the rest of the tournament from home.

"I walk away from that very proud of what our players put into it, very proud of the effort they gave; there was never any die in our team," said RSL coach Jason Kreis.

These teams meet again on Saturday in a league match, a quick turnaround that definitely factored into Kreis' lineup decisions.

With RSL's numerous injuries and a very busy schedule later this summer, Kreis admits bowing out of the U.S. Open Cup isn't necessarily a bad thing in the long run. It's not what he wanted, though, by any means.

"Who knows, in the next round of games we could have everybody fresh and lots of players that need and want games. I'm never going to say it's a good situation (to lose)," said Kreis.

With only 17 healthy players to choose from, and the chance for a sixth straight league victory on Saturday, Kreis put a mix of regulars and reserves into his starting 11. Following 60 scoreless minutes with a handful decent chances by both teams, Kreis made three aggressive, attacking-oriented changes.

By inserting Javier Morales, Fabian Espindola and May's MLS Player of the Month Alvaro Saborio into the match, Kreis wanted to go after the victory.

"It's not fair to say that was the plan, but being the situation it was in the 60th minute, OK, we go forward with what we did," said Kreis.

In the end, it was D.C. United that struck first in the 73rd minute from the penalty spot.