Wasatch Soccer Sentinel
Well, that was exciting, wasn’t it? Real Salt Lake and Houston, together again — a third game of knockout soccer*, tempers flaring, reckless play, tackles abounding. Is this what Major League Soccer wanted to create with its new playoff format? Bad soccer?
* I’m including U.S. Open Cup here. If we include MLS matches, this is going to be the season where we played Houston 1,000 times.
Exciting though this game was, beautiful, it was not. I suspect that’s exactly what RSL coach Pablo Mastroeni wanted from this game — not an ugly game, but a pragmatic game, a game in which his side left their print on their opponent.
A chippy game
There was a lot of particularly confusing talk about the referee after this one, which surprised me. I thought he did quite well on the night, and if anything, I think he let a few too many fouls go unpunished. It was a game in which fouls were the order of the day, and to that end, RSL left the match having committed 21, tying the regular season record on the year achieved on May 31 against LA Galaxy.
