COLUMBUS, Ohio—Real Salt Lake lost yet another match on the road Saturday night in a crazy 4-3 setback to Columbus Crew SC, continuing the club’s trend of matching a flawless home record with subpar road performances.
The match looked promising for the visitors after a gorgeous Luke Mulholland strike in the 13th minute, but Columbus answered with four straight goals, including two in the seven minutes following Mulholland’s first goal.
After the match, Mulholland said the RSL response to the first two Columbus goals wasn’t good enough.
“It was [crap],” he said. “You go 1-0 up and then before you know it it’s 2-1 to the other team. So it was definitely a dagger.”
Columbus had another dagger for RSL in the closing seconds of the first half, as goalkeeper Steve Clark saved a Joao Plata penalty that would have drawn the game level at 2-2. The teams went into the locker room with completely different mindsets and the lead preserved.
“We would have been on a high, they would have been on a low,” said head coach Jeff Cassar. “Now we’re coming in with our heads down a little bit and maybe we had a little bit of a hangover going into the second half.”
Ola Kamara added his second and third goals of the night after the break to build a 4-1 lead Salt Lake couldn't overcome – despite their best efforts.
RSL pulled two more back through Plata and Jordan Allen, but fell short of a dramatic comeback. Allen said after the match that the game was lost far before the closing moments.
“We felt like we could get chances throughout the game at any time, but they were good on the attacking end and we paid for it,” Allen said. “We gave ourselves too big of a hole to dig out of.”
Salt Lake have just one more match remaining in their five-game stretch away from home, and Cassar admitted the conditions have been difficult. RSL will travel to New York City FC on Thursday before MLS’s two-week Copa America break.
“It’s tough on the road in MLS,” he said. “It’s not easy traveling two different time zones and then having a push back in time. But I thought our players dealt with it well.”
