Wasatch Soccer Sentinel

I am not going to lie, that was a rough match. It was rough enough that the heavily cologned man sitting next to me took his cloud of scent and profanities away at halftime and never returned. That was a loss I was OK with; the loss on the field was tougher to experience. There were a few bright spots, and we can at least highlight those because there were certainly a lot of low points.

Statistically our best player on the night was Bryan Oviedo, and of course, he was not really marking anyone on LAFC’s first strike of the match. There were individual moments for Pablo Ruiz, Jefferson Savarino, and Andres Gomez where they showed great skill and were able to create chances just from that skill.

Finishing is not something RSL is doing a great job with. Real Salt Lake has scored 10 goals in 11 matches. During that same time they have given up 20 goals for a whopping -10 for a goal differential. Yes, that is the worst in all of Major League Soccer. To put that in perspective, LAFC sitting at #2 in the Western conference have scored 20 while only giving up 8 leading to a +12 goal differential. It showed on Saturday night.

This stretch of games is a rough one for RSL. They had a three match week back from April 22 to April 29, then they are in the middle of a 5 game spread from May 20. Having five matches in two weeks creates a headache for lineups. Yes, the players are professionals and yes, they are in great shape, and yes, 5 matches in 14 days is a lot.