Real Salt Lake: Checketts' dreams become a sweet reality

Throughout a gruesome 11/2-year process of trying to secure a deal to build a soccer-specific stadium for his MLS club, Real Salt Lake owner Dave Checketts often dreamed about nights like Wednesday.

He'd dream about having a raucous crowd on hand to watch some of the sport's best soccer players trade swords inside a world-class stadium. He'd dream of having shots of his hometown beamed across the world. And he'd dream about being able to put on a show for everyone involved.

As it turned out, reality was just as sweet as Checketts imagined it would be.

Real Salt Lake hosted the 2009 MLS All-Star game Wednesday evening inside Rio Tinto Stadium, RSL's state-of-the-art home, and Checketts was thrilled with the way everything went.

Aside from the fact that four F-16s weren't able to fly over the stadium because another plane wandered into airspace near Rio Tinto Stadium, the evening was perfect in almost every other way, said Checketts, even though the MLS All-Stars couldn't quite pull out a result against Everton of the English Premier League.

"It just is extraordinary to go through that whole process (of trying to broker a stadium deal) and then stand in the middle of that stadium and look at every single seat filled and to hear how loud the crowd was and to hear how supportive they were of the All-Star team and our own players. It was gratifying for a lot of reasons," said Checketts. "I was overwhelmed with the fan support and how great they were, how many people came wearing Real stuff and scarves and kids in soccer uniforms.

"It was really kind of a fulfillment of what we had envisioned for a long time."

Wednesday's All-Star game was the latest high-profile soccer match to take place at Rio Tinto Stadium. The next big event will be an appearance by the U.S. National team for a World Cup qualifying match vs. El Salvador on Sept. 5.

Checketts hopes that RSL fans will have the chance to attend playoff games at Rio Tinto Stadium after that, and he figures RSL must win seven of its final 12 games to get into the MLS playoffs for the second time in franchise history.

"It's gonna take tremendous commitment by our club to come together and play great soccer the rest of the way," he said. "Otherwise, we're gonna be on the outside looking in. I absolutely believe we have the right talent to do that, and the right coaches in place. Everything's in place, including a tremendous home crowd, so there's no reason we shouldn't be able to do this."

Off the field, Checketts says that RSL has never been in better shape. Checketts looked at the league numbers — attendance, season-ticket sales, etc. — and said that, numbers-wise, RSL ranks 4th across the board behind Seattle, Toronto and L.A.

"I think the franchise is better than ever," he said. "I feel really good about our management team — (President) Bill Manning, (GM) Garth Lagerwey, (coach) Jason Kreis and (senior vice president) John Kimball, who was there since the beginning. Everybody is young, but they've kind of come together.

"This franchise is a long way from home, but compared to where we were, it's a whole new ball game. We have a chance to be one of the best teams and best organizations in this sport."

e-mail: drasmussen@desnews.com