Real Salt Lake: GM sets club's magic number

LEHI — With 18 games in the books and with 12 games remaining in the 2009 MLS regular season, Real Salt Lake finds itself four points out of a playoff spot.

RSL general manager Garth Lagerwey has crunched the numbers, and he believes Salt Lake is going to have to finish with at least 43 points to qualify for the postseason.

"That is the most points ever required to qualify for a playoff spot in 14 years of the league," Lagerwey said. "But it looks (like), just based on the way that the table is shaking out as, that's what you're gonna need.

"So you do the math, you're gonna need 20 points from the last 12. (RSL has 23 points from 18 games.)"

As Lagerwey pointed out, if you look at RSL's play since its early-to-midseason swoon, the club is 3-1-3 in its last seven league contests.

"That's right where we need to be," Lagerwey said.

Asked after training on Thursday about his GM's calculations, RSL fullback Chris Wingert said he's not concerned with crunching the numbers himself.

"I guess if other people want to talk about that, that's fine," Wingert said. "He might be right, but at this point, we can't worry about that because the more we worry about the math and how many points we need, it's not gonna help us gain those points.

"We just need to focus on individual things, the minor details that we need to really focus on the field. (Then) the results will come."

For the record, RSL owner Dave Checketts believes RSL must win seven of its final 12 games to get to the playoffs, which is a single point higher than Lagerwey's projected total.

WATCHING AS A SPECTATOR: Because of the red card he picked up during RSL's thrilling 4-2 comeback win over Dallas last week, RSL coach JasonKreis will be forced to watch Saturday's game at Chicago from the stands.

That's a situation Kreis has been in before, but because of a rule change MLS made between last year and this year, it'll be a different experience for him this time around.

Previously, coaches who were banned from the sidelines could communicate with their coaching staffs via radios, but the league decided to outlaw those communications this season.

Kreis said he actually made the recommendation to the league because he felt the previous rules weren't "punitive" enough.