SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — A similar script has played out several times over the course of the last 16 years. An MLS team in search of a result in front of a hostile road crowd gives up a goal at the most inopportune moment of the match and immediately the wheels come off.
Not so for this Real Salt Lake. And not on Tuesday night, when RSL lost the game 2-1 but won the series 3-2 on aggregate.
After Saprissa’s Luis Diego Cordero scored a stunning goal to start the second half, the fans of the “Purple Monster” were in a frenzy, knowing there were still at least 44 minutes remaining to score just one more time and tie the aggregate-goal series.
[inlinenode:333030]“I’m looking at the guys to see whether or not we’re going to lose our stuff and continue to go in a downward spiral,” manager Jason Kreis said after the match. “But I don’t think we did. We kept together pretty well. Another bit of evidence of being a mature group.”
After the goal, RSL did not show any sign of panic. It may have helped that they had spoken about the exact scenario during the halftime break.
“We said, ‘If anything happens, keep playing,’” goalkeeper Nick Rimando said of the halftime talk. “[Saprissa’s 46th-minute goal] was the worst thing that could happen, but we bounced back and we were able to absorb them, get a goal ourselves and take the pressure off.”
That lone RSL goal, which proved to be the security the visitors needed, was scored by Jamison Olave, who at that point was already one of the defensive juggernauts of the match alongside Nat Borchers. This time the reigning MLS Defender of the Year did the damage up top, too, capitalizing on a loose ball in the box and roofing a shot with a striker’s panache.
“Their goal was a surprise," Olave admitted. "We were not expecting a goal that soon [in the second half]. But after my goal, we were able to get some air under ourselves and deflate Saprissa’s emotions. Then we were able to manage the rest of the game.”
“Fortunately I don’t think [Saprissa] created the chances they wanted to create,” Borchers said. “That’s a credit to us and our defensive prowess.”
Aside from Olave’s goal, most of the second half was played in the RSL half of the field, and the defensive work by the MLS club was evident at the final whistle. Although joyous, the RSL players were slack with exhaustion.
“Everybody put in a tremendous amount of energy tonight,” Kreis said in the postgame press conference. “The ground covered is off the charts.
“For the first time in a long time I remember seeing guys pretty darned tired through the last 10 or 15 minutes. It must be because they covered a lot of ground because typically our team doesn’t fatigue at the end of matches.”
[inlinenode:333025]A late penalty-kick goal in the 87th minute for Saprissa led to a mad finish to the match, with a flurry of opportunities around the RSL goal. The home side needed two more goals to advance. For RSL fans, it may have brought back memories of the group match played at Cruz Azul, a 5-4 loss in which RSL conceded three goals scored in five minutes in the second half.
“I don’t think I have any nails left,” midfielder Andy Williams said. The Jamaican subbed out early in the second half and watched the end from the sideline. “But we have experience. A couple of guys have international experience and we stepped up and weathered the storm. We knew they were going to throw the kitchen sink at us.”
So while many will look at the final aggregate score and conclude that the series was won by RSL’s ability to shut out Saprissa at Rio Tinto Stadium back on March 15, the truth is this series was won in the minutes immediately following Cordero's goal early in the second half. It was then that the pressure was at its greatest. And it was then that RSL overcame 16 years of MLS history.
“We are a mature team," Borchers said. "We gave up that goal early on in the second half, but nobody ever panicked.”
