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SANDY — Real Salt Lake grabbed a single point at home Saturday night in front of a sell-out crowd as it saw a 1-1 draw with Major League Soccer Western Conference opponent FC Dallas, being down a man for 73-plus minutes.
It was a result RSL sideline boss Jason Kreis was more than pleased with under the circumstances of going down a man early in the match due to a red card.
“I don’t think you guys have ever seen me come in here and be in good spirits when we’ve drawn at home,” Kreis told the media. “Usually that’s a failure in my eyes and there’s no other way to look at it, but when you go down a man, I mean, what else can I say — a draw sometimes is good enough and it was definitely good enough tonight. I’m really, really pleased with what the guys put in.”
The red card to RSL came in the 17th minute of play to defender Abdoulie Mansally. Even a man down, RSL still held the majority of the possession on the first 45 minutes at 52.2 percent.
“It’s an ejection,” Kreis agreed fully. “I don’t have any issue with it. I think it was a really rash tackle that was poorly timed and really endangers the safety of your opponent. That’s a red card for me and I’ve got no issue with it. We all make mistakes and it was an honest mistake, he was just trying to make an aggressive play and we talked about that a bit over the last couple days.”
After a scoreless first half, RSL hit the back of the net first in the 60th minute off forward Alvaro Saborio.
“It was big time,” said Kreis. I thought (Saborio) had a really, really nice night. Everything he did with the ball was fantastic — his touches, his holding it up for our players to get forward, the work he put in to get that finish off was great.”
FC Dallas got its equalizer off forward Kenny Cooper in the 72nd minute of play to secure the 1-1 draw.
Despite going down a man early, Kreis had nothing but good words about what his roster did to earn a draw at home and add a point to its season.
“It’s massive, I thought it was massive,” said Kreis. “It’s kind of a good thing. You know, I looked at it, we got to about halftime and I thought to myself, you know, this could be a really good thing because we’ve been under so much pressure to try to play and create attacking chances and score goals and be dominant over our opponents that maybe now just gives us a chance to just say, 'OK, we work hard, we stay together, the objective will be done.’ ”
RSL midfielder Javier Morales saw a yellow card in the 69th minute of play resulting in a one-game suspension due to a yellow-card accumulation. Morales will miss the Salt Lake club’s next match.
The win moved RSL to 15-10-7 on the season with 52 points, reclaiming its first-place lead in the Western Conference and staying just one point behind the New York Red Bulls in the race for this season’s Supporters' Shield.
The Salt Lake side will have a bye week before it returns to MLS action on Oct. 19, where it will face Western Conference opponent Portland. RSL will then return home just a handful of days later to host Western Conference opponent Chivas USA and close out its regular season on Oct. 23. Kira Terry is a sports writer covering Real Salt Lake for KSL.com. Follow her on Twitter, @kiraterry.
