FRISCO, Texas — A moment of magic from Real Salt Lake playmaker Sebastian Saucedo broke open a tense game and helped Real Salt Lake cruise into the final of the Generation adidas Cup with a 3-0 win over FC Dallas on Friday night.
In a rematch of a memorable group-play encounter from Tuesday, Salt Lake will face English club Stoke City, a shootout winner by the slimmest of margins over Brazilian side Flamengo in the night's first semifinal.
Sunday's championship game will be played at Toyota Stadium and will be broadcast live on MLSsoccer.com, kicking off at noon ET. Placement games for 11th, ninth and seventh place will kick off at 9:30 am ET, with the games for fifth and third place kicking off at 11 am ET. The Domestic Division will also conclude its slate of games on Sunday morning.
Real Salt Lake 3, FC Dallas 0
A dominant semifinal win for Real Salt Lake was inspired by Saucedo, whose most special of several big moments came in the 32nd minute. After an early Salt Lake chance was cleared off the goal line and after several of his early outside shots failed to find the target, Saucedo received a pass just across midfield.
With space and time to look up, he hit a 35-yard lob that barely cleared the outstretched arms of FC Dallas goalkeeper Charlie Furrer and nestled into the back left corner of the net for a spectacular opening goal. The goal was no accident -- Saucedo had scored with a long-range lob, albeit with his opposite foot, in Thursday's win over the LA Galaxy.
The goal eased the tension for Real Salt Lake, who outshot Dallas 22-3 in the game, and led to a more fluid second-half performance. Saucedo, as usual, was at the center of RSL's other scoring plays. In the 40th minute, his free kick was saved by Furrer, but Canadian youth international Josh Doughty was on hand to slot in the rebound.
Four minutes later, Saucedo and Doughty sewed up the result with a devastating counterattack. Saucedo broke across midfield on the left and slotted a through ball behind the last FC Dallas defender. Doughty made a diagonal run onto the pass, rounded Furrer, and curled a shot into the far corner for a 3-0 lead.
Real Salt Lake head to the final for the third time in program history, having won the 2008 title on penalty kicks and lost the 2010 edition, also in a shootout.
Real Salt Lake (3-0-1) vs. FC Dallas (2-1-1)
2014 Generation adidas Cup - Semifinals
April 18, 2014 –- Toyota Stadium, Frisco TX
Scoring Summary:
RSL -- Sebastian Saucedo 4 (unassisted) 32
RSL -- Josh Doughty 2 (unassisted) 40
RSL -- Josh Doughty 3 (Sebastian Saucedo 2) 44
Real Salt Lake -- Christian Herrera, Aaron Herrera, Justen Glad, Miles Stray, Gavino Carranza (Evan Waldrep 44), Fito Ovalle (D.J. Villegas 65), Danilo Acosta, Tate Schmitt (Alex Knox 54), Sebastian Saucedo, Diego Silva (Grant Livingston 67), Josh Doughty.
FC Dallas -- Charlie Furrer, Eric Davies, Philip Ponder, Pablo Ocampo, Juan Pablo Monticelli, Daniel Kiser (Joel Avilez 44), Martin Salas, Alejandro Martinez (Irvin Dominguez 44), Ryan Barlow, Caleb Young (Juan Ramirez 47), Christian Ramirez (Duncan James 47, Luis ZuaZua 57).
Matches played with 35-minute halves.
All statistics contained in this boxscore are unofficial
Stoke City 2, Flamengo 2 (Stoke City won shootout 4-3)
The second semifinal might have been short on drama because the opening game used it all up. Flamengo and Stoke City, impressive throughout the first edition of the tournament to ever involve international teams, did not disappoint with elimination on the line.
Flamengo created chance after chance in the early going, with forward Felipe Vizeu running behind the Stoke defense on a consistent basis. In the fourth minute, he slipped a shot under Stoke goalkeeper Tommy Dyche, but center back Josh Williams slid to clear the rolling ball out of the goalmouth, and no goal was awarded. Replays were inconclusive as to whether the ball had crossed the goal line.
Stoke settled down defensively as the first half wore on and took the lead in the 27th minute after a fine bit of buildup from the right. Midfielder Theo Brierley broke inside across the top of the penalty area and fed Ollie Shenton in the penalty arc.
Shenton one-touched a pass into the area for forward Charles Weston-Hayles, whose first touch took him wide of goal, but he recovered to poke the ball away from and be fouled by Flamengo goalkeeper Gabriel to set up a penalty kick. Weston-Hayles, who entered the day tied for the tournament scoring lead with Saucedo, calmly converted the penalty kick to the lower right corner.
Stoke almost doubled their lead just after halftime, but Gabriel made a key save on a left-footed effort from Julien Ngoy to keep it a 1-0 game. Flamengo carried play in most of the second half, and just when it looked like Stoke City would hold on for the win, two substitutes combined to tie the game in the 66th minute. Leonardo Cereja nimbly dribbled to the end line and squared the ball across the six-yard box, where Diego was on hand to tap in the tying goal.
With a shootout looming, Stoke City replaced Dyche with Chris Marques, who had not given up a goal in 140 minutes in the tournament. But Weston-Hayles stepped up at the other end of the field, stealing the ball in the left corner, running the endline and setting up Kyren Hamilton for a dramatic goal in the final minute of regulation.
Just as in Tuesday's game against Real Salt Lake, however, Stoke City saw a lead taken in the final minute disappear in stoppage time, as Flamengo midfielder Matheus Savio fired a left-footed effort from 25 yards that skipped off the hands of Marques and into the corner of the net, tying the score again.
So it was on to the shootout, where Stoke appeared in trouble after Brierley's effort was saved with a brilliant dive by Gabriel. But Victor Lindenberg hit the crossbar with his next shot, and the shootout entered the final round tied 3-3. Flamengo's Wellington, the only shooter to miss in the Brazilian club's shootout loss to Seattle on Tuesday, fired a shot that hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced straight down before bouncing out. It was ruled a miss, and Stoke City stepped up with a chance to win.
Defender Lewis Banks, who got Stoke's tournament off to a good start with the opening goal on Monday, converted the final spot kick to set off jubilant celebrations for the English club, which reached the final despite playing with only 14 players who meet the tournament's age criteria.
Flamengo (2-0-2) vs. Stoke City (2-0-2)
2014 Generation adidas Cup - Semifinals
April 18, 2014 –- Toyota Stadium, Frisco TX
Scoring Summary:
STK -- Charles Weston-Hayles 4 (penalty kick) 27
FLA -- Diego 2 (Leonardo Cereja 1) 66
STK -- Kyren Hamilton 1 (Charles Weston-Hayles 1) 70
FLA -- Matheus Savio 1 (unassisted) 72+
Flamengo -- Gabriel, Luis Rocha, Arthur, Wellington, Victor Lindenberg, Lucas Santos, Luã (Paquetá 63), Michel, Matheus Savio, Jean (Leonardo Cereja 52), Felipe Vizeu (Diego 63).
Stoke City -- Tommy Dyche (Chris Marques 70), Daniel Jarvis, Josh Williams, Theo Vassell, Lewis Banks, Theo Brierley, Johnville Renee-Pringle, Ollie Shenton, Tom Shepherd, Julien Ngoy (Kyren Hamilton 62), Charles Weston-Hayles.
Penalty Shootout - Stoke City won 4-3
Matches played with 35-minute halves.
All statistics contained in this boxscore are unofficial
