3 Points: Real Salt Lake comes back, and stays ahead, after first-minute blunder in Montreal
3 Points: Real Salt Lake comes back, and stays ahead, after first-minute blunder in Montreal
This time, RSL didn't let an early goal on the road spell ultimate doom, coming back to take the club's first-ever road win at Montreal, 2-1 on Sunday afternoon.
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Now let’s get to Real Salt Lake’s trip to the Great White North.
Oh, no, not again.
That could’ve been the thought when Real Salt Lake conceded a goal less than a minute into its match Sunday at CF Montreal. And it had all the makings of the last time RSL conceded early, when Valentin Castellanos scored in the ninth minute and New York City FC routed RSL in the worst loss in franchise history, 6-0 at Yankee Stadium.
Was history repeating itself on the East Coast?
Hardly.
Justen Glad and Sergio Cordova each scored in the second half, and Zach MacMath made three saves to make it stand up as Real Salt Lake took its first-ever road win from the Quebecois, 2-1 to improve to 6-3-4 (22 points) on the year with a win over the previous third-ranked team in the Eastern Conference.
Djordje Mihailovic scored in the opening minute to give CF Montreal a 1-0 lead that would stand through halftime. But RSL didn’t collapse — or even wilt — on the road.
So what happened Sunday that didn’t happen against NYC FC, et al.?
“We knew going into the game that we just had to stay the course,” Glad said. “The halftime speech was just, keep doing what we’re doing; we’re going to get our chances, and if we stay solid in the back, we’re going to have a shot at this time.”
Take that, expected goals (xG).
Growing up
Most of the time, when RSL coach Pablo Mastroeni enters the locker room at halftime, he doesn’t start with an impassioned speech or fiery outcry. He simply stops and listens, eyeing individual conversations and how players are handling a certain first half of play.
The Montreal mid-match break was one of those times. Mastroeni got a “feel for the group,” and saw a bunch of players talking and gabbing, discussing their individual and collective play, and even “getting after each other — in a positive way.”
“I had to say very little,” Mastroeni said. “When they’re doing it, my voice doesn’t need to be heard. We just talked about a couple of tactical things to adjust, and really just doubled down on that. It’s really about the feel I get that determines halftime.”
That’s not a knock on Mastroeni; he clearly knows his players, who have all spoken highly of him even when outside criticism has reached the inner compound at the RSL Academy training center. But the less coach-driven a team can be, the better they often play on the field — more able to adapt with the game and flow through thick and thin.
That adaption didn’t occur back on April 17. A month later, it was on full display.
“I thought early on … we were much more comfortable defending than we were attacking,” Mastroeni said. “I think with every game that we play we become much more confident with the ball, creating good opportunities on goal without losing that defensive bite. I think when you can play both sides of the ball with the type of mentality we’ve been playing these past two games, these are really building blocks.
“I couldn’t be more proud of this group and the way they approached it and more importantly, how they believed in themselves in a way that today this group looks nothing like the group that started the year. The idea is we continue evolving, we continue learning from the game whether we win or lose and be the team that is one of the toughest on both sides of the ball to play against.“
The biggest tactic involved set pieces. If the run-of-play doesn’t offer much success, set pieces become even more critical to the game. And that’s exactly why Glad sprinted as far up the field to head home a cross from the corner in the 54th minute, rising up like a red-headed salmon to bury the equalizer and buoy the visitors’ belief.
“Every set piece is an opportunity to get a goal. It’s a huge part of the game,” he said. “If you’re not scoring goals in the run of play, that’s how you’re going to score. I’m just happy to put one in the back of the net.”
What might have been
Outside of the opening 43 seconds — namely, the conceded goal to dangerous scorer Mihailovic that put CF Montreal on top, 1-0. It was Mihailovic’s second opening-minute tally of the season, only the third time in MLS history a player has registered such a scoring strike.
But Real Salt Lake controlled much of the first half.
Yes, the eye test was woefully lacking, and similarly praising, of Montreal, who swung crisp passes, broke well on the counter, and got a couple of incredibles saves from goalkeeper Sebastian Breza.
But statistically, Real Salt Lake’s first half was better than their opponent’s — and on the road, in another country, to boot.
RSL controlled 53% of possession in the first half, out-shot Montreal 5-2, and even doubled the Club Formerly Known as Impact in shots on goal — Mihailovic’s goal was the only one.
If Bobby Wood had converted one of his two close-range chances in the first half, things might have been totally different.
"It was a bad first goal, but we just have to keep it,” Wood said at halftime. “We had our chances, but we've got to finish them — I've got to finish them."
They all did in the second half.
RSL went from 0.5 expected goals (seriously, can someone explain this stat?) to 1.8 in about 20 minutes, thanks to Glad converting a corner kick in the 54th minute and Cordova finishing a scorching pass from Maikel Chang in the 66th.
Look for that pass on major league soccer soccer-dot-com’s Pass of the Week. If not, Chang probably deserves a nod in the league’s Team of the Week.
But the whole team — from Chang to Glad to Cordova to second-half subs Everton Luiz, Nick Besler, Rubio Rubin and Chris Kablan — the Swiss loanee who made his RSL debut Sunday — did exactly what needed to be done to secure a historic result (more on that in a moment).
“I think we did a tremendous job bouncing back from the first moment,” RSL midfielder Jasper Loffelsend said. “Going down in the first minute is kind of tough, but we did a great job from there. It didn’t take us out of our rhythm, playing out of the back, getting more comfortable over the last two weeks.
“We had some great chances in the first half, and it broke a lot obviously in the second half.”
Funny how things turn, isn’t it?
“Obviously we’re disappointed with the way the game started,” Mastroeni said. “But our ability to get in the game for large portions of that fast half, it gave us a lot of belief as a group. At halftime, I said we had to double down on what we did in the first half, without losing our edge.
“The guys stayed the course, and they played fantastic.”
RSL out-shot Montreal 13-8 on the road, held the former Impact to four shots on goal, and only allowed MacMath to face four shots — with three of them being blocked by his defense.
And when they had taken the lead, they did exactly what they needed to do to win — even if, at times, it looked like it may have cost them a crack at goal.
“When we’re up a goal late in the game, you’ve got to try to kill off the game in whatever way possible,” said Glad, speaking of the Dark Arts that will forever be known in Sandy as ‘Dunsethery.’ “You’ve got to do whatever it takes.”
History made history
Canada has not been kind to Real Salt Lake.
Prior to Sunday, RSL had been outscored 12-5 by the Quebecois on home soil, failing to earn single point from four trips to Stade Saputo. Whether by CF Montreal or the Montreal Impact (or any other name, really), the French-Canadian province had a hex on Salt Lake.
That hex partially extended across the Great White North, with RSL just 4-19-3 all-time at Major League Soccer’s Canadian trio of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal since 2007. The club had been outscored 46-21 in MLS play, and a first-minute goal threatened to make that record 4-20-3.
Of course, it’s also just one game. Real Salt Lake sits tied for third place in the Western Conference after Sunday’s round of games, and come back home to face Houston on Saturday, May 28 at Rio Tinto Stadium (7:30 p.m. MT, KMYU).