Real Salt Lake: RSL looks to dispel opener jinx

SEATTLE — Following last year's playoff ouster against New York, Real Salt Lake coach Jason Kreis criticized his opponent for playing a negative brand of soccer. The formula worked, though, as New York prevailed 1-0 to advance to the MLS Cup despite being outshot what seemed like 100-1.

In last weekend's opening weekend of the MLS season, the Red Bulls tried a similar tactic against Seattle, but it failed miserably. The expansion Sounders ran circles around the Red Bulls, who looked like a helpless amateur team. Now the Sounders are the toast of MLS.

Real Salt Lake is hoping to quell some of the hype.

"We feel like we're a better challenge and a bigger challenge for them, but we know it will be a tough game," said RSL midfielder Kyle Beckerman. "The crowd will be a factor. We'll just try and go in and play our style of soccer."

Indeed, the crowd should be a factor when RSL walks into Qwest Field tonight. A sellout crowd of over 25,000 fans is anticipated, and they'll definitely be expecting a victory after their team dismantled New York a week ago.

"It looked like an awesome atmosphere. To be honest, it looked like our first game of Rio Tinto Stadium where it was a sold-out house, a lot of excitement, very intelligent fans, so we'll definitely have a work cut out for us on Saturday," said defender Nat Borchers.

By the time RSL takes the field at 8:30 p.m. (MDT), most of the 14 other MLS teams will have already played two matches. While many consider it a disadvantage to start the season a week late, coach Jason Kreis likes it. Instead of going up against a mysterious Seattle team, now his players know exactly what to expect.

The Sounders proved themselves to be a very hard-working, organized team against New York, and that was without their best player. Swedish sensation Freddie Ljungberg was recovering from offseason hip surgery last weekend, but he's expected to play at least 30 minutes tonight in a substitute role.

RSL hopes Ljundberg isn't just stepping on the field to ice a victory.

Seattle scored a pair of soft goals in the opening 25 minutes last week and, during the final 70 minutes, New York played like a team resigned to its fate.

"We want to go there and be the better team in the first 15 (minutes) and then just go from there. It was really two soft goals (New York) gave up, you can't do that, you can't give up anything easy. If they score, you've got to make them earn it," said RSL midfielder Kyle Beckerman.

Simply put, Kreis isn't going to instruct his team to play what he deems negative soccer.

"We're not going to sit back and allow them to come at us," he said.