Real Salt Lake had a game on Saturday against the LA Galaxy that many would like to forget. According to Head Coach Jeff Cassar, the process of putting that game behind them started at halftime for RSL.
“I think the recovery from that game came in the second half,” Cassar said Tuesday on the Bill Riley Show on ESPN 700. “We didn’t play our best. They played extremely good in LA. It’s not surprising to get that result. When you go on the road you have to be at your best to beat a home team. We weren’t at our best. They were. Now we have to move on to Houston and make sure that we’re at our best at home.”
In the first 15 minutes of the match, RSL was hit with a barrage of shots from the Galaxy, yet it was the Claret-and-Cobalt that would take the lead in the 16th minute when Juan Manuel Martinez scored his second goal in as many matches. RSL couldn’t maintain momentum from that goal though and LA piled on four goals for a 4-1 lead before halftime.
That changed the complexion of the second half, as LA played with a more conservative approach, but RSL’s response after the break was night and day. RSL outshot LA 17-5 in the second half, putting the Galaxy under pressure throughout the final 45 minutes and it wasn’t until Salt Lake was completely committed to the attack in the final minutes of the match while looking for a third goal that LA showed signs of life with Steven Gerrard scoring in stoppage time.
“It was a tale of two halves,” Cassar said. “We didn’t really execute the gameplan that we had tried to set forth for the game. There were a few reasons for that. The communication out there wasn’t particularly great. Our positioning and recognizing the dangers that they were posing wasn’t great. And a lot of credit has to go to LA. They really put us under a lot pressure with their direct pressure and we didn’t handle it the way that we anticipated we would have.”
Now the attention shifts toward the Houston Dynamo, who visits Rio Tinto Stadium on Saturday for the final home game for RSL before field renovations put the Claret-and-Cobalt on the road until mid-June.
And while RSL will put the defeat behind it, the team won’t forget the lessons to be learned from the loss.
“We’re not going to flush it away because it’s a good learning tool – not just for the players but for the staff as well,” Cassar said.
Tickets are available for Saturday’s match here.
To hear the full interview, click here.
