Real Salt Lake Technical Director Craig Waibel appeared on Real Sports Live on ABC 4 Utah on Sunday after a whirlwind week that saw the club bow out of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup after a run to the semifinals, sign a Designated Player in Juan Manuel Martinez and then dropped a disappointing 1-0 defeat to the Portland Timbers on a stoppage-time goal by former RSL defender Nat Borchers.
The losses, coupled with defeats against Vancouver Whitecaps FC and D.C. United in the previous two league matches over a stretch of five matches in 15 days, put RSL in a difficult position with nine matches remaining on the MLS schedule and Waibel didn’t pull any punches when he talked about the position of his team and where it needs to go from here.
“Quite frankly, we’ve backed ourselves into a corner now. We’ve not finished a few games that we deserve to come out a bit better on and we’ve certainly donated some goals. I think Saturday was a great performance and it wasn’t the best. We didn’t win and we leave devastated. We put ourselves farther into a hole where we’re chasing and scrapping against teams that genuinely can come here and collect a point and feel good about it,” Waibel said after RSL fell to 7-10-8 and six points out of the final playoff spot. “We’ve got to do it the rest of the way. We don’t have a choice.”
To see Waibel’s full interview with Bill Riley, click here.
