With a few days to digest Real Salt Lake’s gut-wrenching loss to the Portland Timbers over the weekend, RSL Head Coach noted on Tuesday during his weekly interview on The Bill & OC Show on ESPN 700 that while there were plenty of positives to draw from the match, the end result was indicative of very specific areas of improvement that have haunted the team at various stages this season.
“You have to put away the chances we got. We created a ton of chances against Portland and played attractive soccer. We really limited them to very little and what they did have, we kind of gifted them the opportunities,” Cassar said. “We need to tighten it up in both boxes. From box-to-box, we’ve been very good. We need to be closing down tighter in our defensive box and we need to be putting the ball in the back of the net in the offensive one.”
Saturday wasn’t the first loss for RSL where the club felt like it had played well enough to earn a win or draw. But it was certainly the most pronounced. Until stoppage time, RSL had outshot Portland 15-8 with a 5-3 advantage in shots on goal. RSL held 65-percent of the possession and completed 88-percent of its 487 passes.
Now, instead of carrying momentum from that result into a tough matchup against Seattle, Cassar and RSL are left turning the page and redoubling their efforts to prepare for the first meeting of the season against Sounders FC.
“It’s good to have a full week of training to get the guys prepared for Seattle,” Cassar said. “It’s going to be a difficult one. They’ve made a lot of new additions to their team, which they’re able to do with selling Yedlin. They received a big chunk of allocation money so they are able to make improvements to their team. That’s exciting. It gives us something to look forward to and really do a lot of work on video. This week we’ll have a full week to prepare for our opponent both offensively and defensively and I look forward to that.”
Seattle added forward Nelson Valdez, midfielders Andreas Ivanshitz and Erik Friberg, as well as defender Roman Torres during the summer transfer window. Meanwhile Real Salt Lake is expecting forward Juan Manuel Martinez to join the team this week although he may not appear in Saturday’s match.
“Everything’s moving forward smoothly,” Cassar said of Martinez. “Obviously after a long flight from Argentina and very little time to integrate with the team, it will be tough. But it’s an open conversation. We need to get him here first, talk to him, see how he’s feeling and then move from there.”
To hear the full interview from Tuesday, click here.
