Real Salt Lake just got thumped 4-1 by the Montreal Impact, handing the hosts their first victory of the MLS season. It's the latest Claret-and-Cobalt indignity in a year not exactly stuffed with them, but one more strongly weighted toward the "this is frustrating" side of the ledger than any they've had since about 2008.
If the struggles are embodied in one play, it's probably this one. Kyle Beckerman is uncharacteristically slow in his recognition of Andres Romero's run out of midfield, and then doesn't have the pace to keep up. Luke Mulholland is also slow with his recognition, especiallly once Beckerman and Elias Vasquez get pulled all the way out to the touchline. When that kind of overload happens against a team playing with a lone d-mid (which is what Beckerman is and always has been), the far-side midfielder has to slot deep and central to cover the gap.
It didn't happen there, in what eventually was the game-winning goal.
That's the play that embodies the system-wide struggle, but Luis Gil is actually the player who embodies said struggle. He wears the No. 10 and started in the middle of the "3" line in today's 4-1-3-2 (a formation I love), but he's still too passive when he gets on the ball in the final third:
That made me throw my remote. Gil's soccer IQ – his ability to find those gaps, the way he moves after releasing a pass, his quick recognitionin transition – is very high, but he sabotages his own good work and that of his teammates when he chooses the conservative play from that spot. To put it a different way: His movement is clever, but his passing is not. If he's going to be a No. 10 for a team that builds through strings of possession like the one above, he's going to have to start being a serial killer in those spots.
On the flip side, look at RSL's only goal of the day:
First, that is an absolutely outrageous finish from Devon Sandoval. Second, when Gil picks up the ball deeper, he's both more aggressive and more decisive, putting immediate north-south pressure on the defense. The same was on display late in the game when he rang the post after a run that started at the midfield stripe.
Gil's just 21, so he can still evolve. But he's in his sixth year as a pro, and after too many moments like the one above, I've stopped thinking of him as a No. 10.
He's a guy who can make plays, but isn't really a playmaker – and the challenge for Jeff Cassar & Co. will be figuring out how to build the new-look RSL around that while retaining the identity (intelligent possession; comfort on the ball; Nick freaking Rimando) that's made them one of the league's best teams for the past seven years.
