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SANDY — Officially, the Major League Soccer Cup playoffs start next month.
But for Real Salt Lake, the playoffs have already begun.
With three games remaining, including Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. MDT home kickoff against Portland (13-9-9, 48 points), the Salt Lake side sits strapped to the narrowest of postseason margin, clinging to sixth place in the Western Conference with 46 points, just two points ahead of the seventh-place L.A. Galaxy — but also just two points behind the fourth-place Timbers.
“I think that basically now is the playoffs,” said rookie forward Corey Baird, who scored his seventh goal of the year in Sunday’s 1-1 draw at Sporting Kansas City. “Every game matters so much that we essentially are in the playoffs. Every game we have to win or we have to get points. We can’t let other teams catch us.”
If the cliché goes that “the playoffs start now,” then for RSL (13-11-7), the league’s annual postseason may have already begun.
Not only does Salt Lake need to rack up points to stay above the line, but it needs to do so a week earlier than other teams. After the season finale Oct. 21 at Portland, the club will be off for the final week while most of the rest of the league plays.
It’s a quizzical scheduling scenario, according to head coach Mike Petke. But RSL is confident it can take points out of two remaining home games, including Thursday, Oct. 18, against struggling New England (8-11-11, 35 points).
Clearing the road hurdle that RSL faced through the first half of the season is a good way to gain confidence.
“I think we’ve always had confidence on the road,” Baird said. “But we would go into games playing well for 60-70 minutes. I think now we are starting to put together those complete games now that we are getting closer to the playoffs.”
As the playoffs approach — and RSL is far from officially clinched, to be clear, with three games remaining — the Salt Lake side has outscored its opponents 16-7 in its last six matches. That includes a 1-1 draw at Sporting Kansas City on Sunday, a vital road point not only for Salt Lake — but as Sporting flounders in trying to catch West-leading FC Dallas and its two-point gap atop the standings.
The time is now, team captain Kyle Beckerman said.
“It heightens up every game, and it really feels like (the playoffs),” the tenured defensive midfielder said. “It’s to the point where if you lose, or even if you tie, you could be out. It really feels like the playoffs — same feeling, where if you lose, you go home.
“Hopefully we rise to the occasion.”
And if the day comes that RSL can salvage its postseason aspirations for the first time since 2015, Petke believes the side will be prepared — not the least of which for what they did Sunday evening in Kansas City.
It will be no different than what the small-market club in Sandy has tried to do all season.
“The message isn’t similar; it’s exactly the same as the one we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Petke said. “It’s one game at a time. As cliché as that sounds, we aren’t looking past Portland or at New England, and we certainly aren’t looking at the potential return game (against the Timbers). If you look past the immediate situation that you are in, then you are missing out. I certainly don’t want any of my players to lose out on anything.”
