RSL pranks us all with 4-0 loss to Columbus Crew
It's nowhere close to good enough from Real Salt Lake.
Real Salt Lake may have pulled off the best April Fools’ Day prank of all. It was a prank better even than Bart Simpson shaking Homer’s beer in a paint mixer.
RSL managed to convince us that they might not repeat their mistakes from the St. Louis match, but repeat them, they did. I mean, not the same mistakes — actually, the manner of defeat was somewhat different. But they repeated the having-committed-massive-mistakes bit of it, and that’s a little disconcerting.
A few weeks ago — against Austin FC — I went through some of RSL’s big mistakes. You know, things they needed to clean up? Unfortunately, it appears that the biggest changes were all personnel related, and I think it’s very interesting that RSL has become a team that can’t defend. The problem was — generally speaking — anything but defending last year. Is the departure of Aaron Herrera the factor? I don’t know. It’s definitely a factor.
I don’t know that I have the energy to continue talking about Real Salt Lake’s last game, that 4-0 loss to Columbus Crew. I can only stomach so many high-margin losses, as is the case with many of us. We could keep talking about how RSL lost, but I think we should turn why. (I really wanted to go to Aristotle here, and I was prepared to do so, but it’s hard to talk about formal causes and soccer, and I really don’t want to talk about RSL and final causes, mostly because I’m scared of the answer.)
Why did Real Salt Lake lose another game 4-0? Actually, I don’t know. There are so many factors.
Players were given obscene amounts of time and space on the ball, and
Columbus Crew scored first, and
Columbus Crew scored two first-half goals at home, and
Players look completely ready to give up after conceding, and
Nobody can score a goal, and
The team’s only proven goalscorer on the entire team is a 33-year-old (his birthday’s coming up soon!) midfielder coming off a career-altering injury, and
RSL lacks a defensive midfielder worth playing frequently, and
RSL plays a system that demands a good defensive midfielder, despite having none, and …
Well, the list goes on. I’ll stop there, but we could go for a long time. It just feels like everything is falling apart, like entropy has taken hold far too early.
Miles Dunn, who wrote for RSL Soapbox, now writes with Wasatch Soccer Sentinel, and can be heard in the rotation on Wasatch Weekly, put together a really excellent episode this week. I’ll share one quote that I thought was particularly potent, but I really think you should listen to it, too.
We have a talent disparity in almost every position. We are out-talented in almost every position. You can get away with that. The team is the star. As a collective, you can play above your talent if you have the right coach and the right system in place. We have neither.
Let’s end there. Be good to each other.