Real Salt Lake Looking for Big Things in 2008

This is the time of year opti­mism pre­vails through­out Major League Soccer’s now 14 clubs. How­ever in the case of Real Salt Lake, a major over­haul of the squad has given the team real rea­son to be look­ing for­ward t0 2008. The 2005 expan­sion club has yet to make the MLS Play­offs in its three sea­sons a record that pales in com­par­i­son to its expan­sion cousin Chivas USA who has made the play­offs in each of the last two sea­sons. I had an oppor­tu­nity to spend much of last week in train­ing camp with Real Salt Lake.

“We’re definetly upbeat” states Gen­eral Man­ager Garth Lager­way, who added the num­ber of addi­tions since the end of last sea­son. Lager­way states that about a third of Salt Lake’s ros­ter has been over­turned since the end of last sea­son. Beyond sim­ply bring­ing in for­eign play­ers like most MLS teams this closed sea­son, RSL has brought in two Amer­i­cans who were ply­ing their trade in Europe: Ian Joy and Nat Borchers. “Our num­ber one pri­or­ity is to get vet­eran Amer­i­can play­ers in” Lager­way stated in ref­er­ence to the sign­ing of both Joy and Borchers.

Coach Jason Kreis stated ” we feel good, we feel we have a num­ber of good play­ers, a higher num­ber of good play­ers than last year.” In dis­cussing the late sea­son addi­tions last year of Fabian Espin­dola, Math­ias Man­tilla, Javier Morales and Kyle Beck­er­man, Kreis men­tioned it was has goal to become a more pos­ses­sion ori­ented side. “We don’t want to be chas­ing teams like DC United and Hous­ton for 90 min­utes a game,” he added also men­tion­ing that since tak­ing over from John Ellinger last sea­son it was impor­tant to him to make the team more rhythm ori­ented and a more tech­ni­cal side.

This sea­son, the biggest for­eign sign­ing thus far for RSL is Math­ias Cor­doba who comes to the club from Argenti­nos Juniors of Argentina’s Pre­mier Divi­sion. At 23, Cor­doba is the sort of young tech­ni­cally gifted Latin mid­fielder MLS clubs should be stak­ing out in mass. Salt Lake’s mid­field is crowded but the two gen­uine MLS vet­er­ans in the bunch Andy Williams, one of MLS’ top attack­ing mid­field­ers a few years ago with Miami, New Eng­land and Chicago as well as Kyle Beck­er­man are both ready for the new sea­son. When I spoke to Williams last week he was embrac­ing his role on the Salt Lake team as a vet­eran even though the new addi­tions meant he is play­ing out wide more than he is accus­tomed to. Beck­er­man stated “every­one is really look­ing for­ward to the new season.”

Goal­keeper is a posi­tion Salt Lake doesn’t have to worry about. Nick Rimando has been one of the best in MLS for years now, Chris Seitz is com­ing off a great U-20 World Cup for the US, and sec­ond year keeper Kyle Reynish has been impres­sive in camp. ” We got Nicky com­ing of an out­stand­ing year, we’ve got Chris Seitz the Olympic Team Goal­keeper who has matured and is com­ing along well and Kyle Reynish who has improved leaps and bounds,” said Jeff Cas­sar, RSL’s Goal­keeper coach. Clearly this is not a prob­lem for Salt Lake and the truth be told last sea­son RSL earned sev­eral points sim­ply because of Rimando’s brilliance.

The oper­a­tive word for Real Salt Lake is opti­mism. The team has filled out well after chas­ing play­ers, matches and a new sta­dium deal for the first three sea­sons of the club’s life. As 2008 begins and Salt Lake looks to mov­ing into its per­ma­nent home later this year, the club looks deeper, more tech­ni­cal and stronger than ever before. For much more on Real Salt Lake lis­ten to this week’s Amer­i­can Soc­cer Show at 2pm ET/11am PT Tues­day on CSRN.