Fandemonium as Real Salt Lake given hero's welcome home for MLS Cup win

Real Salt Lake received a hero's welcome from fans inside Terminal 1 of the Salt Lake City International Airport Monday afternoon.

A few hundred RSL fans, many of whom took time off work and pulled kids out of school, came to the airport to greet RSL's players, coaches and staff members when they returned home after winning the MLS Cup in a shootout Sunday night in Seattle.

And those fans pretty much erupted when their heroes emerged inside the airport terminal shortly after 2 p.m.

They chanted and sang as loud as they could.

They put their hands together and cheered and cheered.

And in general, they did what they could to make sure RSL knew its accomplishment hadn't gone unnoticed.

"Oh, it's amazing," RSL captain Kyle Beckerman said of the reception his club received. "These fans have been amazing from Day 1. When I was playing against them (with Colorado), they were awesome. I didn't want to admit it back then, but they really are amazing fans.

"They deserve this. They deserve this reward more than any other fans. They had to be loyal when the team wasn't doing good, and now they can be champions."

Striker Robbie Findley, who hauled RSL back into Sunday's championship game against favored Los Angeles when he tied the score midway through the second half, echoed those sentiments.

"Us winning is because of them," said Findley, gazing out at the throngs of fans screaming inside the Salt Lake airport. "A lot of our success is because of these fans here, travelling on the road with us and supporting us at home. A lot of this is for them."

Of course, it was anything but easy.

Indeed, the road that led to winning the MLS Cup proved to be an arduous one for RSL. The club struggled mightily throughout the first three years of its existence before owner Dave Checketts brought in Jason Kreis as the club's coach and Garth Lagerwey as the club's GM midway through the 2007 season.

Those two brought wholesale changes to RSL, and two seasons later, the little MLS club that couldn't is now the little MLS club that could.

"It's an unbelievable feeling," said Kreis. "It's a little bit of a reward for all the hard work. A lot of blood and guts went into this. It's so much hard work and such a long path. (Now) it just feels great."

RSL's fans, for their part, were appreciative. Inside the airport terminal, they chanted things like, "We won the cup," "Ole, ole, ole, Real Salt Lake," and "Nick Rimando, Nick Rimando, Nick Rimando" in honor of RSL's goalkeeper, who saved two penalties in Sunday's shootout victory.