Real Salt Lake's season is quickly becoming defined by one of the most overused clichés in all of sports: close but no cigar. That certainly sums up their performance on Sunday against FC Dallas as they left Pizza Hut Park with a 2-1 defeat, the fifth time they have left the Lone Star State after a loss to FCD, four of those coming in Frisco.
The match was characterized by momentum shifts. FCD captured the first wave when Arturo Alvarez scored his first goal of 2007 in the 26th minute and the Hoops proceeded to control the run of play for the rest of the opening half.
After the break, RSL responded and did a much better job moving the ball. That paid off when Freddy Adu scored his first goal with his new club in the 68th minute on a penalty kick. His tally was created when Atiba Harris got free inside the box before FCD center back Alex Yi grabbed his jersey to concede the penalty.
Just 13 minutes later, FCD left back Chris Gbandi scored his first goal in nearly two years, a blast in the 82nd minute and that proved to be the game-winner. It was a tally that left RSL shaking their collective heads.
"For the whole first half, for some reason we struggled to get moving, to get anything going," said RSL head coach Jason Kreis. "I don't think we strung together more than two passes at any time in the first half. Going forward, we will try to figure out why that was.
"It looked to me that the guys were either tired or just weren't up for it. Both are unacceptable for different reasons. If they were tired, then we need to figure out a way to train them so that they're not tired for the match. If they just weren't up for it, then we have to figure out ways or to find people or who are up for it."
Especially demoralizing for him and his side was giving up Gbandi's goal a quarter-hour after Adu had leveled the match, giving RSL some optimism that they might be able to leave Texas with points for the first time in club history.
"At that time, in the second half, I figured that for sure that we were going to get out of here with a point and maybe there will be something happen for us that we'll get to snatch three points. The fact is that they had two very special individual goals," Kreis said.
"On the first goal, Arturo (Alvarez) had a fantastic dribble to beat Jack Stewart and struck an unbelievable ball to the far post. That was an unbelievable goal, so hats off to him. Maybe we can look at this game apart from those two goals and see that we weren't that bad defensively. But offensively, we have to get better."
Besides Adu, Chris Klein generated the bulk of offensive chances for RSL. He finished the match with a team-high four shots and got several good looks at the goal in the second half. Two of his best chances came late in the match when a 79th-minute shot went wide right and one in the 89th sailed high over FCD goalkeeper Dario Sala.
"We're in the business of getting results and we didn't get a result tonight. I thought that for whatever reason, we came out and let them dictate the game," Klein said. "In the second half, we turned that around all the way up until (Chris) Gbandi scored that goal. It's disappointing but at this point, we have to keep plugging away, fighting and trying to get better."
In the season opener in Utah, RSL came back from a one-goal deficit to take a second-half lead -- only for Carlos Ruiz to score the equalizer in stoppage time. Once again, RSL was forced to overcome a poor first half; this time, however, the goal sent them to defeat.
"We came into the game and didn't stick to our game plan," RSL midfielder Mehdi Ballouchy said. "We didn't necessarily forget (what we were supposed to do) but we didn't do what coach asked us to do as far as shape and everything in the first half."
One positive for Salt Lake was the better effort they showed offensively to begin the second half.
"I think we got together at halftime and said that if we were going to lose, let's lose as a competitive team," Ballouchy said. "If we end up losing, then fine. At least we left it out there. The worst feeling out there is when you lose without trying as hard as you could. I didn't think we went out 100 percent in the first half."
But even Klein admitted that frustration is starting to mount for RSL, who at 0-3-4 is the only winless side in MLS nearly two months into the season.
"We're really frustrated now," he said. "We feel that we have the necessary tools to do very well. We've been in every game.
"We haven't gotten the results or gotten over that hump yet, but I truly feel that we're going to get over that hump. Hopefully, we can do that on Wednesday in the Open Cup and follow that up against Chicago."
Steve Hunt is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
