For a team with an abundance of optimism heading into the 2009 season, Real Salt Lake's rugged start is quite distressing. After all, things were supposed to be different this year. Following a season in which it sneaked into the playoffs and then advanced to the Western Conference finals, there was talk of bigger and better things heading into a full season at Rio Tinto Stadium.
It just goes to show that the more things have seemingly changed for the better for RSL, the more they've stayed the same.
Major League Soccer is a results-driven league; there are no points for style. And while sure, the overall quality of play has improved in RSL's five-year history, the results haven't.
Following last weekend's 2-1 loss at San Jose, the team's record now stands at 3-6-2. Those three numbers represent more than just a formation Steve Sampson toyed around with as the U.S. National Team coach during the 1998 World Cup; they represent a bad historical track record.
Real Salt Lake's 3-6-2 record 11 games into the 2009 season is identical to its mark at this point in both its 2005 expansion season and in 2006. Neither of those teams made the playoffs.
Hope is by no means lost. It was below .500 last year at this point with a 3-5-3 record, yet still made the playoffs.
Nonetheless, five straight years of sub-standard results in roughly the first third of the season is becoming a disturbing trend for Real Salt Lake.
"It's somewhere you don't want to be. It puts more pressure on you than should be, and you're always trying to get out of a hole," said RSL keeper Nick Rimando, who's been with the team for three of the past five years. "We keep on saying there's more games, it's a long season, but those points are creeping up on us, those games are creeping up on us. Right now, we really have to put our money where our mouth is and get some points, because the season isn't getting any longer and we need to start getting points."
The problem with consistently poor starts is that battling back in the parity-driven MLS becomes so mentally taxing. Real Salt Lake has played 135 games in franchise history, and it's been above .500 only three times — losing the next game on all three occasions. Two of those occurrences were this year when RSL's record stood at 2-1-0 and then 3-2-0.
The only other week it featured a winning record was July 28 of last year, when a 2-1 victory over Toronto boosted the club's mark to 7-6-6. RSL lost its next two games and finished the season 10-10-10.
Only midfielder Andy Williams and coach Jason Kreis have been around to witness all five poor starts. Without much of a link through the years, it's unlikely there's connection between the year to year underachievement.
Perhaps it's just dumb, bad luck.
"I have some occasions on the other side of that in Dallas. When we started out very, very strong, and it was easy to keep things moving along. But I do believe that every team in this league has difficult patches. Some happen in the middle," said Kreis. "When we were in Dallas, always, always, always late July and August we struggled, straight down the hill. For me, maybe we get this out of our way and then we move forward and don't have to deal with it again."
That's how things played out last year, as RSL dug out of a similar hole to eke out a spot in the playoffs. But it's not really a consistent formula for success.
This year's poor early showing is much more disconcerting for general manager Garth Lagerwey than last year. With so many new faces donning RSL uniforms in 2008, everyone figured the club would take some early lumps. However, once it added a few extra pieces during the summer transfer window though, RSL developed into a pretty respectable side.
The natural progression of that led many to believe RSL would come out flying in 2009, which obviously hasn't been the case.
For one year at least, perhaps ego can best explain this year's poor first few months.
"At the end of the day, we have the talent. If we can have the commitment and fight, this group can be successful. They have to understand that they are not special, and if they think they are and by showing up they're going to win games, that's not good enough," said Lagerwey.
"For me, this is not a group that should be in and around the bottom of the table hoping for a playoff spot; this is a group that should be competing at the top of the table for the top seed. We need to raise our expectations collectively and be more consistently successful."
Real Salt Lake may or may not turn things around this year.
Either way, the organization must figure out a way to better handle the first few months in future seasons. Otherwise, at this point in 2010, 2011 and 2012, the club will once again be hovering around the dreaded 3-6-2 mark 11 games into the season.
Eleven games in
Real Salt Lake's record 11 games into a season.
2009 – 3-6-2
2008 – 3-5-3
2007 – 0-5-6
2006 – 3-6-2
2005 – 3-6-2
E-mail: jedward@desnews.com