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SANDY — One more game.
Real Salt Lake has one final match to clinch a No. 3 seed for the MLS Cup playoffs, and it comes at home against a team at the bottom of the Western Conference.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that it comes against Chivas USA, who have won the two previous matchups with RSL in 2014. The Goats don’t have a postseason on the horizon and reports have circulated that the club will take a temporary hiatus before returning to MLS play in 1-2 years under a new ownership group and a new brand.
“They have nothing to lose, so who knows what formation or how they will play, what guys they are going to select,” RSL midfielder Ned Grabavoy said of Chivas. “But for us, the focus is solely on ourselves. How can we get into good form and create chances at home, and look to be aggressive no matter the scoreline, and get fully fit ahead of the playoffs.”
RSL currently sits in fourth place in the West, needing to beat Chivas USA at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Rio Tinto Stadium and hope FC Dallas drops points to the Portland Timbers to get out of the first-round elimination game that open the playoffs. Failure to do so will relegate the club to a mid-week match before playing the No. 1 seed, either the LA Galaxy or Seattle Sounders, in a two-leg series.
In other words, it’s do-or-die time for RSL, defender Tony Beltran said.
“For us the playoffs started last week, and now we’re one game away,” Beltran told reporters Tuesday. “Now we need a win against Chivas not only to push us into third, but also to be firing on all cylinders. We’re not going to take this game lightly, especially with the fact that we’ve lost against them twice this year.”
A loss or draw at home Wednesday will give Chivas a sweep of the season series between the 2005 expansion outfits, a feat the LA-based side hasn’t accomplished since 2007 — the last year RSL didn’t qualify for the playoffs. The Goats come into Wednesday’s match riding a wave of momentum following back-to-back wins, their longest such streak since mid-July.
RSL’s current streak of seven years in the postseason is the active MLS record, and head coach Jeff Cassar said his team is squarely focused on the second season that begins in the fall and wraps up just after Thanksgiving.
So far, so good, he added.
“I think we’re feeling really good,” Cassar said. “We’ve put together two shutouts in a row, which is an important mentality to have right before the playoffs. Now we need to have the same defensive mentality, but also with an offensive thought to it as we come home against Chivas.”
Maintaining a high level of aggression will be important for RSL on Wednesday, and also moving forward into the postseason.
“The big thing that helps us is when we press teams early, when we keep them in their own half, especially playing here at home,” Beltran said. “Teams can suck air a little bit because of the altitude. So we’ll look to push early and get an early goal, then go from there.”
