SANDY — In the days leading up to their exhibition match against Club America, RSL players and coaches said over and over again that they hoped to use the game as a chance to showcase what they could do against one of the bigger soccer teams in this hemisphere.
They took full advantage of the opportunity.
Javier Morales scored after a beautiful piece of interplay with Fabian Espindola in the 54th minute, and RSL stayed compact defensively at one end and played pretty good soccer at the other end over 90 minutes to emerge with a 1-0 XanGo Cup win Saturday evening at Rio Tinto Stadium before 17,212 fans, most of whom were there to support Club America.
"I felt like personally we outclassed them," said defender Nat Borchers, who marshaled RSL's defensive effort in front of reserve 'keeper Chris Seitz. "I felt like our midfield was better than them. I thought that Javier Morales was better than any of their players — on the ball, technically."
That last statement is saying a lot, considering Club America's lineup on Saturday featured Pavel Pardo, a regular with the Mexican National team.
But for the most part, RSL held Pardo and his teammates in check Saturday evening.
And at the other end, Real found the breakthrough it was searching for nine minutes into the second half.
RSL coach Jason Kreis brought on Espindola at halftime, and the Argentine striker linked up with Morales, RSL's Argentine midfielder, to create the game's lone goal.
From the left side, Morales played an exquisite 1-2 with Espindola just inside America's half and found himself in space. After dribbling within about 10 yards of the endline, Morales cut in front of America defender Oscar Rojas and sent a ball toward the far post.
It appeared Morales' effort may have taken a slight deflection off America's Lampros Kontogiannis, but in either event, the end result was a ball that arrowed perfectly over the head of America 'keeper Armando Navarrete and just inside the upper-right corner of the goal.
Asked afterward about the play, Morales smiled and said, "Yes, it was a good cross."
However, while RSL may have been fortunate with the final product on Morales' goal, there's no denying the quality that preceded it, as Espindola did very well to play the ball to Morales in space.
Over 45 minutes, Espindola repeatedly did good things and constantly terrorized America's defenders.
"He's electric. He's fantastic," said Kreis. "He's just been so very good for us lately, and that's why I was so disappointed that he got ejected in our last match (against San Jose). It wasn't even really necessarily about the last 15 minutes that he wasn't able to play, it's the fact that he's not available for the next game. But I don't want that to take away from all the good things that he's done and continues to do."
Against one of Mexico's two biggest teams, a lot of other guys shone, too.
Following Morales' goal, RSL — for the most part — did very well defensively to prevent America from having any really serious chances, and Kreis said he was pleased with what his guys did over 90 minutes.
"I thought it was a real nice collective effort," he said. "I thought we started out the match well, and I thought we ended the match well. We threw out a few things for the guys to think about going into the second half of the season, and I felt like we did a real nice job in all of those areas."
One of those areas was RSL's discipline. Espindola's red card against San Jose was Real's fourth this year, and Kreis has repeatedly said that's not acceptable.
Against America, things got very chippy at times in the second half, but aside from a red card for Yura Movsisyan after he had been substituted, Kreis felt his guys kept their cool.
"Tonight — maybe apart from Jamison (Olave's) yellow card for dissent — I thought everybody kept their emotions in check and kept their focus pretty good tonight," said Kreis.
e-mail: drasmussen@desnews.com