Zac MacMath's 2 howlers against Dallas speak for themselves. But his response following 3-3 draw is louder
Zac MacMath's 2 howlers against Dallas speak for themselves. But his response following 3-3 draw is louder
The RSL goalkeeper could have hid from his mistakes and tried to move past them his teammates propped up a 3-3 draw at FC Dallas. But he didn't. Quite the opposite, actually.
It would have been so easy to slink into the shadows, to disappear quietly into the visiting team locker room, privately extol a hard-earned point on the road, and move on to a mid-week match in Seattle.
But that’s not Zac MacMath’s style.
The Real Salt Lake goalkeeper had just finished a wild, come-from-behind 3-3 draw on the road with FC Dallas — a result that extended Salt Lake’s unbeaten run to 11 matches, the longest in Major League Soccer.
The match included a dynamite stick lit by Anderson Julio, a last-gasp equalizer by Nelson Palacio for his first goal in MLS play, and a pair of howlers involving MacMath that the goalkeeper will feel as hard-done as the fans who want to “light Zac MacMath on fire.”
MacMath feels the pain. He feels it all too well.
But there was MacMath after the match underneath Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, not just putting his hand up in a mea culpa of what had gone wrong — but actively rushing to the front of the line to break down, examine and analyze his own performance — both for good and for bad — with a handful of reporters on a Zoom call following the road draw.
And while some fans may want to light MacMath on fire, maybe he should be considered a contender for the captain’s armband (were it not for undoubted team MVP Chicho Arango or a handful of other high-leadership players like Justen Glad).
Hardship has a way of bringing out the worth of an athlete’s soul. And MacMath put a high price on his own value after his team rallied behind him to save a point in Frisco and keep RSL atop the Western Conference with 29 points and an 8-2-5 record.
But for all that it’s worth — which is plenty — MacMath’s teammates and coaches always had his back.
“I can go through every single player on the field tonight, and I can probably name five moments where they made mistakes,” RSL manager Pablo Mastroeni said. “But there’s always somebody behind them to cover them up. I think that’s putting it in context: the goalkeeper position is always one where you end up paying, because there’s no one behind you.
“The way you cover for moments when keepers make mistakes is mentality and fighting back for him. That’s the only way as a group we can make that up. Tonight, the guys did that for Zac … For Zac to step in and own it, it’s the only way to move forward. It’s the only way to put it behind you. If you run away from it, that moment becomes bigger and bigger. I’m really proud of how the guys responded in a moment that was difficult for Zac.”
MacMath’s first goal conceded was, perhaps, his worst. There was nowhere else to look but at himself as a ball caromed off his fingertips from the boot of Asier Illaramendi and into the back of the net.
Moments later, the 32-year-old goalkeeper was caught flatfooted as one of the last defenders on a Dallas counter attack capped by Patrickson Delgado’s 57th-minute score to go up 2-0.
“I think honestly on both the first and second goal, I’m exactly where I wanted to be,” MacMath said. “I wish I could blame it on my gloves being a little bit slippery and a lack of concentration the millisecond beforehand. But that’s on me; I’ve got to stay more concentrated on those little moments.
“But besides that, I just want to give thanks and congratulations to the team that worked tirelessly today, pulled me up, and found a way to grind out a point in a game that we should have easily had three points.”
MacMath has bailed his team out before this year, including during the 11-match unbeaten streak that is the fourth longest in the club’s 20-season history. But on Saturday night, his team had bailed him out and did something the club had never done prior in 629 MLS regular-season matches: overcome a 3-0 deficit to capture a point.
Shouts to Diego Luna for pulling one back early, then Julio for his MLS Wrap-up leading Goal of the Week contender, and finally Palacio for scoring his first career MLS goal in style when RSL needed it most.
But kudos also belong to the rest of the team, for not giving up on their goalkeeper after a rough night.
“We talk about it almost every day, definitely before every game, that it doesn’t matter who makes a mistake; when we make a mistake, we’ve got each other’s back,” MacMath said. “I’ve been in locker rooms where we hear that before. But obviously as you guys can see, we believe that. We feel it. We live it.
“There’s 20 guys and more coaches and staff that pull each other together. We have that attitude to never give up. It starts with Pablo, but Chicho is a big part of it, and Justen. We’ve got guys who really believe that, and show that example for the other guys. We all follow the lead.”
Responding from the howler, as it were, is important for MacMath, because — while RSL doesn’t have any mid-week U.S. Open Cup matches to attend — the club will travel halfway across the country to face the Seattle Sounders on Wednesday (8:30 p.m. MT, MLS Season Pass on Apple TV).
So for MacMath that means standing up, dusting himself off, and being ready to go again — or letting his team pick him up, as they did Saturday night.
“I wish I could shake it off as easy as I want to,” MacMath said. “But I’m going to have to process it over the next 24 hours, and then I’m going to cap it at that and move on. I know the guys here will help me.
“We have a lot to play for still, and that’s what I’m going to use to forget this dreadful game for me. There will be times where I’m goin to have to step up for this team and bail this year, and I hope to do that plenty more times this year.”