With a return trip to the Home Depot Center for a showdown against the surging Los Angeles Galaxy looming next Saturday, Real Salt Lake looked to take care of business against the stadium’s other tenant this past Saturday.
Striker Alvaro Saborio had himself a monster night with three goals and his strike partner, Fabian Espindola had three assists as Real Salt Lake vaulted into second place, three points clear of the Galaxy while sending Chivas to its sixth straight loss with a convincing 4-0 win.
“I think it was important,” Real Salt Lake head coach Jason Kreis said of RSL’s performance. “We’ve struggled to find the rhythm offensively and score some goals and finish chances, so it was nice to see that we did that tonight.”
Real Salt Lake got going early, getting two goals inside a three-minute span. The first came in the ninth minute, as Espindola held the ball on the left edge of the penalty area while being marked by two Chivas defenders. Still, Espindola managed to flick a ball into the ball for Morales, who then headed a ball towards goal, which went to Saborio and his header beat Chivas keeper Dan Kennedy near post to open the scoring. Three minutes later, RSL was on the board again courtesy of a rare mistake by Kennedy, as his throw-in was intercepted by Espindola, who sprinted into the penalty area and crossed a ball for Saborio, who tapped a ball past Kennedy into the back net, and just like that, Real Salt Lake was up two goals.
“When we got two up, I think their heads went down, and we were able to improve from last week,” RSL midfielder Kyle Beckerman said, referring to last week’s match against Portland in which it went up 2-0, but eventually hung on for a 2-1 win. “
Even as Real Salt Lake sat comfortably in front, Chivas did its best to stay toe-to-toe. Midfielder Miller Bolanos was the catalyst for Chivas’ attack, posing numerous threats to the RSL defense and getting off a few chances himself. Bolanos however was unable to prevent Chivas form seeing its scoreless streak extended to 442 minutes, as his chances either narrowly missed or were parried away by RSL keeper Nick Rimando. RSL and Saborio got goal number three in the match when Kennedy sent back Will Johnson’s point-blank shot, but Saborio collected the ball, then lobbed a ball forward that hit the crossbar and crossed the goal line. RSL capped off the scoring in the 81st minute, as Espindola sent Paulo Jr. forward and his one-timer beat Kennedy near post.
“We actually started off the game pretty well,” Chivas USA head coach Robin Fraser said. “”We were decent, we created a number of opportunities, but once again shot ourselves in the foot.”
Next Saturday’s massive matchup with the Galaxy is just part of a huge stretch of games for Real Salt Lake, as their next opponent after LA is the Sounders in Seattle, followed by a CONCACAF Champions League match against Herediano, followed by its regular season finale against the Vancouver Whitecaps.
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