After 17 matches, Real Salt Lake and Head Coach Jeff Cassar took a moment on Friday to look back on his team through the halfway point of the 2016 MLS season.
RSL has been a squad of road warriors through the first half of the season, playing 10 matches on the road and just seven at home. Even still, Salt Lake is third in MLS with a record of 8-5-4 – the most wins the club has reached at the 17-game mark since posting a 9-5-3 record in 2013.
That strong start leaves Cassar with a positive outlook on what his team has accomplished thus far and for what is left to come through the final 17 matches.
“Very optimistic for what we are capable of, how much this team has grown and where we are at now compared to last year and where we want to be,” Cassar said after a 1-1 draw with D.C. United on Saturday ended a stretch of six matches in 18 days. “Where we are at is great and where we can be is going to be even better. I think the guys can see what we are capable of and that is important.”
RSL has come from behind to earn victories four times already this season, but has also allowed stoppage time goals to end shutout bids three times, conceding points to the opposition twice in those instances. That included on Saturday, when a stoppage-time corner kick goal from D.C. United tainted an otherwise dominant performance from Real Salt Lake.
Even with the disappointment from the draw, RSL is still unbeaten at home at 5-0-2. Combined with the second-best road mark in MLS that has included two road victories over rival Sporting Kansas City, Salt Lake has shown a resilience thus far to stay among the league’s top teams.
Though disappointed with the result on Saturday, joint-top scorer Yura Movsisyan was still able to make light of the team’s propensity for comeback wins.
“As a team, we’ve not been bad considering the last couple of seasons. We have gotten some big results, if you see some of the games,” he said. “I guess maybe it’s better if we get scored on first then we can win games.”
In the second half of the season, RSL will play 10 matches at Rio Tinto Stadium and the road trips will be mostly west-bound flights. Three of the next four matches will come at home before the final Eastern Conference swing of the year, meeting both the Philadelphia Union and Toronto FC on the same trip on July 31 and August 3, respectively.
It all kicks off Saturday when the Montreal Impact makes its first visit to Rio Tinto Stadium since Olmes Garcia scored two late goals in a 3-1 win in July, 2014.
