Real Salt Lake ‘Up For The Challenge’ Against Sporting Kansas City
Nov 7, 2018, 3:39 PM
Real Salt Lake midfielder Kyle Beckerman (5) kicks during playoffs in Sandy on Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018. (Jeff Allred, Deseret News)
(Jeff Allred, Deseret News)
SANDY, Utah – Even though it may feel like Real Salt Lake has its back against wall going into the second leg match up against Sporting Kansas City, the team is feeling good about its chances.
After all, they’ve defied the odds twice already to get to where they are now.
Not knowing if they’d be in the playoffs until the last game of the regular season and getting in thanks to an improbable win by Houston over the LA Galaxy was the first time RSL beat the odds. Getting past LAFC in the knockout round was the second time.
Ready To Make More Magic
With those events in the book, RSL captain Kyle Beckerman said that the team is ready for another difficult challenge.To advance, RSL must either win or score multiple goals in a tie. With a 1-1 tie in the first leg, Sporting KC holds a slight advantage as the first tiebreaker in the series round is the number of goals scored on the road.
“We know it’s going to be extremely tough just like all these games are. We feel like, the odds were against us in L.A., they’re going to be against us here again. It’s nothing that we’re not looking forward to, we’re up to the challenge. We feel like there’s no reason why we can’t get there and advance out of this round. But we know it’s going to take a lot of hard and it’s going to take every single one of us to get there to get it done,” said Beckerman.
No Rusnak, No Problem?
RSL will have to get the job done without the man who scored their lone goal in the first leg, Albert Rusnak. The Slovakian national was given yellow cards in consecutive playoff games and thus is unavailable for Sunday’s contest.
“We’re going to be missing him,” said Beckerman. “He’s one of our core, core guys, special player. So of course it’ll be tough knock for us to take but we don’t have a choice so we’re going to have to adjust. And that’s just the way it is. We just hope that we can get it done, advance, and then we can have Albert back.”
The game will kick off from Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City Sunday at 1 p.m. and be broadcast on ESPN.
