Real Salt Lake had an opportunity to start another winning streak on Wednesday, but instead they were undone by costly mistakes, as they fell 1-0 to the LA Galaxy at StubHub Center.
RSL defender Jamison Olave will earn plenty of the postgame attention after conceding a penalty in the 6th minute when he handled the ball in the box on a slide tackle. And then he was subsequently sent off in second-half stoppage time for swinging an elbow at Galaxy forward Robbie Keane.
Head coach Jeff Cassar was miffed by the performance in his postgame interview, explaining that his team didn’t do enough to earn three points.
“You have to come with that focus,” Cassar said. “We couldn’t get a hold of the ball. We were turning the ball over in rough areas. They were applying pressure from what we gave them. There’s a recipe for losses and that’s PKs, red cards and set-play goals. You can’t give goals away, especially at the beginning of the game.”
Juninho calmly scored the resulting penalty, as RSL goalkeeper Nick Rimando could not replicate his recent heroics against the Brazilian and stop the spot kick.
The veteran goalkeeper has stared down four penalty kicks this year, saving two of them. By comparison, Rimando faced a total of five penalty attempts for all of 2014.
“You never want penalty kicks called against you, especially in the beginning of the game because now you are chasing it,” Rimando said after the match. “But we've got to deal with it, we have been dealing with it all year. It is frustrating, but you got to move forward.”
Besides the defensive struggles, the attack also had difficulty clicking against the Galaxy, notching no shots on goal for the game.
Cassar made a double substitution early in the second half, inserting Joao Plata and Javier Morales into the match in the 54th minute with the hopes of kickstarting the offense. Despite some bright moments from the talented duo, RSL couldn’t find a way through LA’s defense.
“You could see it was a lot of 'nearly' tonight and if we’re a little bit sharper, whether it’s with the final ball or receiving the final ball, I think it could have been a good night for us,” Cassar said. “But [Plata and Morales] added a spark. I thought they did a good job of putting pressure on LA’s backline.”
Tyler Gray covers Real Salt Lake for MLSsoccer.com.
