Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SANDY — Real Salt Lake welcomed the Montreal Impact to Rio Tinto Stadium on Wednesday night for the first-ever meeting between the two, and Real continued its early-season hot streak.
The game score was 1-0, with the point made off a 13th minute penalty kick by Paulo Jr. Real extended its season record to 4-1-0.
The early-match penalty kick was also Paulo Jr.'s first ever in a RSL jersey, a first goal of 2012, the third goal in his 19 career MLS-season appearances — and in front of the 20,191 midweek fans.
Nearly a month has gone by since the 2012 MLS regular season began. And even though it wasn't the prettiest victory, it was a win and added points to RSL's season.
"I didn't think our balance in midfield was good, which meant we didn't have options when we had the ball. We tried to squeeze the ball into players who were already marked," RSL sideline boss Jason Kreis told the media following the match.
Kreis went on to say, "This game, we've got some problems, but most of that comes to what we did with the ball. On a different night, we're much better with the ball. We gave it away so cheaply, and then they were right at us."
Despite the performance, with Wednesday night's victory over the expansion Montreal Impact, RSL took the lead in the Western Conference, with 12 points and three points ahead of both the San Jose Earthquakes and the Colorado Rapids.
With the win, RSL held the expansion team to a winless season thus far.
And the victory did come with some setbacks. After making it back to full health, two RSL pitch regulars suffered injuries toward the end of the match.
Midfielders Ned Grabovoy and Javier Morales suffered injury in the match. Kreis indicated that Grabovoy played the last 20 minutes with what may have been at least one broken bone, and Morales left he match with just one minute to play due to a reported pulled hamstring.
The RSL roster was also full of firsts on Wednesday night as Northern Ireland's Jonny Steele got his first MLS start, playing 63 minutes. Japan's Terakazu Tanaka got his first appearance for RSL and played the full 90.
Wednesday night marked RSL fan favorite Fabian Espindola making his 100th RSL appearance.
RSL will remain home this weekend to host the Colorado Rapids on Saturday night, and Kreis expects a much different performance than he saw against Montreal.
“I expect and demand a better effort from all the guys, and I’m quite certain I will get it. It should be a great game because Colorado is a very good team this year. They are looking quite differently than they have over the past several seasons, and maybe it will be a beautiful soccer game,” said Kreis.
Saturday's meeting with Colorado will mark RSL's third match in seven days, the first stretch of three games in a week this season.
Kira Terry is a sports writer covering Real Salt Lake for KSL.com.
