3 Points: It's always sunny when beating the Seattle Sounders — with an orange ball
3 Points: It's always sunny when beating the Seattle Sounders — with an orange ball
Real Salt Lake survived a thunderstorm, lightning, hail and the return of Freddy Juarez and Albert Rusnak to Rio Tinto Stadium for a 1-0 win over Seattle in the club's home opener.
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Now let’s get on to news of the week — namely, Real Salt Lake’s 1-0 win over the Seattle Sounders in the 2022 season’s home opener.
RSL 4.0
Saturday wasn’t just a home opener for Real Salt Lake’s 16th season in Major League Soccer. It was also the first home game under new ownership, local tech giant (and Utah Jazz majority owner) Ryan Smith and Philadelphia 76ers (et al.) counterpart David Blitzer.
The two were on-hand at the match, as they should be, but not just tucked away in a suite to enjoy the game in ways billionaire people often do that the casual fan doesn’t. They were actually out with the fans near the tailgate lot just north of the stadium prior to the game, participating in chants, songs and other fan-centric things.
That’s not an uncommon practice in soccer ownership, and previous RSL owners Dave Checketts and Dell Loy Hansen often mingled with the people, as well. But this one felt different. If nothing else, it felt like Blitzer — the outsider to the local community, but not to soccer — was trying to engage with Utah, why Smith — who is no stranger to the state, a BYU graduate and member of the Beehive State’s dominant religion — was trying to engage with a sport that isn’t his No. 1 (he’s a basketball guy … and that’s OK).
What does this have to do with Real Salt Lake’s on-field performance? Not much, if anything. But the duo have commented that they want to be as active and engaged in ownership as they can be (without being micro-managerial, as neither one of them are by nature) and Saturday seemed to be a good step towards that activity.
Bobby Damn Wood
Once again, Saturday’s starting XI was anything-but RSL’s first choice.
Former star midfielder (and captain) Albert Rusnak was wearing the Rave Green of the visitors, where he joined former RSL manager and longtime academy director Freddy Juarez during the offseason, for starters. Damir Kreilach was on the bench, nursing a calf injury (more on that in a minute). And starting goalkeeper David Ochoa missed his second-straight match of the season, along with defensive stalwart Aaron Herrera and forward Rubio Rubin.
But what RSL didn’t lack was Bobby Wood. Yes, that Bobby Wood.
The hero that lifted Real Salt Lake into the MLS Cup Playoffs a year ago is earning a reputation for the Salt Lake side, but we don’t think it’s one from which he’ll hide. The Flyin’ Hawaiian scored the only goal of the match in the 46th minute after a nearly two hour-long weather delay and an additional 15-minute halftime.
But the cold never bothered Wood any way, as he punched him home is own rebound after an initial attempt was saved to help give RSL all three points and vault up to third place in the way-too-early Western Conference standings.
“It feels amazing,” Wood said of his first goal of the season. “I couldn’t be more happy about it, and I am glad it contributed to the first three points of the season.”
Let’s also give credit to Maikel Chang on this play, even if the Cuban winger won’t get an assist for his efforts. The 30 year old saved the ball from going out of bounds with a gorgeous backheel flick to Pablo Ruiz, who delivered the ball right back to Chang before the through-ball into the cross that led to Wood’s goal.
It’s a little odd to see an orange-ball goal with so little snow on the ground. But after the thunderstorm mixed with hail and some snow accumulation, we’ll never complain about an orange-ball moment in MLS.
Orange ball forever.
Where’s Dami?
Subjectively speaking, Damir Kreilach has been a Real Salt Lake talisman since joining the club prior to the 2018 campaign. Objectively, Kreilach is one of the best human beings on the planet.
The Croatian international unveiled “Kreilach’s Corner” in Rio Tinto Stadium on Saturday, a section of the arena with 100 tickets purchased by the local icon to give to underserved children who otherwise might not be able to attend an RSL match. Partnering with Salt Lake City-based Infinite Scale and 1WireFiber, the area contains over 400 tickets purchased and donated for every home game of the 2022 season.
But when it came time for kickoff, Kreilach was nowhere near the pitch. He wasn’t even in the match day 18.
The 32-year-old veteran is still recovering from a minor calf injury suffered during the preseason, one he hopes to have fully healed by next weekend’s visit to reigning MLS Supports’ Shield winners New England Revolution.
But without him, the team may have played even harder to secure three points at home.
“I think once the team realized that Damir was going to be unavailable for the game, we banded together even more,” starting goalkeeper Zac MacMath said. “Starting with Pablo and the mentality that he always speaks of; We embodied that and no one flinched. Everyone was like, ‘Alright, let’s go, let's prove ourselves.’
“Obviously, there was a big storyline last playoffs about having no shots on goal and we really wanted to take it to ‘em. I thought that we did that really well today.”