Real Salt Lake faces Crew in shorthanded scenario

During the recent Confederations Cup in South Africa, FIFA President Seth Blatter used the spotlight for his semiannual schpiel about how Major League Soccer needs to conform to the winter calendar.

In a perfect world, MLS would gladly make the switch, but Blatter's naivete about U.S. geography and sporting traditions hardly seems to qualify him as an expert on what MLS "needs" to do. Perhaps he's never spent a winter in the Northeast. Attendance is already an issue with many MLS teams in the region, and just imagine how bad it might be on a 2-degree night in Boston.

On the other hand, this is one of those weekends where MLS's summer calendar is just bad for business. That unfortunate reality will be on display in Columbus Saturday night.

When Real Salt Lake visits the Crew Saturday night (KUTV 2.2, 6 p.m.) five players — three for RSL and two for the Crew — will be unavailable because of national team commitments at the CONCACAF Gold Cup. As long as MLS insists on playing through international tournaments and FIFA open dates, which are seemingly impossible to avoid on the summer calendar, the problem of national team players missing league games isn't going away.

And when five international players miss a league match, including a pair of MLS All-Stars, it dilutes the product fans pay to watch. As if that wasn't depleting enough, a perfect storm of circumstances has ruled out five additional players for tonight's match — including reigning league MVP Guillermo Barros Schelotto, who is battling a knee injury.

This is a weekend both coaches perhaps wish they were on a bye week.

Realistically though, this isn't the first or last time Real Salt Lake and Columbus will face such a shorthanded scenario, so they are prepared to forge ahead.

"Whatever, you just keep rolling along," said RSL defender Chris Wingert. "We're getting a couple guys back soon from national teams, so if we can make it through the next week or two and still get some results, we'll be happy. They're a little undermanned as well, they have a couple big-time players playing for the national team. We can't complain too much; a lot of other teams are missing guys to call-ups."

Neither coach will have much company on the bench. Real Salt Lake will only have 14 field players available, which includes Robbie Findley, who's been slowed by an ankle injury in training all week.

Columbus will likely only have 15 available field players, a group that has only scored five of the Crew's 22 goals this year.

It's not an ideal scenario for either team, but Kreis believes his team is up to the challenge.