Real Salt Lake gets a little unlucky to draw with Toronto

TORONTO — After Wednesday's meltdown in Mexico, Real Salt Lake dominated Toronto FC at BMO Field Saturday night.

The scoreline didn't show it, though.

Toronto FC keeper Stefan Frei made several acrobatic saves and the goalpost kept out second-half efforts from Chris Wingert and Will Johnson, as the two teams played to a 0-0 draw.

Despite the fact that Real Salt Lake had the better scoring opportunities, captain Kyle Beckerman said the team wasn't disappointed with the result.

"We got real close (to scoring)," he said. "It was just a hard-fought game. Toronto is fighting for their playoff lives. They had a couple of half-chances, so I thought it was a fair result."

Wingert could have won the game in the second half. Taking the ball on the left side of Toronto's penalty area, he faked a cross, got defender Dan Gargan to leave his feet, and then dashed around him. The move gave Wingert a clear shot on goal, and he crashed his effort off the near post.

With two minutes left, Johnson beat Frei with a low drive but had his effort go off the woodwork.

Real Salt Lake started as strong a lineup as it could in front of 21,047 fans at BMO Field after Wednesday's 5-4 loss against Mexican giants Cruz Azul. Because of the way RSL lost that game in Mexico, watching a 3-1 lead after 75 minutes transform into a 5-4 loss, coach Jason Kreis felt that he needed to get the majority of those players back into the starting lineup, so they could quickly get rid of the sour taste in their mouths. In his mind, they needed game action, not rest.

"We felt like we needed to respond," said Kreis.

Only two regulars were held out of the starting lineup; Will Johnson, who remained in Toronto after the game to join the Canadian national team as it prepares to face Peru next weekend, and defender Robbie Russell. Johnson came in after 60 minutes.

"I always enjoy coming back to Canada and playing in these games," said Johnson.

Meanwhile, Toronto FC played a team filled with reserves for its midweek CCL game against Arabe Unido in Panama. Coach Preki chose to rest the majority of his starters, to have them ready for RSL.

But it was Real Salt Lake that looked like the fresher team.