Real Salt Lake travel itinerary includes loss

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — Real Salt Lake's first road breakthrough will have to wait another week after a bizarre night at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.

A week after equaling an MLS record with six goals in one half, RSL suffered through a disastrous first half Saturday night against rival Colorado, surrendering a goal in the opening 11 minutes, losing Nick Rimando to a hand injury and being reduced to 10 men because of a Jamison Olave red card.

Combined, they were simply too much to overcome as Real Salt Lake dropped yet another road game, falling to the Rapids 2-0 on a weird night coach Jason Kreis compared to the Twilight Zone.

The loss dropped RSL to 3-3-0 on the season, with all three losses coming on the road. Particularly disturbing is the way it's losing. RSL has been outscored 6-0 on the road while outscoring opponents 12-2 at home.

"It's something about character and personality in players, they just tend to shrink up that little bit and the differences between players and teams is so very, very small," Kreis said. "It just takes a little bit of difference and a little bit of gap for the home team to come out on top most of the time."

Fortunately for Salt Lake, its next match is at home this Wednesday against the L.A. Galaxy.

Much was made this week about RSL tweaking its aggressive road tactics, but those plans were forced to be scrapped when the Rapids opened the scoring in the 11th minute as several defensive breakdowns led to the easy goal.

After Conor Casey split a pair of RSL defenders near the top of the box, he laid the ball off to his left to Colin Clark. He whipped a cross into the box to an unmarked Nick LaBrocca, who calmly headed it home from 8 yards out for the 1-0 lead.

Kreis said he's still puzzled how a midfielder can be left that wide open in the box.

It was the fifth time in six games this year that Real Salt Lake has surrendered a goal in the first half.

"We didn't come out here to park our bus in front of our goal, so we didn't have to come out and make all kind of adjustments (after the goal)," Kreis said. "We just continued to do what we were going."

On a night when one of the league leaders in shots only finished with seven, with zero shots on goal, what it was doing wasn't quite working.

It could've been different. RSL's pseudo-conservative approach led to several excellent build-ups early.

"I thought we started out bright in the first 10 minutes, and then the goal comes completely against the run of play, once again now you're questioning what's going on," Kreis said.

Even after the goal, the team had opportunities, with Yura Movsisyan shanking a cross in the 22nd minute and Will Johnson letting a heavy, heavy touch get away from him in the box on what could've been an equalizing goal.