The Real Salt Lake team sitting at the bottom of the Major League Soccer standings was nowhere to be seen on Saturday night.
Instead, RSL played a well-organized game, keeping possession and pushing the ball forward into Everton FC territory on the way to a 2-0 victory at Rice-Eccles Stadium. The win came against an English Premier League team, tuning itself up in its preseason, but still well experienced in European play.
"It has to be a confidence booster," RSL coach Jason Kreis said. "I'm sure it is, to play a Premiership team, and to be victorious, and to outplay them all night, we can't discount that."
Such a result may be exactly what Real need after losing their last three MLS matches. The players, midfielder Carey Talley said, hardly care that the win does not count in the league standings.
"Standings or not, it does count for us," Talley said. "Each day we go into practice looking to win, and each game we go into, we're looking to win as well. So we come out here against a side that's going into Europe, that is playing in Europe, that's a good win for us. Preseason or not, we got a win against a side that's pretty good."
Talley must be pleased with how things turned out for him. He scored the first goal, getting on the end of an Alecko Eskandarian corner kick and heading the ball home inside the left post.
"I heard the goalkeeper call it off, and I was just going in there to do a fly-by, and basically just ran right into it," Talley said. "That's one of the things that we need to do more of, is just make sure we finish out every play. Because, who knows, the goalkeeper drops the ball or he lets it go, and we're right there on the doorstep."
As if Talley's eye-popping goal was not good enough, Andy Williams and Robbie Findley combined on a memorable goal that gave Real a 2-0 lead just one minute later. Williams played the ball into perfect position for Findley, who evaded a defender before shooting it past Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard.
"Andy was the special one," Kreis said. "He got that special pass for that second goal, and all night he played an excellent game."
Williams, however, was just one piece of a midfield unit that Kreis said played extremely well. New into the lineup, Kyle Beckerman and Nathan Sturgis joined Williams and Talley. Beckerman just joined the team from Colorado in a trade that sent Mehdi Ballouchy to the Rapids, and Sturgis was back after playing with the United States in the U-20 World Cup.
Despite the new faces, the midfield meshed well.
"I was surprised at first how well it worked," Beckerman said. "I thought we got to know each other quickly; I didn't know how quickly it was going to come, but right off the bat it happened. It was nice; it was fun. We had the ball a lot, and we were able to pass and move off each other, and our passing enabled our forwards to make good and dangerous runs."
Kreis watched the match from the press box tower, high above where he could examine his team's spacing and evaluate players from a different angle.
Before the end of the match, he replaced all 11 of his starters, giving everyone a chance to show his worth. He certainly liked what he saw in the three central midfielders, Beckerman, Sturgis and Talley.
"What you have there is three very similar players; one that I think is quite comfortable with the ball on his left foot, one that is a leader, and one that likes the ball on his right," Kreis said. "Those three did a good job of covering for each other, getting in the right postions for each other."
And although the grass at Rice-Eccles Stadium, temporarily installed just before Saturday's match to accommodate the international visitors, peeled up off the permanent artificial surface and led to some spills, Beckerman's debut with RSL could not have gone better.
"He did exactly what I expected him to do," Kreis said. "I remarked at one point when I was sitting up there that it was amazing. ... [He was] trying to get close to the ball, just working his butt off, and that's why I thought of him."
Peter Richins is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
