COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — In the big picture, Jason Kreis admits that Wednesday's 2-1 loss to the Colorado Rapids isn't all that devastating.
Sure Real Salt Lake would've preferred to walk away from Dick's Sporting Goods Park victorious, but the bottom line is it was only a U.S. Open Cup qualifying match, and history has proven that Open Cup success only clutters a team's schedule down the road.
"Open Cup's an interesting beast because a lot of times it makes your schedule even tougher, and the end of the day, when you look at it quite realistically, sometimes it's better to get out in this round than the last round," said RSL's head coach.
With that said, considering everything Real has endured this year, it would probably take a win over a youth team if it boosted team moral and confidence. Real Salt Lake is winless in seven league matches thus far, and Wednesday's Open Cup loss to rival Colorado only adds to the misery.
"I'm honesty very sick of losing," said defender Daniel Torres. "I know my whole team is sick of losing."
Considering the way the match unfolded, Wednesday's outcome was just as disheartening as Sunday's loss at Dallas in which it surrendered an 82nd minute goal to fall 2-1. In the third
minute of second-half stoppage time, and less than 60 seconds before the game would've needed overtime to decide a winner, Real coughed up possession far too easily in the midfield, and Colorado's Jacob Peterson capitalized by banging a fantastic goal in off the far post.
"We've done so much hard work to get to that point and then we lose a simple ball in possession, a quick counter attack the game's over," said Kreis.
Fresh off Sunday's game in Dallas, and with another league match on tap in Chicago this Sunday, Kreis used a mix or regulars and reserves to fill his starting 11. Under ideal conditions, he would've rested key starters like Colorado did, but his lack of depth right now just didn't make that feasible.
In the first phase of Open Cup qualifying, RSL beat Kansas City 2-1 on an overtime goal by Andy Williams at Rice Eccles Stadium. With a win Wednesday RSL would've become the eighth and final MLS team to officially qualify for the 40-team Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, but instead Colorado gets the nod.
The Rapids opened the scoring just three minutes into the second half as Peterson pounced on weak punched clearance attempt by Chris Seitz and buried his first of two goals. Seitz, who started Real's other Open Cup win, wasn't able to get much on his clearance attempt thanks to an aggressive challenge by Colorado striker Conor Casey.
It took RSL just over 15 minutes to equalize on a great individual effort by Chris Klein who curled a right-footed shot from the top of the box just inside the far post. Klein originally tracked the ball down near the left corner and cut it back toward the box where Mehdi Ballouchy made a simple touch on the ball to free up a little more space for Klein's shot.
Over the course of the second half, RSL replaced starters Freddy Adu, Eddie Pope, Klein and Chris Brown. Kreis hopes it helps with their fitness this Sunday at Chicago, but Torres said it shouldn't be that big a deal.
"It doesn't matter if we have to play every other day, we're supposed to be fit and ready, that's what we do, we're soccer players," he said.
E-mail: jedward@desnews.com