Real Salt Lake’s 2013 MLS regular season opener couldn’t have gone much better for the Claret-and-Cobalt’s Kyle Beckerman and Nick Rimando, both of whom reached significant MLS milestones in RSL’s 2-0 win at San Jose on Sunday night.
Rimando made a pair of saves on Sunday to become the second player in league history to register 100 career regular season shutouts. Beckerman played the full 90 at holding midfield and registered an assist to become just the 20th player in MLS history to hit 300 career regular season appearances.
The 33-year-old Rimando is in second-place on the MLS all-time shutouts list, trailing only unsigned goalie Kevin Hartman, who has 112 career clean-sheets.
The 13-year veteran was keen to downplay his individual accomplishment after the match, tweeting out several messages that indicated he felt the team’s win was far more important than his 100th shutout.
Rimando made one particularly fine stop to preserve his shutout, deflecting a bounced close-range shot from 2012 MVP Chris Wondolowski off the crossbar in the 15th minute.
“I didn’t see it at all, there were like three dudes in front of me,” Rimando said of the save. “I just reacted to it and was lucky enough to get a fingertip on it and push it to the post and preserve the shutout.”
The 30-year-old Beckerman is the seventh player with RSL ties to reach 300 career regular season appearances. The Claret-and-Cobalt captain joins Jeff Cunningham (365), Chris Klein (333), RSL Head Scout Andy Williams (332), Rimando (320), Carey Talley (315) and RSL Head Coach Jason Kreis (305) as former/current RSL players in the exclusive club.
Beckerman is now tied with with D.C. midfielder Dwayne De Rosario for 19
th
all-time in MLS regular season appearances.
“It’s a great accomplishment,” Beckerman said of reaching 300 appearances. “I’m proud of all the hard work I put in and hopefully I can get another hundred.”
