When asked to summarize the 2015 season, Real Salt Lake players had a recurring theme. Or, more to the point, a word that was mentioned ad infinitum – frustrating.
RSL entered the season with an MLS-best streak of seven consecutive playoff appearances and eyes on an eighth. Yet injuries put the club in a precarious spot and while players stepped up and performed in certain instances, the results weren’t enough to get Salt Lake back to the postseason. An 11-15-8 record was the result and while RSL powered through to the U.S. Open Cup semifinals and earned a berth in the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal starting in February, it wasn’t enough to dispel that sense of disappointment.
“It’s a little frustrating to not be in the playoffs,” midfielder Javier Morales said. “It was a weird season for us. We hadn’t been through those travails – players coming and going with national teams and injuries. That was tough for us. But it’s not an excuse. We have to be better for sure next year.”
Added midfielder Luke Mulholland, “Frustrating definitely sums it up. It’s just a season that we felt like we couldn’t really get going the whole year. It felt very stop and start and we didn’t find that form that we was able to reach last year.”
There were stretches when everything clicked for the Claret-and-Cobalt. Home wins over the Seattle Sounders and LA Galaxy in the summer showed flashes of the extraordinary capabilities of the club. There was also a strong road start that saw RSL kick off the road slate with three straight shutouts away from Rio Tinto Stadium.
However, lopsided road losses to the New England Revolution, Vancouver Whitecaps, Montreal Impact and Seattle Sounders combined with some snakebit defeats to the San Jose Earthquakes, Whitecaps, Portland Timbers and FC Dallas to seal RSL’s fate on the outside looking in on the playoffs. RSL finished 19th in the league with 38 goals and while it was in the middle of the pack with 48 goals allowed (13th in MLS), that total was better than only one team in the highly-competitive Western Conference.
Truth be told, one offside call here or penalty or close-range scoring chance converted there could have easily swayed the momentum of the season.
“We weren’t a million miles away from having a good season. It definitely wasn’t all doom and gloom this year, but there were definitely a lot of ifs and buts here and there,” Mulholland said. “We just struggled with the consistency. There was as a few highs, but plenty of lows and they all seemed to come at difficult times in the season.”
Now as RSL moves into the off-season with just under four months until the Claret-and-Cobalt lines up against Tigres in the quarterfinals of CONCACAF Champions League, it will approach the winter months with lessons learned from the year gone by and a motivated group focused on improvement.
“Everyone in the club – players, staff – everybody’s extremely disappointed. This year was such an emotional rollercoaster. It wasn’t good enough,” defender Tony Beltran said. “If anything, it’s fuel for what’s going forward.”
