SANDY — Real Salt Lake coach Jason Kreis boldly declared that his team was good enough to win the MLS Cup in his postgame press conference Saturday night. It's the same declaration he made at the end of last year's playoffs, but this year he seems more confident.
With that said, his statement does come with a major asterisk.
"For me, in five to eight to maybe 10 games, we've shown in my opinion that we can win it all," said Kreis.
That means that in the other 25 to 22 to 20 games, it didn't show the necessary championship moxey. Which RSL team shows up in the playoffs remains to be seen, but now that things have settled down a bit from arguably the wildest night in franchise history the team can get down to business.
It won't be an easy road by any means. Real Salt Lake enters the playoffs as the No. 8 seed and will face defending MLS Cup champion and Supporter's Shield winner Columbus in the first round.
The first game in the two-game, total-goals series will be at Rio Tinto Stadium on Saturday at 4 p.m., with the second leg taking place in Columbus on Thursday, Nov. 5.
Tickets for RSL's home match are on sale at riotintostadium.com, a match that will also be broadcast on KUTV 2.2.
Even though RSL will be a major underdog, after the bizarre happenings in the 2008 playoffs fans should expect the unexpected. RSL was an underdog against Chivas USA in the first round last year prevailed still prevailed 3-2. More stunning was New York's upset of Houston in the other first-round series, arguably the biggest playoff upset in MLS history.
That set up a "Western Conference" championship between New York and RSL at Rio Tinto Stadium, a game dominated by the home team but won by New York. It was further evidence that anything goes in the playoffs.
Real Salt Lake is hoping to duplicate New York's success.
A year ago New York finished in fifth place in the East, but because it had a better record than the fourth place team in the West it was placed in the Western Conference playoff bracket. The reverse applies to Real Salt Lake this year as it has been seeded as the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference.
It's not ideal, but for a team that was a longshot to make the playoffs heading into the final weekend of the regular season, RSL can't exactly be picky.
Real Salt Lake split the season series with Columbus, prevailing 4-1 in Utah on April 2, but losing in Columbus 3-1 on July 18.
Back in April, Columbus was still trying to figure things out under new coach Robert Warzycha, and shortly after losing at RSL it rounded into form and posted a 10-1-6 record during an impressive 17-game stretch. The Crew have struggled lately though losing three of four to end the season, including a 1-0 loss at home to New England on Sunday.
The series likely hinges on which team gets the necessary breakthrough on the road. Real Salt Lake finished the year with the best home record in MLS at 9-1-5, and its plus-23 goal differential at home ties the league record set by Chicago back in 1998.
Columbus enjoyed the second best home record at 9-2-4, whereas RSL has by far the worst road record of the eight playoff teams.
Andy Williams isn't too concerned about RSL's past road struggles.
"Even last week in Toronto, even though we didn't win I thought we played well on the road. We've played a lot of games well on the road we just haven't been able to score," said Williams. "Hopefully we can continue that next weekend."
RSL on the air
Columbus Crew (No. 1 seed) at Real Salt Lake (No. 8 seed)
Saturday, 4 p.m.
TV: Fox Soccer Channel
e-mail: jedward@desnews.com