SALT LAKE CITY - Call it the second place curse. Two times this season, Real Salt Lake have entered a game needing a win to finally move into first place in the Western Conference standings. Both times, RSL could not come up with the three points it needed.
Under normal circumstances, last weekend's 1-0 loss to the Kansas City Wizards might seem like a particularly disheartening blow. The match appeared headed for a scoreless draw until Tony Beltran's misdirected header nudged the ball into his own net and gave Kansas City an improbable victory.
But the good news for Real is that the loss did not drop them from second place. Now with two-time defending MLS champion Houston coming to town on Thursday night, RSL has high hopes that this will be the time where first place ceases to elude its grasp.
"First place -- even with the parity in the conference -- would be a tremendous feat for this club," defender Nat Borchers said. "We owe it to ourselves to give ourselves a chance to be there."
How well RSL deals with this second chance depends on how much the sour taste of their latest loss to the Wizards lingers. For Beltran, the mental blow would seem big in some ways. He is a much-heralded rookie who made the kind of mistake even veterans have nightmares about.
Beltran seemed to have shaken off whatever shock remained from the own goal by Wednesday's training session -- preferring to bury the past in the past.
"What I told myself after the game is I'm just going to leave it in Kansas City," Beltran said. "If you dwell on it, you're not going to be able to get over it. You're not going to be able to continue. The most important thing now is the next game."
One mistake certainly won't wipe out all the good things Beltran has done to earn a spot in the first XI. And the unexpected loss should not do much to diminish the home prowess of RSL either.
Real have performed well against a number of high-profile opponents in Rice-Eccles Stadium this year -- with a 2-1 win against New England as the most recent example.
Given their history against higher caliber opponents, Real feel confident they can hold their own against the Dynamo in front of the ESPN cameras on Thursday night. There is no bigger stage for the club at this point in its quest to take down Houston.
"We've done a great job this year of getting up for the really big games and playing well against the high-profile teams in MLS," Beltran said.
Depth in the midfield is an issue going into the match against the Dynamo. Starting midfielder Dema Kovalenko will serve an automatic one-game suspension after a yellow card put him over the league limit. Reserve Matias Cordoba will not be available either after leaving Real Salt Lake for good earlier in the week.
Cordoba and RSL parted ways on Monday after unhappiness with his reduced role on the club finally came to a head. He has been placed on waivers, leaving Real with a third vacant roster spot.
"Matias came to us and said he had enough," RSL coach Jason Kreis said. "He wants playing time and he feels like he's not going to get it here and he wants out. So he expressed to us he didn't want to be here and we did what we could."
Kreis said Cordoba wasn't buying into the team concept he has set in motion since becoming the head coach 14 months ago. He could not understand his inability to crack the first XI through the halfway point of the season.
A major reason Cordoba remained a reserve, according to Kreis, was that his fitness never reached the level it needed to be at to effectively compete for a starting job in the midfield.
"For me, it (had) a little bit to do with the athleticism," Kreis said. "To do the job that was asked of him, he had to be able to cover ground. He had to be able to get into the attack. He had to be able to defend as well."
Cordoba could not do any of those things adequately and soon took a backseat to veteran Andy Williams and rising star Javier Morales.
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