Real Salt Lake: New era begins today

SANDY — The day that many predicted would never come has come for Real Salt Lake.

The fourth-year Major League Soccer club finally has a home, and it'll officially introduce its state-of-the-art digs to 20,000 eager fans and a national television audience this evening.

New York will be RSL's first opponent when Rio Tinto Stadium comes to life tonight, and a new era for Real Salt Lake will begin when those two teams collide at 8 p.m. on ESPN2.

RSL needs to win tonight's hugely important match to inch closer to clinching a playoff spot for the first time in its history. So while tonight will officially end years of speculation and debate over whether a soccer-specific stadium would rise here, the focus for coach Jason Kreis and Co. has been all about making sure they get three points.

"This is our home, our new home," said Kreis, gazing out at the pitch inside Rio Tinto Stadium. "The surface is different, but the dimensions are the same and it's still soccer. We've got to pick up three points — no doubt about it. We've got to win our games at home."

Near the end of this or any MLS season, Kreis pointed out that every team is hoping for two things — to have clinched a playoff spot and to be playing good soccer.

Heading into this all-important day for Real Salt Lake, the club hasn't yet clinched a playoff spot — RSL currently leads Colorado and FC Dallas for the Western Conference's final automatic spot by one point with three games to go — but is playing good soccer.

To go from 1 of 2 to 2 of 2 on Kreis' end-of-season checklist, the RSL coach said his guys simply need to continue to eliminate defensive errors and to continue to play the excellent soccer that enabled them to win four points from their two previous road games.

"If we can just continue to focus on cancelling out some of the defensive mistakes we've made, we're gonna be just fine," said Kreis. "I think (tonight) could be the night we do that, and if we do that, I think we're just gonna rip-roar into this thing, into the playoffs."

To accomplish that and send an expected sellout crowd of 20,000 home happy, RSL must find a way to get a win over the only MLS franchise it has never beaten.

RSL is 0-2-5 all-time against New York, with the Red Bulls coming from behind to win 2-1 when the teams last met a month ago.

That omen might not be a good one for Salt Lake, but on the other hand, New York has struggled mightily on the road — much like RSL had until its recent breakthroughs — winning just once away from home in 2008.

Not that coach Jason Kreis or his players will put much stock into that fact.

"We know what it's like to struggle on the road a little bit, but at this point in the year when you know it's do-or-die time, that's when all that stuff goes out the window," said RSL midfielder Will Johnson. "We haven't thought about (New York's road struggles) at all. I expect them to come in here confident and try to get the result."

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