SANDY, Utah — For a team that has often struggled to find the right forwards this season, Real Salt Lake suddenly have an excess of riches.
In Saturday's 2-1 win over Dallas, Olmes Garcia and Robbie Findley started – and Findley scored his first regular-season goal since August 2013.
“It's been tough coming back from the [knee] surgery in September,” Findley told reporters, “I tried to stay positive.”
Then newly-signed Designated Player Sebastian Jaime entered in the 67th minute, and Alvaro Saborio came on in the 76th minute – and scored on a header five seconds later.
“This might have been the fastest goal scored,” RSL coach Jeff Cassar told reporters with a laugh.
“I was laughing,” said midfielder Javier Morales, who served the ball up on a corner kick. “I couldn't believe it.
“Always it's better when Sabo is in the box. But it's all about him. He found the ball there and he made a great goal.”
If there was a certain irony that Findley has been pushing to get back in the scoring column for five months and Saborio pulled that off in five seconds, it certainly wasn't bothering Findley.
“I've never seen anything like that,” Findley said. “It just happens that way sometimes, you know what I mean? I was happy and the whole team was happy.”
Not only does Cassar feel more than comfortable with the four forwards he played on Saturday, it's worth remembering that the team's leading scorer, Joao Plata, was off with the Ecuadorian national team and unavailable on Saturday night.
“For the first time in the whole time I've been at Real, I really like the forward situation,” said team owner Dell Loy Hansen. “And you can quote me on that.”
Cassar feels he has both striking strength to start games and dangerous options to bring off the bench – a luxury he hasn't had throughout much of the season.
“There's no letdown, ever,” Cassar said. “Once we move one player off, bring somebody on, it's becoming relentless. It keeps teams pinned back. It keeps them honest so they can't move up the field. It's going to be nice to be able to move a player off and bring somebody else on who's just as productive.”
But he acknowledged that having so many healthy forwards makes his job tougher.
“Without a doubt,” Cassar said. “It's definitely going to make my life a little bit more difficult with the decisions, but whatever decisions myself and the staff come up with it's going to be what's best for the team.
“It's going to be challenging, but it's a good challenge.”
He said it's a lift for his team to see strong players coming off the bench, while RSL's opponents may feel an opposite effect.
“It's got to be deflating to another team realizing that they have this coming onto the field to make an impact,” Cassar said. “That's the beauty of RSL. [General manager] Garth [Lagerwey] has put together a team that's deep. Picking up Sebastian [Jaime] only makes us deeper in this run, hopefully, to the MLS Cup.”
