D.C. United's CONCACAF Champions' Cup semifinal loss to Pachuca CF has stymied the first item on the club's long list of trophy aspirations for 2008. But the team gets little time to recuperate with the arrival of this weekend's league match, a treacherous away date against Real Salt Lake that will further test United's mental and physical stamina.
United's winning tradition and international ambitions contrast starkly with RSL's three seasons of struggle. But the potential hangover from D.C.'s CONCACAF letdown, combined with the prospect of a cross-country road trip to play at altitude on the unyielding artificial surface at Rice-Eccles Stadium, significantly improve Real's prospects for an upset.
"Having played a very important game on Wednesday and having to turn around and fly out there, while they're home resting, obviously plays an important part," said United head coach Tom Soehn, who hinted that some starters could be rested against RSL. "Travel doesn't make it any easier, but it is what it is."
The Wasatch Front has hardly been a happy destination for D.C., with the capital club having lost on two of their three visits despite a consistently large disparity in the teams' league positions.
"I think a combination of playing surface and maybe just overlooking them," said United midfielder Devon McTavish on Friday, when asked about his team's struggles in Utah. "They haven't really had that much success in the past couple of years and I think it's easy to overlook teams like that. But I think it kind of helps us that it's early on, so we don't know exactly how good they are, they don't know exactly how good we are. ... It's one of those things where we're both kind of blind about each other."
Last season United struggled to overcome the pain of their agonizing Champions' Cup semifinal loss to Chivas de Guadalajara, stumbling through the first month of the MLS schedule with three losses and a draw. This time, however, the Black-and-Red see less need to put the Pachuca series behind them because of the many positives they've taken from their 2-1 second-leg victory on Wednesday. United took the game to their Mexican visitors and got late goals from reserves Rod Dyachenko and Franco Niell.
"In my mind, I want to use that as the bar," said Soehn of the Pachuca match. "I think that was a big step for us, realizing how difficult we can be to play against. And whether it's [squad member] one through 28, whoever it is on the field has to come with that kind of energy in every game we play."
D.C.'s new-look 3-4-3 formation pushed numbers into the attack and kept consistent pressure on the ball at RFK Stadium on Wednesday. Given the circumstances, Soehn may elect to throttle back to a more conventional 4-4-2 in Salt Lake City, but his players are clearly eager to maintain the same aggressive approach -- especially given their past struggles against Real.
"We don't want to make that same mistake, being at that type of level of play and then having to go down and play in the league and kind of be off-guard and take a team too lightly," said defender Bryan Namoff. "If we can maintain that type of intensity and go out like we did at home in the first 15 minutes, if we can establish that type of rhythm on the road, I think we'll be in really good shape."
Real Salt Lake head coach Jason Kreis brought in a raft of new players over the offseason and instilled a new philosophy that has already produced a better standard of play. The team is still looking for its first win of the campaign, however, and might fancy their chances of doing so on Saturday.
"We know that Salt Lake is a hungry team, and they're much improved from last year, so it's not going to be easy," said McTavish. "I think we just need to go out there with the same mentality and the same hustle in order to get a result here."
Charles Boehm is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
