Wasatch Soccer Sentinel

So.

That wasn’t great.

Real Salt Lake now sits at a three losses and one win in all competitions, and while I don’t think we can extrapolate from this, I’m feeling nervous about the progression of the season.

Saturday’s match against San Diego FC was a poor one at best. RSL got suckered a bit into a wide-open, end-to-end match, and when it came down to brass tacks, they lost, dropping three points at home. Seeing an empty crowd deep in stoppage time tells the whole story, doesn’t it? That’s not meant to shame fans — I get it. I don’t love leaving, but there are times when you don’t want to stick around to see your team lose. After going down 2-1 in stoppage time, you can see more empty seats on RSL’s east side than filled ones. And yeah, I understand the temperatures weren’t particularly accommodating — I get it. I suppose I really just mean that if you give fans a chance to be fickle, you’ve already lost.

Anyway, that’s all really neither here nor there. Let’s talk about the whys and wherefores and sort of react to Pablo Mastroeni’s take on the match.

We’ll start first with some statistics and tidbits I thought were interesting.

• Once again, Real Salt Lake opted for a triple-substitution. In the time preceding that change, RSL controlled possession by a narrow margin. (362 passes to 340.) Afterward, RSL ceded it in a considerable way. (110 passes to 172.)
• San Diego won 22 tackles on the night; RSL won 11.
• RSL’s most-involved player from a passing perspective was Justen Glad (83). Ariath Piol had 8. Katranis and Marczuk had 21 and 22, respectively.
• The forwards weren’t asked to do much in the air, which was just as well — Piol (2) and Ajago (1) didn’t win an aerial duel.
• Lachlan Brook didn’t get off the bench again, with Tyler Wolff preferred. I don’t know about you, but that was a guy trusted enough to start in CONCACAF Champions Cup, and now he’s not stepping off the bench. Maybe it’s nothing.
• I have plenty of reservations about the way this team plays right now, and I don’t think it’ll resolve easily. But as things stand, RSL has the third-highest shot-creating-actions-per-90 in the league. So maybe it’ll resolve itself? A boy can dream.

Alright, some Pablo Mastroeni quotes for you. We’ll start with several packaged together.

“Those chances … they have to hit the back of the net if you want to win games.”

“When you miss three big chances, you’re not going to win games. It’s as simple as that.”

I have a problem with this, and it’s not even that he’s necessarily wrong. Philosophically, I think there’s a flaw here. Great teams — even good teams — can win games 1-0, and that can sometimes involve missing chances. I fundamentally don’t believe that soccer simply comes down to whoever takes their chances the best, because I think that misses the importance of tactically mitigating goals. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen too many matches from teams coached by amazing coaches, but the importance of defending seems lost here. I certainly don’t just mean the back line, either — I mean the whole of the team. I’d even say that good teams are capable of managing a 1-1 draw in stoppage time, but I do understand the desire to get that winning goal at home.

As a I rewatch the goals San Diego scored, I see a team that can’t defend as a unit. There are some individuals doing something approaching defending, but nothing about this is a unit. Certainly we have a few new players in the mix — Sam Junqua and Kobi Henry, really.

Mastroeni had some thoughts on Katranis and why he was subbed early. Let’s go there.

“You never want to change the back line in the ideal format. The only person on the back line who will be subbed regularly is our left back. That’s because the ask physically, going from a left-sided left back to now being a left winger because we rotate from a 4 to a 3, and it’s the left back that has to get high and occupy. That, over 70 minutes, is unrealistic to ask. Javain (Brown) is still getting up to speed with his fitness, and Phil (Quinton) finished the game today, so that’s a positive, where he couldn’t last week. In an ideal world, the only sub (along the back line) we’re making is the left back.”

I don’t really have a thought on that, but I do think that starting defenders you know you’ll need to substitute is perhaps not the approach I’d take — at least not unless that player will absolutely change the game. I don't know.

Alright, that's all I've got. I just can't think too much about this game, because really, there's little good that hapepned. Between missed chances, missed defensive moments, and a coach that insists on a triple substition constantly, I just don't have anything else to say this week.

This week:

• RSL at Houston Dynamo, 6:30 p.m. Mountain Daylight
• Utah Royals vs. Bay FC, 5:30 p.m. Mountain Daylight