D.C. United came in to Rice-Eccles Stadium as the best team in Major League Soccer. It is still leaving as the best team, although perhaps a little bit broken after Real Salt Lake's late-game come-from-behind 2-1 victory.
United entered the game with a 15-game unbeaten streak, and for 89 minutes it appeared that streak would remain intact.
That all changed in the blink of an eye. Well, actually it changed in the blowing of two whistles.
"I thought we played about as well as we had in those 15 games," said United coach Peter Nowak. "The real difference was we didn't have two penalty kicks against us in those games."
Real scored two goals in the final five minutes, both on Jeff Cunningham penalty kicks. The first came on after Mehdi Ballouchy was fouled in the box in the 89th minute, a well deserved free kick. The second came in injury time on a foul against Chris Klein that many will argue did not warrant a penalty kick.
"I feel that this just is not suppose to happen to our team, especially the second PK," Nowak said. "I don't mind losing when they score good goals and they play better, but that's how it is, and we have to deal with the situation . . . If you are going to beat us, beat us in a fair way. Especially the to PKs, this isn't supposed to happen in our league. Maybe this is the way the league works."
While the ending was tragic for D.C. it is not entirely without fault. The team had plenty of scoring chances in the first half and could have put the game away early. RSL goalkeeper Scott Garlick turned away a couple of good scoring chances.
"We gave the game and three points away," said forward Jaime Moreno. "That is football; that is soccer. When you miss chances that are easy to put away, you get punished and that is what happened tonight."
"I thought we played well at times," Nowak said. "We had some good possession and some good chance in the first half that we should have finished and then the end wouldn't have mattered."
Real can relate to the late-game swoon of its opponent. It had given up an injury-time goal in each of its previous two games to lose and fall into a tie. It is something that United forward Alecko Eskandarian said had been routine for his club until this game.
"We have been really good at killing off games all year," he said. "I guess it was bound to happen. It is unfortunate that it happened that way, but I guess the streak had to end at some point. We will just stick together and move on. We can just start a new streak."
The loss certainly hurts, but really only in pride. United is still 19 points clear of second-place New England in the Eastern Conference. The team has so much talent that it is sending seven players to next week's all-star game. If any team can regroup from such a loss, it is D.C. United.
"We just have forget about it," Nowak said. "We have a game on Tuesday, and we need to start concentrating on that."
E-mail: mblack@desnews.com