Real Salt Lake look to respond from one of the most embarrassing defeats in franchise history when the club visits the Portland Timbers on Saturday night.
On Sunday, Real Salt Lake (3-2-3, 12 points) was dealt a 6-0 loss at New York City FC that went down as the club’s largest margin of defeat in team history.
RSL conceded two penalty kicks, trailed 2-0 by the 15-minute mark and were down 5-0 with an hour gone.
They followed that with a 1-0 home loss to Northern Colorado in a U.S. Open Cup third-round clash on Wednesday night. But there were some moral victories there — most notably the return of starting defender Justen Glad and goalkeeper David Ochoa following injury.
Glad went the entire 90 minutes, and as one of RSL’s elder statesmen may be asked to do so again as Salt Lake seeks its first win at Portland since 2017.
“I definitely feel like I have a little bit on my shoulders,” Glad said. “And that’s just because I’ve been here a long time. I’ve seen us take losses like that before, and you need a bounce-back game. And getting back to winning ways is going to help the team morale.”
The Timbers (2-2-4, 10 points) may have dominated RSL at home recently, but they’ve been inconsistent overall and particularly at home, where they’ve won only once in four tries so far (1-1-2).
But they gutted out a 3-2 win at Vancouver and a 0-0 tie at Houston in back-to-back games to tread water after an uncharacteristicly slow start at home. The 2020 MLS is Back Tournament MVP, Sebastian Blanco, played 81 minutes in the latter contest, the attacker’s longest outing after contract negotiations shortened his preseason.
The Timbers have won at least 11 home games out of 17 in four of their last five full-length regular seasons. But coach Giovanni Savarese doesn’t believe his side can take comfort in that, nor their good recent form over RSL at home.
“Historically we have had success with this team, but nothing in the past builds (to) what is going to happen in this game,” he said. “This is a completely new game.”
–Field Level Media
