Real Salt Lake draws winning ticket

CARSON, Calif. — The team that used to be the laughing stock of Major League Soccer is now two wins away from a championship.

Needing only a draw to advance to the conference final, Real Salt Lake battled for 90 minutes Saturday night in front of 19,265 rowdy fans in the building that's been a virtual nightmare since the franchise's inception and earned that all-important 2-2 tie.

It advances out of the two-game first-round series 3-2 on aggregate.

"It's unbelievable, the fight we put in tonight," said Real Salt Lake midfielder Kyle Beckerman. "It was a team effort. I think we deserved it."

With its victory on Saturday, RSL must now wait until this afternoon to learn its fate in the Western Conference final. Third seed RSL will definitely meet the winner of the other West first round match-up, which concludes today at 1 p.m. when New York (West No. 4 seed as wildcard) visits Houston (West No. 1 seed).

If Houston wins, RSL will be packing its bags for Texas. If New York pulls off the big upset, however, RSL would host the conference final at Rio Tinto Stadium on Saturday.

The Houston-New York match will be televised on Telefutura.

"We kept believing we were going to win the game. We were the better team. They weren't in our class, in our level, and it's as simple as that," said Beckerman. "We matched their intensity and the better team's going to win."

In many ways Saturday's match was like RSL's final match of the regular season — it only needed a draw to secure the result it was looking for. On both occasions the club failed to hold the lead.

It took Chivas USA just a half hour to get the all-important equalizer in Game 2. With RSL on its back heels after Jamison Olave had to step off the field with a foot injury, Chivas forced Nick Rimando into a pair of fantastic saves. His second save led to a corner kick.

With Olave back on the field, RSL was unable to clear the corner completely out of harm's way, and Ante Razov earned a penalty kick after being fouled just at the edge of the right penalty area by Javier Morales. Sacha Kljestan buried the penalty kick for the 1-0 lead.

Unlike the Colorado match, Real Salt Lake didn't wait until the 90th minute for its tying goal. It promised to play attacking soccer all match regardless of the scenario, and it did just that.