SANDY — For the second-straight game, Real Salt Lake used some late heroics to salvage a draw against a Western Conference foe.
Pablo Ruiz’s stunning left-footed strike in the 85th minute helped RSL rally for the 2-2 draw against defending MLS Cup champion Seattle on Wednesday night, the second time it overcame a deficit in the long-awaited return to Rio Tinto Stadium.
“He has an educated left foot. He’s great at passing and he has a great shot when he gets a good look at it, and he got a great first touch, his prep touch was everything.” — RSL coach Freddy Juarez on Pablo Ruiz’s equalizer
The match came exactly one week after RSL’s previous post-COVID-19 home opener was boycotted, which led to a chain-reaction of events that has owner Dell Loy Hansen looking to sell the team.
This time the match went off as planned with 4,026 fans in attendance, and Justen Glad said it felt great.
“It felt amazing to be honest. I had my parents up in the suite, which is great. Just feeling the energy after goals, after a big tackle or anything like that you can feel the energy and it gives the team a little more life. For me, it was great to be back out in front of the fans,” said Glad.
Having fans back felt great, but Glad said so did rallying to earn points in the third straight game after giving up the first goal.
“We started down in the Colorado game, we started down last week in Portland. We have that resilient side to us and we’re hoping to keep that. Obviously if you look at our record of the past two years or so when we go down initially with that first goal we don’t win many of those games, but this year you can kind of feel something’s a little different,” said Glad.
With the draw, RSL moved up into a fourth-place tie in the Western Conference on 11 points with three other teams.
RSL coach Freddy Juarez said the match was a tactical chess match with the way Seattle sat back with five defenders and didn’t give his team much room to play through.
That challenge became even more difficult when it gifted Seattle a goal in the first half.
The chance was set up by a bad giveaway from Ruiz in the defensive third. With pressure from behind Ruiz tried heading the ball back toward Glad, but it was easily intercepted by Seattle and a couple passes later it had possession in the box.
Aaron Herrera attempted to chest down a pass played across the box, but instead it hit the upper part of his arm and the ref immediately pointed to the spot. Nicolas Lodeiro calmly stepped up and buried the penalty kick in the 29th minute for the 1-0 lead.
“There’s going to be miscues, we just have to continue to get better. These stretches are tough cause you don’t get to do a whole lot of training,” said Juarez.
With the lead, Seattle dictated the tempo until halftime, not giving RSL much of any quality possession in the attacking third.
At halftime, Juarez tried to counter Seattle’s backline by inserting Giuseppe Rossi into the match for Maikel Chang and playing with two forwards.
Occupying an additional Seattle center back led to an early corner kick in the second half and an equalizer in the 50th minute as Glad headed home an Albert Rusnak corner kick to tie the match 1-1.
It was his first goal since October of 2016.
“It felt good, it felt overdue to be fair. But it’s always a good feeling scoring, and especially to help the team get a point is good,” said Glad.
Twenty minutes later, RSL again found itself chasing the game as Seattle’s Yeimar Gomez headed in a cross from Alex Rodan for the 2-1 lead.
Corey Baird had a chance to contain Rodan on the sideline, but instead made a wild sliding challenge to block the cross. Rodan calmly side-stepped the challenge, giving himself ample time to pick out Gomez making a far-post run unmarked.
Just like it did in Portland though last weekend, RSL found another late equalizer — capitalizing on another set piece.
After the Sounders’ initial clearance of a corner kick in the 85th minute, the ball was deflected straight out to Ruiz who was all along about 25 yards from goal. He picked out his spot, and unspooled a shot just inside the left post and past Seattle’s outstretched keeper.
“He has an educated left foot. He’s great at passing and he has a great shot when he gets a good look at it, and he got a great first touch, his prep touch was everything,” said Juarez, who said the team awarded Ruiz the game ball for scoring his first goal in an RSL uniform.
Real Salt Lake’s extremely congested schedule continues this Sunday as it travels to Minnesota. The teams played to a 0-0 draw at the MLS is Back Tournament back in July.