SANDY, Utah – Two months ago, the lingering image of Kevin Hartman was the veteran goalkeeper sprawled out on the ground, howling in pain after being inadvertently kicked in the knee by Thierry Henry in a draw with New York.
On Saturday night, he walked out of Rio Tinto Stadium as the main reason Real Salt Lake’s defense of their championship is over, despite, as RSL’s Andy Williams said, playing “on one leg.”
WATCH: HARTMAN TALKS TO MLSSOCCER.COM
Hartman was enormous in just his second game back since that injury, backstopping FC Dallas to a heroic 1-1 draw that sees them advance past RSL on aggregate to the Western Conference final for the first time in 11 years.
“I felt like he was standing on his head, and he was the difference in the match,” Salt Lake head coach Jason Kreis said. “He was probably the difference in the series.”
With Salt Lake desperately searching for a series-evening equalizer, the 36-year-old was everywhere, punching balls out to the flanks, falling on the loose ball and doing literally everything he could to keep RSL off the board despite being clearly limited physically.
His kick-save on Fabian Espindola, who was alone on goal in the 48th minute, was electric. He repeated those heroics in the 76th, when he sprawled to parry a freed-up Collen Warner’s effort. And though he finally conceded a goal to Robbie Findley three minutes later, Hartman again forced a shot from distance by Andy Williams aside in stoppage time.
WATCH: Hartman's ridiculous save on Espíndola's 1-vs.-1
"It was like a tidal wave," Dallas head coach Schellas Hyndman said of RSL's closing efforts. "They kept on coming, they kept on coming, they kept on coming – and he continued to fight very hard and kept the ball and almost came away with a shutout. I thought he was absolutely outstanding today."
[inline_node:318408]There was no disagreement in the FCD locker room postgame: Hartman was their man of the match.
“It was unbelievable,” said Dallas captain Daniel Hernandez. “He’s a difference-maker for us, man. It would have been a long second half if he wouldn’t have come up with those saves.”
Saturday night’s final 15 minutes were edge-of-your-seat drama as the defending champions desperately pushed forward to keep their season from ending. Hartman stayed calm in the middle of the storm and says he knew he had a duty to maintain composure as an example for his teammates.
“You just try to be as calm as you possibly can,” he explained, “and you want to exude that calmness so when people look back, they don’t see you sketched out and worried and nervous.”
Easy for him to say, considering he’s still admittedly not 100 percent. Hartman says he’s able to move around the goal reasonably well and his distribution is still near the top of his game. But he still isn’t able to hit dead balls as his knee still stings. (Jair Benitez took goals kicks Saturday night, while Hernandez took them in last weekend’s first leg).
But that’s something he says he’ll continue to work on in training in the coming week. And being forced to keep rehabbing his knee instead of resting it is a welcome obstacle.
“This season’s been amazing,” said Hartman, who joined FC Dallas in March and put up Goalkeeper of the Year-like stats with nine shutouts and a goals-against average of 0.62. “Alexi Lalas said we’ve just learned how not to lose. I think we take more pride in ourselves than that. I’ve been really excited to go from not having a team in March to being in the semifinals of the MLS playoff race.”
