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SANDY — Real Salt Lake saved itself from a loss on its home field Wednesday night in the last seconds of the game, drawing 2-2 with Major League Soccer Eastern Conference opponent the Philadelphia Union.
“It’s massive, massive,” RSL head coach Jason Kreis told the media. “We continue, I continue to believe — I think I’m probably the biggest believer of this group and maybe the biggest fan of this group as well.”
A physical match turned even more ugly in the 59th minute when RSL defender Lovel Palmer was ejected from the game off a questionable red card. Even after equalizing the match in the 75th minute of play off a goal by young midfielder Luis Gil, the Claret and Cobalt were still down a man, and Philadelphia reclaimed the lead just seconds later.
The stoppage time heroics came when the Salt Lake club was awarded a penalty kick in the last seconds of stoppage time off a handball in the box, which equalized the match off playmaker Javier Morales.
“After tonight, it’s amazing,” said Kreis. “I can’t say enough because of a lot of adversity. Not just being down a goal, being down a man, suffering what I thought were a lot of strange decisions by the referee, continuing to battle on and scoring the goal to tie it and giving away a goal right after it — again a decision where I think the referee is involved there, but our guys just kept pushing and pushing and pushing. My hat is off to them.”
The Salt Lake club was without four key regulars Wednesday night due to CONCACAF Gold Cup call-ups and will remain without them through the month, but Kreis continues to be comfortable with his deep roster.
“I think we have to be very comfortable, we have to be very comfortable to see a group like that, (a group) that has so much fight and that much spirit come back in this game — it says a lot about them, a lot about their character. I don’t think it was the best night for some guys soccer-wise, particularly in the first half, but they’re not always going to have their best night and what they did give is everything they could, and that’s really appreciated.”
Last-minute heroics also came off RSL goalkeeper Josh Saunders in the last minutes of extra time when Philadelphia forward Sebastien Le Toux broke free, going one versus one head on, but Saunders made the block, saving the draw for the Salt Lake club.
Saunders is a goalkeeper Kreis says the club is simply lucky to have.
“I think we were very, very fortunate,” said Kreis. “I think we can say all we want about all these great decision we make — sometimes we just get lucky — and I think with Josh Saunders’ situation we just got lucky.
“We came into the season, we were going to have just Nick (Rimando) and Jeff Attinella, who I don’t think has one MLS appearance and has played a year in the second division, and Lalo (Fernandez). But as we went through the preseason and started to hear more and more about Nick going to the Gold Cup and missing an entire month plus qualifiers, it became really, really important for us to find a goalkeeper with experience, and here comes Josh Saunders — lands on our lap. Really, really pleased that we have him. We’re going to lean on him this entire month. I feel awesome about our goalkeeper situation as I do about every position on the field,” Kreis said.
The Claret and Cobalt won’t return to the pitch until July 13, when it will face MLS opponent FC Dallas in Texas. The Salt Lake club will then return home July 20 to host Eastern Conference opponent Sporting Kansas City. Kira Terry is a sports writer covering Real Salt Lake for KSL.com. Follow her on Twitter, @kiraterry.
