Real Salt Lake reached incredible milestones in the 2014 season. The club’s current streak of seven straight seasons in the MLS Cup playoffs is unmatched in the league. Five consecutive seasons with at least 15 wins and 50 points is an accomplishment reached by just one other team, the LA Galaxy. And goalkeeper Nick Rimando established a new league record that climbs with every clean sheet after he surpassed the league mark with 115 career shutouts.
However, for all of the team’s accomplishments, a 5-0 defeat in the Western Conference Semifinals against the LA Galaxy leaves RSL facing an off-season of uncertainty after the club’s 10th season in MLS. It is a testament to the club’s great success and the high expectations held in the organization that simply reaching the playoffs is not enough to keep the team happy.
“There’s a lot of positive data points. But there are some pretty negative ones in the end and you have to look at the big picture,” RSL General Manager Garth Lagerwey said in an interview with RealSaltLake.com last week.
Added defender Tony Beltran, “That’s going to be the standout memory, but you have to remember there were many games before that and it was a positive year from that aspect.”
The club reached 56 points with a 15-8-11 record, good for third in the highly-competitive Western Conference. The 54 goals scored were spread among 13 different players, with four players surpassing five goals on the season. Defensively, Rimando backstopped the veteran back line and finished the season with a league-best 1.04 goals against average while posting a 13-4-7 record with seven shutouts.
With a veteran core that includes seven of the 14 players who appeared in the 2009 MLS Cup finals, RSL used its veteran savvy to its advantage throughout the season. In a season with big changes, as Jeff Cassar took over head coaching duties after the departure of longtime boss Jason Kreis, that leadership proved vital in the early stages of the season.
Cassar led his team to a 12-match unbeaten streak to start the 2014 season, going 6-0-6 in his first season as Head Coach. That was disrupted when three vital cogs in that early success, Rimando, captain Kyle Beckerman and forward Alvaro Saborio, all left to join their respective countries in World Cup preparation.
That opened the doors for other players to have standout seasons and many took advantage. Joao Plata exploded for a team-best 13 goals to go with six assists. Newcomer Luke Mulholland notched six goals and seven assists in his first MLS season. And goalkeeper Jeff Attinella posted three shutouts in his 10 starts in place of Rimando.
Now, those are all in the past as RSL looks to reshape and reload for 2015. That process is already well underway as the roster will take shape for the club’s 11th season. Where the team will really take shape, though, is when the team starts preseason in January.
“The reason for our success always starts in preseason. We’re able to establish so many things. We establish the way we want to play, the type of defense we want to play, the type of offense we want to play. And just keep building on that throughout the year and I think we did a good job of that,” Cassar said. “That’s a huge success for 95-percent of the clubs. With RSL we want championships and not to finish with any type of trophy is always a disappointment.”
Wednesday’s Dispersal Draft marked the first player acquisition mechanism for the 2014-2015 off-season. They will continue into January with several other methods of player acquisitions as teams around the league prepare for the 20th season of Major League Soccer.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
MLS Expansion Draft
MLS Waiver Draft
Friday, December 12, 2014
Re-Entry Draft, Phase One
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Re-Entry Draft, Phase Two
January 15, 2015
MLS SuperDraft
