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SANDY — It’s hard to ignore the recent surge of Real Salt Lake.
RSL’s standing has risen from below the playoff line to third place in the Western Conference thanks to a string of results that includes tying a franchise record of six-straight wins at Rio Tinto Stadium.
“Three games in less than 10 days, of course, it was going to be hard. But we knew we were going to be up to it,” said defender Danny Acosta, who started his third-straight match in Saturday’s 2-0 win over Seattle. “Each game, we take as it is. The guys fought through it. We had some heavy legs, but I think in the second half, we were fine and we got the result.”
Real Salt Lake is the third-hottest team in Major League Soccer, in terms of points per game, with three-straight wins and 12 points out of their last five matches. The run is energizing the fanbase, but Salt Lake (7-6-1) is still looking up, like the rest of the Western Conference, to formidable leaders Sporting Kansas City (8-2-4), trailing the west leaders by four points in the standings.
Wednesday’s match won’t do anything for the gap. But it could help determine if Real Salt Lake’s recent run of form is a turning point in the season, or simply the matter of playing a lot of lower-tier teams at home.
RSL will host bitter rivals Sporting Kansas City in the fourth round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup at 8 p.m. MT Wednesday at Rio Tinto Stadium, and the defending champs won’t make things easy.
Kansas City is tied for the second-most Open Cup titles all-time with four wins, and if the defending champions that have won two Cup titles in the last three years can repeat, they’ll tie Pennsylvania’s Bethlehem Steel and Maccabi Los Angeles for the most U.S. Open Cup championships in the history of the longest running tournament in American soccer.
But such a feat is a long road away, and Wednesday’s match will be as much about fielding the right lineup as it will be about preparing for a championship.
RSL coach Mike Petke said he “would love to” be able to field a lineup that is 100 percent in health, quality and skill, with 40 players of the highest quality in MLS play. But that’s not reality for MLS sides in the modern era.
“I want to win everything I do,” Petke said. “The Open Cup is a chance of a trophy, to get into CONCACAF Champions League. But we aren’t there as a league yet, that allows us to be 40-players deep with the same type of quality.
“It’s ironic that we have a three-game week leading into (the Open Cup), and it really turns into a five-game two weeks. There are a lot of guys who aren’t going to be available for the game. But I’m going to put the best team I can out there without sacrificing injuries and the LA game on Saturday.”
Petke teased some lineup changes for Wednesday — he wouldn’t elaborate who would be in or out, but confirmed that changes will happen — and Real Salt Lake has the advantage of a second-division squad in the Real Monarchs that are ineligible for the Open Cup according to U.S. Soccer bylaws, which allows RSL to call up several players from one of USL’s top teams for Cup duty.
That will also give several RSL players a much-needed day off, after ending a recent coast-to-coast road trip from Philadelphia to Seattle, not to mention three matches in eight days at two venues.
But when Wednesday night’s kickoff rolls around, Acosta is sure the team — everyone on the team, Monarchs included — will be ready.
“Sometimes you feel tired. But once you step on the pitch, everything goes away,” Acosta said. “I’ve got 90 minutes to prove myself, so I have to do the best I can possibly do. I think the other guys think the same way.”
