SALT LAKE CITY - After managing only a tie and one point against Houston last Saturday, Real Salt Lake's players and coaches have become huge Dynamo fans.
At least until Saturday, anyway.
With one game remaining in the regular season, RSL have only one shot at getting into the playoffs. First, Houston must beat Colorado in Texas on Saturday, then Real must earn a victory against Chivas USA on Sunday.
And a tie in either game will not help.
"If we get the result on Saturday, it's a meaningful game," Ellinger said.
Just the chance to play a meaningful game at the end of the season sets this year's RSL team apart from last year's. In their inaugural season, RSL gave up at the end of the season on the way to a 5-22-5 record and a fifth-place finish in the Western Conference.
"We've obviously come a long way, and we are very, very proud of ourselves," defender Eddie Pope said. "Last year, we kind of puttered out towards the end of the season and didn't have a shot, and now to be going into the last game and have a shot really means a lot. We've worked hard, and it's almost like we've turned over a new leaf here."
Last Saturday's 1-1 result was Real's last regular season game at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Ellinger was not entirely pleased with his team's results at home over the course of the season, but he also was not totally dissatisfied.
"We try to look at it from both sides," Ellinger said. "There are some points we left on the table for sure, but we've also taken some points that we're pretty proud of."
The club saw both sides of the spectrum in September. Real lost a crucial game at home against the Colorado Rapids, 1-0 on Sept. 2. Then, playing one man down and behind a goal at halftime, RSL came from behind to beat FC Dallas 3-2 on Sept. 16.
In both of those games, in addition to each of RSL's last six games, the opposing team scored first. It's an issue Ellinger is willing to try anything to resolve; he mentioned, jokingly, that implanting microchips or electrodes in the players might wake them up earlier.
"They came at us pretty hard and I don't think we did a great job of responding over that first 15 minutes or so," Pope said after last Saturday's game in which Dynamo took the lead in the 20th minute on a goal from Paul Dalglish.
To be sure, Real would like nothing more than to play at home once more, both to improve their record at Rice-Eccles Stadium and to straighten out their early-game sluglishness.
"Could we have gotten more points at home? Yeah, we could have," Ellinger said. "That's probably one of the things we'll have to address as we go forward. Hopefully we'll have another home game and we can go forward from there."
Peter Richins is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
