Real Salt Lake has a score to settle with Columbus Crew

SANDY — Real Salt Lake's players haven't forgotten what Columbus Crew goalkeeper William Hesmer said about them after the Crew beat RSL 1-0 back near the start of the season.

RSL coach Jason Kreis won't let them.

Going into his team's second regular-season meeting with Columbus — a huge showdown that will take place at 7 tonight inside Rio Tinto Stadium — Kreis has had Hesmer's quote tacked up on the wall so that his guys will remember exactly what Hesmer thought of the 2009 MLS Cup champs.

"They're walking around as a champion, saying they're the champion," Hesmer told The Columbus Dispatch after his team beat RSL earlier this year in what was a rematch of a first-round MLS Cup playoff series in 2009. "They were sub-.500 last year. That doesn't sit well with us. We clearly think we've been the class of the league the past two years, and we wanted to prove it."

Clearly, none of that has sat too well with RSL, which was certainly the better team in a home-and-away playoff series with Columbus last fall and has since gone on to compete with the Crew and the L.A. Galaxy for the Supporters' Shield, awarded to the team with the best regular-season record, this year.

Not that Kreis or RSL will be underestimating Columbus, the winner of the past two Supporters' Shields, tonight.

"It's been the class of the league for the past couple years, as they'll readily tell you, so we are looking at a great challenge," said Kreis.

It wouldn't be hyperbole to suggest that tonight's showdown is one of the biggest matches of the season for RSL, but then again, such matches are coming thick and fast for the club these days.

After tonight's matchup, Salt Lake will host Arabe Unido of Panama in its opening game of the CONCACAF Champions League this coming Wednesday, with more big matches to follow throughout the month of September.

But RSL has had this one circled for a while.

Kreis said his club has made preparations over the past week or so in hopes of being fresh tonight. Kreis rested several of his regulars — Nick Rimando, Jamison Olave, Robbie Russell and Ned Grabavoy were rested completely, and Will Johnson and Robbie Findley came off the bench — during RSL's 1-1 draw at Philadelphia on Wednesday to be preserved for Columbus.