SANDY, Ut. - Real Salt Lake played their best soccer against one of the best teams in the league on Saturday night, and that's exactly how they like it best.
Despite facing a roster that would make Sir Alex Ferguson take blush, RSL rolled to a 3-0 victory over the visiting Los Angeles Galaxy thanks to an unlikely brace from Devon Sandoval and a third goal from none other than Javier Morales.
“When I saw [the Galaxy's] lineup, when Jeff [Cassar] wrote that on the board, I was happy,” RSL defender Tony Beltran said in the locker room after the game. “I wanted them to come here with a full squad because I want to beat them with a full squad. Credit to the boys in front of us. They were fantastic tonight. It was really fun to watch. [There was] great ability in the attacking half and a complete performance tonight against a very good team.”
Sandoval has played a total of 270 minutes in a week’s time and has scored three goals during that span. Despite the heavy workload, Cassar knew that the forward could handle it.
“Certain players can handle it and he’s one of them,” Cassar said. “He’s a horse. He takes care of his body. He’s done a great job this year of taking care of his body, doing what it takes to recover, and I thought he deserved it. He scored a very nice goal in Houston. He was making a lot of nice runs. I thought the chemistry [in] the front line was there.”
Sandoval’s goals came in the third and 53rd minutes, one with his left foot and the other with his head. RSL have now scored six total goals in their last two league matches and suddenly have a whole lot of momentum heading down the stretch. Hope is once again springing forth in Sandy, Utah, and Cassar is just fine with that.
“I really don’t want to temper anything right now,” Cassar said. “I want us to keep this feeling going. The guys know that we can’t take our foot off the gas in any of these games, whether it’s champions league or regular season. I want to keep this going. I want to make sure our bodies are right. I want to make sure our defensive mentality is right going into games and giving them the confidence that they had tonight that we can score on teams.”
RSL is in first place in their Champions League group and have seized a healthy amount of momentum as they slowly inch upward in the Western Conference standings. If they can continue to play like they did tonight, the sky’s the limit.
Every game now becomes a do or die and RSL wouldn’t have it any other way.
“This is what we live for, these big games and every game now is big,” Sandoval said. “So we’re excited. Keep it rolling. Keep improving. We’ve got to win.”
