Audi 2019 MLS Cup Playoffs – Round One Real Salt Lake vs. Portland Timbers Rio Tinto Stadium – Sandy October 19 – 8:00 pm MDT I know there's still over a week to go before the game, but let's get the conversation going anyway. Lots of playoff scenarios for who plays whom, when and where. At least we get to see Nick at home again. If we manage to win this one and Dallas beats Seattle, we'd have another shot at a home playoff game. We'd probably be better off playing in Portland, with their home-field struggles this year, but it'll be nice to welcome the hated Timbers to the RioT. Game's at 8 friggin' :00, which kind of sucks, as everyone else gets to play when the sun's still up. My unreliable weather app says rain, with a high of 48° and a low of 32°. Whatever. Timbers won both regular season games, 2-1 on May 4 at the RioT and 1-0 on August 31 in Portland. It'd be nice to turn that trend around.
Vegas giving RSL 200:1 odds to win it all, and 538 with RSL having a 2% chance of winning MLS Cup. What do you think? https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/mls/ Seems a bit hard to pick against LAFC to win MLS Cup with the season they've had.
One game at a time. You win this opener and your cup odds are realistically about 10%. Anyone can get hot.
Since the teams last met, RSL played 6 games and Portland played 8. RSL finished with 3 wins 2 draws and a loss (10 points). They scored 6 goals and allowed 6. Portland finished with 2 wins 3 draws and 2 losses (9 points). They scored 9 goals and allowed 9. I'm not sure who's in better form. Both ended the season with a win.
There are a lot of weird factors about this game. Just to name a few: RSL has been really bad against portland in the last few years RSL has been really good at home this season - like historically good - but at the same time has dropped points at home to every Western Conference playoff team except Seattle. Portland was setup to dominate at the end of the season with like 9 out of 10 games at home. But they are a team designed to play on the road. By that I mean they are built to counter, not posses. RSL has its well published coaching and front office fiasco going on right now. Somehow this team hasn't performed like it has distracted them, but that feels like it might be because of the ability to distract the team with games. With 2 weeks off (granted their is an international break right now) it creates an idle environment where those distractions can be more troublesome Portland won just 3 of their last 10 matches - one of those was against RSL in Portland, though. The other two wins were against non-playoff teams (KC and SJ). Over that 10 game stretch, Portland had a GD of -2 (11 for / 13 against) and had just 2 clean sheets (one of those was the win against us, the other a 0-0 draw with Minn) RSL won 5 of their last 10 matches; four losses were against Western Conference playoff teams with the lone draw at New England. The GD for RSL was +2 (11 for / 9 against) with 5 clean sheets (4 in wins and 1 in the 0-0 draw). Bottom line, as much good as you can say for one team you can for the other. Same with the "bad".
It's the Tuesday before our home playoff game and, based on traffic here, you'd think we were in the middle of January. Hell, even this is quiet for January. Why is this? I think Matt Montgomery in his post today on the sopabox summed it up well: The opening paragraph: Why, hello! It’s been a bit since we talked, and we do have the playoffs ahead of us, and frankly, that’s an exciting time. It is, right? I’m not hallucinating? I ask in part because I have this strange feeling that right now, we’re just sort of playing a waiting game, of sorts. Not a fun one, either. But it’s not really one that’s got me filled with tension, worry or anxiety about the impending match against Portland Timbers. I have my hypotheses, but the most prominent one in my head right now is that it simple is not a particularly fun time to be a Real Salt Lake supporter, playoffs or not. We’ve been stuck in this loop of controversy, and while I’m not decrying the controversy or the fact that we’re focused on it — I’m far from the first person who should be doing that, given we’ve been trying to cover it closely — it does start to wear on one’s feelings about the team. And so it is that we’re days — literal days — away from the playoffs and there’s just not that much chatter. I mean, you can still buy $20 tickets to the match. It doesn’t look like there’s too much availability, but still — that’s quite striking. At any rate, let’s move on from all this. I don’t have answers, but if you do, do feel free to share. I’d quite like that.
I'm mostly unenthusiastic because of the weather. I was excited to get tickets. Unexcited for 45 degrees and rain. Edit: Also, I'm pretty sure we're just going to lose. RSL just hasn't been convincing me that they're a good team this year.
This. We're in 3rd place but we're not a good team and we're definitely not an exciting team to watch. We can barely buy a goal.
Portland weather...but in the last couple of seasons RSL has played well in bad weather. This will be an interesting game, and will probably be much different than anyone expects (regardless of what they expect).
Interesting topic - why is excitement about this team muted despite being 3rd in the west? Out of curiosity, I looked back and from a standings perspective, this season mirrors 2011 when RSL also had 53 pts and finished 3rd in the West. To refresh your memory RSL came into that season with high expectations. Some were even talking about a treble. RSL came up just short of a CCL win against Monterrey in April of that year and disaster struck in May when Marcus Mondaini sealed his fate in infamy by breaking el Maestro's leg. Despite losing its most influential player, it still felt that there was more optimism around the club heading into the playoffs that season. However, LAG ousted RSL in the playoff finals to eliminate achieving even one point in the treble. So what about this year? First, expectations coming into the season were modest. Second, that 2011 team had proven itself having built off of an MLS Cup win in 2009 and success through 2010 and 2011 in CCL. This version of the team hasn't really proven itself yet, and hasn't really won big games yet (outside of the one LAFC playoff game a year ago). Third, the off-the-field drama has seemingly dulled the excitement for the squad (as mentioned in the Soapbox letter). Finally, Kreis was a proven coach at that time, and a lot of question marks surround Coach Freddy and his staff. Anything else at play here (other than the weather)? It does feel weird.
That was a really good post. The 2011 team had an IDENTITY. We knew who they were. They were strong on defense. On offense, their play was considered to be the most Spain-like in MLS. The injury to Javi made me reduce expectations a bit, but all of the other pieces remained in place. So, I still had a fairly high level of confidence and excitement. I’m not sure who we are right now, nor do I know what to expect this weekend from the team. Additionally, The RioT was our fortress in 2011. It really has not been one this season, at least against Western teams and Portland.
The thing that hits me hardest is that we've had a couple seasons of going out of playoffs very quickly. That's kind of our thing lately, isn't it? Someone back me up with facts please. [emoji16]
If we aren't a very good team, but still in third place, what does that say about the teams behind us, that they are better? If so, why aren't they seeded higher than RSL? At the end of the season, you can talk all you want about how this team had the best attack and this team had the best defence but only one team wins the cup and if the team with the most points can't seem to win the most important game of the season, I guess that means they weren't the best team. I think that since LAFC has been hearing that they are The Team of Destiny all season long, when push comes to shove, they will crash out of the playoffs. Again. Suck on that T-shirt Bob.
I don't know, I wasn't commenting about other teams in the West; they probably suck too. My comment was in response to "Why is there not more excitement surrounding RSL right now?". And my simple answer is, we're not a good team and our attack sucks so we're not an exciting team to watch.
it's really as simple as this nor are we an exciting organization to be a fan of, at least not in the good form of exciting. We have a lot of back and forth about the team, but the bottom line is that the issues surrounding this club (former coach suing the ownership, GM leaving abruptly, a club pyramid that is frantic, etc) just make the club a hard thing to get overly excited about. I give Jazz fans a lot of shit, but that team is at least a fun one to be a fan of. There is a lot of good to hang your hat on with them, even if they fall short on the actual playing field/court. I just don't see that with RSL. We're wildly disjointed and in a constant state of chaos. The only real similarities between this team and the aforementioned 2011 team (great post @kirsoccer) is that we happened to both finish 3rd in the West. That team, even though in hindsight was actually on it's decline, felt like it was improving and had a vision. This team? No ********ing clue.
Something amazing to me this year is that the veterans kept us going when things got tough. I can't speak highly enough of what Beckerman, Rimando, Nedum, and Damir did (this is my presumption on the group) did to keep the team focused. This is also why, while I am not expecting anything in the playoffs, I wouldn't be surprised at a run either. The team is playing with house money and ought to just relax and go for it. As for the vision, from about June on it seemed to be "defense first" with "just focus on us" a close second as all of the crazy stuff started happening in the FO. Not that fun to watch, but entirely admirable in its own way.
I agree with this, but would change to note that we're actually a good defensive team. The lack of creative/exciting/effective (pick whichever floats your goat) attack is more visible than a solid defense.
we're a good defensive team against middle and bottom teams. We're pretty average against anyone with an attack. And we saw what LAFC and LAG, two teams with actual attacks, did to our backline. Our record against playoff teams this year is 5-11-3. With a GD of -8: Mar 16: 5-0 L at DCU Mar 23: 2-1 L at LAFC Mar 30: 2-4 L vs FCD Apr 6: 1-0 L at SEA Apr 28: 2-1 L at LAG May 4: 2-1 L vs POR May 18: 3-0 W vs TFC May 24: 2-1 W vs ATL Jun 1: 4-0 L at NYRB Jul 13: 4-0 W vs PHI Jul 20: 1-1 D vs MINN Jul 27: 0-0 D at FCD Aug 3: 3-1 W vs NYC Aug 14: 3-0 W vs SEA Aug 17: 2-0 L vs LAFC Aug 31: 1-0 L at POR Sep 15: 3-1 L at MINN Sep 21: 0-0 D at NER Sep 25: 1-2 L vs LAG Until this team goes out and shuts down those kind of teams, the defense is just "good enough". Not great.
Chaos, as mentioned by 15, is the reason my passion isn’t where it was or could be for RSL. The chaos is wearying. The lack of vision and definable identity is stifling to the fan base in my opinion. I find myself hoping not for success but just to finish. I lament that any perceived success this post season will only enhance, justify, and continue the chaos. I’ve never wanted a season to be over sooner. but I’ll definitely be at the parade if the win the damn thing.
Okay. Here’s what I expect: 1. It’s cold but not too wet. 2. We come out with good intensity and create 1 or 2 chances in the first 15 minutes, but we don’t score. 3. Sometime before minute 25, Portland (Ebobisse) scores on a counter to go up 1-0. 4. Our efforts after that, before half, earn no goals but do earn a Chara yellow card. 5. Within 15 minutes after half, we get the tying goal through Rusnak. 6. After that the game opens up and gets a little crazy in the now-wetter conditions. 7. One of the teams hits the post in regulation, and both teams sky clear chances inside the 18. 8. Regulation ends 1–1 will both teams still at 11 players even though Chara has now committed 4 yellow-card offenses and, if Silva plays, he has committed one red-card tackle. 9. In extra time, we have a PK awarded but then called back by VAR. 10. We advance on penalties because Rimando still plays.
I'm not sure how other western teams fared against the west, but we were hot garbage against a lot of the teams on our side. We seemed to beat up the east, and get beaten by the western teams. While it's nice we're in 3rd, it doesn't give me much confidence going into the playoffs.