Real Salt Lake Prevails Victorious After Wild Road Encounter With San Jose

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Real Salt Lake has somehow, someway escaped with all three points in a wildly entertaining fixture against San Jose Earthquakes in a game that consisted of four lead changes.

Mastroeni was forced into a handful of changes from the most recent loss against LAFC on Sunday evening. Aaron Herrera was a late scratch due to a non-COVID-19 related illness, Noah Powder, Bobby Wood, Andrew Brody, was also unavailable due to injury while Everton Luiz was serving a yellow card warning.

🙂😄😠🙂😠😠
😠😠😠😠😠 pic.twitter.com/VW5IWyh9lM

— Real Salt Lake (@realsaltlake) September 16, 2021

However, Mastroeni opted to continue playing in a 3-5-2 formation; the second game that he implemented the change in shape.

Real Salt Lake The Better Team Early

Sadly, Marcelo Silva’s evening ended early after he pulled up gingerly and looked to be grabbing his left quadriceps. Another injury blow to a team that is already ridden with injury issues. Erik Holt was brought into the game as a result.

Real Salt Lake began the fixture as the more dominant team in nearly every statistical category. Although, as has been the case on so many occasions this year, a lapse in concentration by Donny Toia and Holt gifted Javier López the first goal of the match after he beat David Ochoa with his left foot from just inside the box. It was a terrific strike from a very talented player.

But fortunately, with nearly the final kick of the first half Real Salt Lake was able to equalize when Rubio Rubin found himself in the right place at the right time when Earthquake goalkeeper JT Marcinkowski palmed the ball onto the shoulder of Rubin who was all alone in the six-yard box. The save by Marcinkowski came from a Damir Kreilach header from a late first-half corner kick.

Right place, right time 😏 pic.twitter.com/Tu9kE5RmqW

— Real Salt Lake (@realsaltlake) September 16, 2021

Chaotic Second Half

The second half was as crazy as you will ever see.

It began with Real Salt Lake captain Albert Rusnák finding the back of the net just minutes into the half when his right-footed shot from just inside the area beat Marcinkowski.

He really do be vibin tho pic.twitter.com/5aNU9TAItL

— Real Salt Lake (@realsaltlake) September 16, 2021

But then minutes later San Jose equalized when Javier López scored his brace by making a handful of Real Salt Lake players look silly when he dribbled from outside the area and into the six-yard box tapping the ball past Ochoa.

Shortly thereafter, another blooper by Real Salt Lake occurred when Javier López took a corner kick that found the top right corner of the net. Pablo Ruiz, who joined the match at halftime, could not rise high enough to stop the ball while Ochoa looked to come off his line and grab the ball in and amongst the chaos in the area.

Another self-inflicted goal looked to have cost Real Salt Lake points in a game that they deserved more from.

But Real Salt Lake continued to fight. In the 71st minute, Justin Meram equalized when he got on the end of a Rusnák free-kick. The ball was deflected into the back of the net, Meram was credited with the goal nonetheless.

This goal is worth a thousand words pic.twitter.com/KsMoVo9oPt

— Real Salt Lake (@realsaltlake) September 16, 2021

Kreilach saw a red card midway through the second half when he was deemed to have hit his opponent in the face with his left hand while fighting for a header. However, head referee Nima Saghafi went to the VAR monitor and took back the red replacing it with a yellow. The correct decision was made.

Fortunately, Rubio Rubin popped up yet again in the 81st minute when Rusnák played a perfectly timed through ball into the feet of Rubin who knocked the ball with his left foot into the back of the net.

THE GOALS KEEP COMIN AND THEY DON'T STOP COMIN pic.twitter.com/0r5m8fxIrZ

— Real Salt Lake (@realsaltlake) September 16, 2021

The Quakes nearly found the equalizer in the 90th minute but Ochoa made a magnificent save denying any such catastrophe from occurring. Anderson Julio also found himself in a one-on-one situation in stoppage time but a beautiful save was made by Marcinkowski.

Real Salt Lake found a way to win in the end. It was chaotic. It was wild. It was entertaining, but Real Salt Lake found a way to win just its third road win of the season and its first true road win since the opening game of the season. The second road victory came against Vancouver Whitecaps when Vancouver was playing its home games at Rio Tinto Stadium.

“We told ourselves that we needed points, we dropped points at LAFC after a good performance but I thought tonight we played better,” Rusnák said immediately following the game. “Still a couple of mistakes that cost us goals but hey, we scored two goals at LAFC and four goals tonight and if four points was not going to be enough to get all three points then we would be very disappointed,” he added.

Next Fixture

Real Salt Lake will return home to take on the Seattle Sounders. Former manager Freddy Juarez will visit Rio Tinto Stadium for the first time since his shock departure from the club a few weeks ago.

Nick Rimando is also expected to be celebrated given his most recent induction into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame.

The kick-off time is slated for 7:30 p.m. on September 18th. The match will be available to stream for free via the KSL Sports & KSL 5 TV apps or on KSL Sports dot com.

Follow @TomCantHackett