Real Salt Lake: Another must-win match

Ready or not, Real Salt Lake has an opportunity to save its season this afternoon.

Fresh off its victory over New York less than 72 hours ago, RSL heads to Toronto FC this afternoon in a must-win match for both teams. Salt Lake can't clinch a wildcard playoff berth with a victory today, but a win would keep the team in the hunt with one match remaining.

A loss, however, in conjunction with a New England victory over Chicago, would officially eliminate RSL from playoff contention.

The players aren't concerning themselves with New England, though. For the past several weeks, they've talked confidently about ending the season on a three-game winning streak, but all along, today's match in Canada was the one that seemed the most daunting.

Real Salt Lake's 2-10-2 road record is the third-worst in Major League Soccer, and by far the worst among the eight teams battling it out for the four remaining playoff berths. Toronto, meanwhile, has only lost three of 14 home matches this year.

RSL has never scored a goal in two previous trips to Toronto, and it will be a big underdog for today's 2 p.m. kickoff.

"I don't think we're really worried about streaks and history, it's just a matter of winning three games one game at a time," said Chris Wingert.

With one of the three now taken care of, RSL's coaching staff has some tough lineup decisions to make. The longest road trip of the season is never easy to begin with, but on three days rest and with the match on turf, fatigue and jet lag could be major issues for many of the players.

The last time Real Salt Lake faced a similar short-week situation, Kreis completely overhauled his line-up with five new starters, and the result was a 1-0 win at Kansas City.

Kreis said he doesn't expect things to be that drastic this time.

"That was a little different because that was three games in six days and this will just be the second game," said Kreis. "We are considering some possible changes already just to get fresh legs out there."

Pablo Campos, Robbie Findley, Robbie Russell and Andy Williams are four players who didn't start on Wednesday who may start today.

With a 10-11-7 record and 37 points in the standings, Real Salt Lake sits in ninth place in the playoff race, just one point behind New England's 38. Even though a tie isn't the result the club needs, it won't necessarily be a crushing blow to RSL's playoff aspirations. A tie today and a win over Colorado next week could still get RSL into the playoffs, but it would need some favorable results from around the league.

Just as it was against New York, the key for RSL is to get off to a good start. In its two most recent matches away from Rio Tinto Stadium, it trailed 2-0 after 10 minutes in each game.

It can't afford to fall behind early in front of arguably the best fans in MLS.

e-mail: jedward@desnews.com