Wasatch Soccer Sentinel
Real Salt Lake coach Pablo Mastroeni has talked a lot about verticality in his team, about the need for switching the field of play, and the need to play direct soccer. I think we saw the team trying to do that, but the aerial game was not kind to them.
WhoScored's match report has Real Salt Lake losing the aerial duel statistic, 9 to 24. And that on its own doesn't tell much of a story, but it's true at both ends. The team relies on Damir Kreilach to bring down balls in the air, but if the season so far is any indication, that's a mistake for a post-surgery Kreilach.
We can reflect here on the second goal. At 60:15, Joao Klauss wins a long boot from his goalkeeper right at the edge of RSL's side of the midfield third. Brayan Vera's challenge — coming far up in the midfield — doesn't have much of an effect. St. Louis scores just 10 seconds later.
But here's the thing I just don't get about RSL playing an aerial game. They started the match with Anderson Julio, Justin Meram and Andrés Gómez as the nominally attacking three. Between those three players, only one had a single won aerial duel, and that's Anderson Julio.
