Real Salt Lake: Real ready for the Crew

Some professional athletes pay attention to the gossip and rumblings from fans on the Internet, whereas others ignore it entirely. Count Real Salt Lake keeper Nick Rimando among those who apparently pays attention.

Heading into tonight's home opener, and on the heels of a disappointing season opener in Seattle over the weekend, he's puzzled why so many fans seem to be jumping off the RSL bandwagon after one game.

"We couldn't win the MLS Cup on that game and we definitely didn't lose the season. It's one game, it's an away game, especially in an environment like that, Seattle's a good team. A lot of people are killing us on that one game, there's a lot more games to look forward to," said Rimando. "We know we need to get better, but there's no need to panic because we're confident in our team."

He and his teammates will try to quell the Seattle backlash tonight when they host the defending MLS Cup champion Columbus Crew at Rio Tinto Stadium at 7 p.m., a match televised nationally on ESPN2.

Just a few days removed from last Saturday's 2-0 loss at Seattle, most players are happy with a quick turnaround this week to make amends for the opener.

"We left that game in Seattle, we learned from it and now we're focused on our home opener," said RSL defender Tony Beltran, who might've had his worst game as a pro starting at right back in Seattle. "We're going to go out there and do our best."

RSL's best just wasn't good enough against Seattle, not even close. Its possession was poor, it turned the ball over far too many times in dangerous areas and it seemed unorganized defensively for long stretches.

For everything that went wrong, Kreis' bunch played a respectable second half and could've easily escaped with a draw with better overall finishing.

With better finishing in last year's Western Conference final as well, tonight's match could've been a rematch of the MLS Cup. Despite dominating New York on that chilly November night, RSL failed to put away any of those chances — including three shots off the woodwork — as the Red Bulls prevailed and advanced to face the Crew in the league championship.

Not surprisingly, Columbus dominated and heading into 2009 it's once again regarded as one of the elite teams in MLS despite settling for ties in its first two matches this year.

"Obviously this is a new year, but we want to play the best teams in the league and this is one of them and this is a good test for us," said Rimando.