Real Salt Lake: To win playoff series, all RSL has to do is not lose

Real Salt Lake knows exactly what it needs to do tonight — don't lose.

At all costs, whether it means playing aggressively from the get-go or playing defensively for 90 minutes and praying for a scoreless draw, the plan for RSL is pretty simple this weekend.

With a precarious one-goal cushion heading into the second game of its home-and-home, total goals playoff series at Chivas USA, RSL knows either a win or a tie are good enough to send the club to the Western Conference finals. After that, the MLS Cup is within realistic reach.

"I don't think we're talking much about preserving the lead or protecting anything. I think we're looking at this as a separate game which we want to win," said RSL coach Jason Kreis. "That's really been our mentality all year long."

Duplicating the mentality from its Game 1 win would be ideal for RSL, but that's going to be a tough task for tonight's 8:30 p.m. (MST) kickoff, a match being broadcast on Fox Soccer Channel. In the past six years, the lower seed in the first round has held a one-goal lead heading into the second game eight times — and managed to protect it just three times.

The situation shouldn't be that daunting for the visitors. Not only did RSL prevail at the Home Depot Center earlier this year for one of only two road wins this season, the situation is almost identical to what it faced two weeks ago in Colorado.

In that regular-season finale, RSL only needed a tie to secure the franchise's first, long-awaited playoff berth, but it played very poorly and was fortunate to get a 90th-minute equalizer.

"We went into that game against Colorado knowing we needed to start well and we didn't. They put us under pressure from the first minute. It's going to help us being in that situation before against Colorado. We know how not to do it, because it didn't go well for us," said Joy, who admitted the team got lucky in the end of that game despite an otherwise terrible performance.

Kreis said he didn't instruct his players to come out so defensively against Colorado, it's just the way the game unfolded. He hopes those same players recognize the importance of not duplicating that defense-first mentality again tonight.

The key, according to Kreis and several of his players, will be to put Chivas under pressure whenever it has the ball. It can't allow the Goats' talented midfielders to have too much time and space on the ball, otherwise a Colorado repeat performance might be inevitable.