Red cards hurt, but RSL's first loss not just about officiating


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SANDY — Real Salt Lake became the penultimate team to see its unbeaten start marred by a loss in Major League Soccer after falling 1-0 to the Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday night at Rio Tinto Stadium.

Darren Mattocks’ glancing header in the 80th minute gave the ’Caps the first win by a Canadian team at Salt Lake in the MLS history of the three squads from north of the border. Vancouver moves to 5-2-1 on the season, best record in the league and averaging a Western Conference-leading 2.2 points per game.

The loss moves RSL (2-1-3) from second in the West to seventh, though the local side has as many as two games in hand on the teams above it in the standings.

RSL will look to rebound with a road tilt at defending MLS Cup finalist New England on Saturday — but it will have to do so without Jamison Olave and Sebastian Saucedo, who both picked up red cards, as well as a slew of youth international call-ups.

Here are a few thoughts on RSL’s first loss of the season, and what it means going forward.

RSL can learn from Saturday's loss ----------------------------------

Sure, going down to nine men on controversial foul calls by a new referee doesn’t help the tone of a match. But RSL had other troubles in its first loss of the season — and several places it can point to as methods of improvement.

Despite the result, head coach Jeff Cassar said Salt Lake can take positives out of the match — and use it to get better.

“We have various areas to improve on,” Cassar said after the match. “I was super proud of the effort from the guys tonight. But we need to improve on some things.”

RSL needs goals — and that means it needs Alvaro Saborio

The 33-year-old Costa Rican striker has one goal in 428 minutes of play, and the club could use a little offensive magic from its all-time leading goal scorer.

That doesn’t just mean the lack of consistent goal-scoring threat falls on Saborio, though.

“We have to get him service,” Cassar said. “We have to be willing to get forward, and not just take chances, but get ourselves in those (dangerous) positions. When we have the players in those positions, we need to reward them with the ball. We did that at times, but we need to do it more.”

Saborio’s role could be even more important in the coming weeks, as Cassar mentioned RSL will be losing several young players to youth international camps and call-ups. Jordan Allen leaves Sunday for U.S. coach Tab Ramos’ U-20 camp in Austria, and Cassar said the team is expecting to lose Luis Gil and Boyd Okwuonu to U.S. Olympic team camps, as well as defender Justen Glad and Saucedo to U-18 call-ups. Cassar even joked with reporters after the match that the team may call up members of the local media to play — but RSL’s depth will certainly be tested in the upcoming months.

One play will not define the career of Saucedo

Before Saturday night, Saucedo had played in one minute of regulation MLS play after signing his first professional contract with RSL in January. The 18-year-old who grew up in Park City was looking at the most playing time of his first-team career, by a landslide, when he entered the game in the 61st minute for fellow home-grown forward Jordan Allen.

Instead, Saucedo exited following a hard tackle on Mauro Rosales in the 76th minute that may have included the youngster’s studs connecting with the Whitecaps forward.

Right or wrong, it’s a moment Saucedo will learn from, and he’ll be better for it. The moment also allowed some of RSL’s older players to rally around the young striker.

“As older players, we just told him that it’s done with, and we like to see the fight in him,” midfielder Luke Mulholland said. “We know he isn’t a malicious player; it’s just unlucky. He wanted to do too much, and he knows he can’t go in like that. He’ll learn from it. He’s still young … but as you grow, those decisions will get corrected.”

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Sean Walker

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