Revolution v. Real Salt Lake, 4.9.11

There comes a moment watching any sporting event when the fan will think, or rather instinctively know, that one team has zero chance of winning. That moment may come during the first minute, at the final whistle, or at any point in between. After watching the Revolution fall behind 1-0 early against Real Salt Lake, then fail to get a serious shot on goal against what amounted to RSL’s B-team, the Revs’ certain fate dawned on me in the 45th minute. The epiphany didn’t come about as a result of a single dramatic play, but rather through a slow and steady demonstration of one team’s superiority over the other. I almost felt pleased with my firm grasp of soccer reality a minute or so into the second half when RSL went up 2-0 off a world-class strike by Paulo Jr. The game really was over at that point.

Real Salt Lake may not be a match for a top-flight La Liga club, as its somewhat absurd and pretentious name suggests, but it may be the best club MLS has to offer, as evidenced by its recent run to the CONCACAF champions’ league final and its current gaudy MLS record. They move the ball well, often stringing passing together in tight spaces, and they close quickly defensively all over the field.

Apart from the dreadlocked and charismatic Kyle Beckerman, who baited fellow dreadlock-wearer Shalrie Joseph into a dubious red card late in the second half of this game, and the recently seriously injured Javier Morales, RSL doesn’t have much star power, just remarkably solid players who work professionally together.

Watching Salt Lake play, I was reminded of a quote by former NFL linebacker Matt Millen about the Super Bowl-winning 1991 Washington Redskins, for whom Millen played after championship stints with similarly excellent Raiders and 49ers teams. Millen said that he thought of all team rosters as being comprised of players that could each be ranked on a scale of 1 to 10. He contended that he’d played on teams with more 10s than those ’91 Redskins, but that he’d never played on a team with more 8s. I suspect that RSL’s roster is similarly stocked with MLS-standard 8s. Maybe the only downside of building a team like RSL is that while such a team may generate wins and even championships, it doesn’t necessarily generate league-wide fan excitement and it is seldom widely remembered in the years following its inevitable decline. Few people today, for example, would rank those 1991 Redskins as one of the NFL’s best-ever teams. (But those of us who followed them religiously think we know better.)