Real Salt Lake: Team hopes to be fueled by NY jinx

Nat Borchers is embracing Real Salt Lake's abysmal history with New York, and he's hoping his teammates do as well.

In five seasons RSL has never beat the Red Bulls franchise, and Borchers hopes that reality serves as "fuel for the fire" as his team prepares for this Wednesday's do-or-die match with New York at Rio Tinto Stadium.

A turbulent, inconsistent season has created a scenario in which Real Salt Lake must win its final three regular season games to secure a playoff berth. The late season push begins against New York, a team RSL owns an 0-4-6 all-time record against, including a 1-0 loss in last season's Western Conference final.

"It's fuel for the fire. I've been talking to a lot of guys about that this week. We all feel like they're a great team and they're going to be a tough team to play against, but we need to beat them and finally get this monkey off our backs," said Borchers.

New York is hardly a great team. A year after participating in the MLS Cup, the Red Bulls own a dismal 4-18-6 record and they're on pace to equal Chivas USA's league-worst 18 points back in 2005. It's hardly the resume of a great team, but considering RSL's history against the Red Bulls it's easy to understand why Borchers is taking them so seriously.

"We need to take this three-game stretch very seriously. If we slip up one game it's all over," said Borchers. "Regardless of what happens in other games we just need to focus on New York."

Coach Jason Kreis believes his team's record against New York is a bit deceiving with six of the 10 matches ending in ties. Even looking back at last year's Western Conference final RSL was clearly the more dominant team but it failed to put away any of its 24 shots.

"We hugely outplayed them, I think everybody that watched that including New York would tell you the same. That's soccer, sometimes the best team's not going to win cause they don't score the goals," said Kreis.

In the only other meeting between the clubs this year New York won 2-0 in a game RSL played poorly from the start. Once again, Kreis doesn't read too much into that result for many reasons. Not only was that match nearly six months ago, but it was on the road where his team almost always underachieves.

This week's rematch is at Rio Tinto Stadium where RSL plays overwhelmingly better than on the road. With the season on the line and the team coming off two weeks rest, now seems like the perfect time for Real Salt Lake to end the New York jinx.

That's what just about everyone thought in the playoffs last year as well though.

e-mail: jedward@desnews.com