Real Salt Lake's playoff fate Thursday rests on its ability to get a road result against the best team in Major League Soccer. It's hardly an ideal scenario for the historically bad road franchise, but the situation is what it is.

"Right now, you can't look at the past. The way this playoff system is set up, it's all about now, we have a 1-0 lead going into this game," said midfielder Clint Mathis. "We just have to have the mentality that we only need to win three more games and we're champions. Maybe not even three — we can tie this game and get through."

Robbie Findley's late strike last Saturday put Real Salt Lake in a position where it can advance to the conference finals with a win or tie against Columbus in Thursday's 6 p.m. kickoff at Crew Stadium, a match that will be televised on ESPN2.

RSL leads the home-and-home, total-goals series 1-0 and can advance if it maintains that advantage after 90 minutes Thursday. If the aggregate score is tied after 90 minutes, the teams will immediately play 30 minutes of overtime. And if it's still tied, the playoff winner will be decided by penalty kicks.

"We've put our best foot forward the other night and got out to a lead here at halftime in this two-leg match, so we go there now and we look to protect what we have already," said RSL coach Jason Kreis.

In RSL's only visit to Crew Stadium this year, both teams were seriously shorthanded because of injuries and national team call-ups, yet the Crew still prevailed easily 3-1.

The players don't put much stock in that prior result, but rather head into Columbus confident about their slim advantage. It's a position the players have been in before.

In last year's first-round playoff series with Chivas USA, RSL won Game 1 by a 1-0 score on a late strike by Yura Movsisyan, then went on the road in Game 2 and earned a 2-2 draw to advance to the conference finals on aggregate, 3-2.

"We've already talked about thinking about how we did last year, and what was called upon of each of the players, and I think we can draw a lot out of that memory," said Kreis.

Ironically enough, that match didn't unfold as planned. RSL surrendered the series equalizer in the 29th minute on a penalty kick, and immediately its hopes for advancement seemed bleak. Amazingly, despite similar road troubles a year ago, the players responded with back-to-back goals and ultimately advanced.

Against the Crew, a team that's struggled to find the back of the net for a month now, Real Salt Lake is going into the game thinking only of a shutout. That would be good enough for advancement into the Eastern Conference final against either Chicago or New England.

"We're just going to try and do what we do best and make sure we put in a great effort and do what we can to win the game — and if not, come away with a draw so we're still advancing," said Chris Wingert. "It's easier said than done, of course. They're the Supporter's Shield winners for a reason and the defending champs for a reason, so it's going to be tough to take them down on their home field."

Thursday's game figures to be a reversal of last Saturday's match at Rio Tinto Stadium.

The Crew were very defensive last weekend, but knowing they need a win Thursday, they should come out with a much more attacking mindset. Conversely, this time around, Real Salt Lake figures to be the team that drops numbers behind the ball and defends like crazy.

It's not always a formula for success, but it's how RSL will likely look to protect its one-goal advantage.

e-mail: jedward@desnews.com