Real Salt Lake's players and coaches had little choice but to shrug their shoulders and scratch their heads.
How is it that Real Salt Lake can outshoot Colorado 16-7, and only allow the Rapids one shot on goal, yet lose 1-0? Nobody quite knows, but it happened to RSL Wednesday at Rice-Eccles Stadium as it dropped its regular-season finale to the Rapids 1-0 in front of 13,813 fans.
"It seems we haven't been getting any breaks at all this year, which is tough," said RSL's Clint Mathis. "I think this game epitomizes the season."
It epitomizes the season in terms of Salt Lake's inability to score goals, and in turn its inability to win games. Real's 30 goals scored this year was the lowest in the league.
While RSL was squandering scoring opportunities throughout the game, Colorado took advantage of its one decent opportunity in the 87th minute when Fabrice Noel slotted a shot under diving RSL keeper D.J. Countess.
"There's no way, after the number of chances we had, and the only chance they had, I should have to talk about this result. It's very frustrating," said RSL coach John Ellinger, who is heading for England today to scout out potential players for 2006.
RSL (5-22-5) finishes its debut season with 20 points and must now wait and see if that's good enough to avoid finishing with the worst record in the league. Chivas USA has 18 points heading into Sunday's home match against the MetroStars
The loss capped a turbulent debut season in which RSL made headlines throughout the season not only for great fan support but a woeful 557-minute scoreless streak, an 0-14-2 road record, and an 0-11-1 record in its final 12 games.
For the Rapids, the victory helped them claim the Rocky Mountain Cup in the competition's inaugural year with a 2-1-1 record against Salt Lake this year.
Real was in great position to seize the Cup with a little better finishing Wednesday.
Of RSL's 16 shots, there wasn't necessarily one that the team can look back and dwell on. However, when a team racks up 16 shots, one them should go in.
In the opening 20 minutes, Melvin Tarley and Brian Dunseth each had a decent opportunity.
RSL narrowly missed out on several opportunities to seize the lead in the 38th minute. The initial chance came after Tarley ran onto a through ball by Mathis, but he was a bit unlucky when Colorado keeper Joe Cannon made a reactionary quick kick-save. On the ensuing corner kick, a Kenny Cutler shot took a deflection and forced Cannon to make another acrobatic save.
Early in the second half, Salt Lake was once again unlucky, this time when a Tarley rebounded shot was cleared off the line by Colorado defender Ritchie Kotschau. The ball had dribbled to Tarley after a collision between Mathis and Cannon about six yards off the line.
Late in the game, second-half substitute Jamie Watson had a decent opportunity in the box soar over the crossbar.
All those missed opportunities eventually came back to bite Salt Lake.
"Obviously now we start to put a team on the field that's worthy of what our future facility plans are," said Ellinger.
Earlier on Wednesday, Real Salt Lake announced plans to build its own soccer-specific stadium in Sandy. The team was hoping the buzz might transfer to the field, and it could finish the season on a positive note.
The quality of play was there, just not the finishing.
ENDLINES: In the 56th minute, Brian Kamler was replaced in the line-up by Robert Scarlett. A few weeks ago Kamler announced that he was retiring at the end of the season to became Salt Lake's director of soccer development. Kamler has played in MLS since the league's inception back in 1996 . . . RSL's final average attendance was 18,036, second best in MLS this year.
E-mail: jedward@desnews.com