So you’ve decided to watch a soccer game. May I be the first person to say: Welcome! The world of soccer (or as everyone else in the world calls it, football) is a crazy and wonderful place. Since you are new here, I’ll give you a brief introduction to the rules and game play and I’ll introduce you to our home-team, Real Salt Lake.
I’m going to assume you have all at least heard of soccer, so you’ll know the basics: round ball, rectangle field, no hands, etc. So let’s start here. There are eleven players for each team on the field. And, you guessed it, no one can use their hands, except the keeper that is. The game is played in 90 minutes, two 45 minute halves. The weirdest part (especially if you came from watching basketball or football) is that the clock never stops during the halves. Instead, the stoppage time is calculated and added on to each half. Soccer is also different from football or basketball because the game can end in a tie.
In fact, this is the perfect transition into rankings. Rankings in soccer are done on a point system, instead of by overall record. For this point system, a win gives the team three points, a tie gives one point and a loss receives no points (of course). Real Salt Lake currently has five points. That puts us fifth in the Western conference.
Now on to Real Salt Lake. Real has been a Major League Soccer (MSL) team since its inception in 2005. They then won the MSL cup in 2009. RSL has been struggling towards another MSL championship since then. They came quite close in 2013, when RSL lost the championship to Sporting Kansas City. Real Salt Lake has also come close to winning the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association of Football (CONCACAF) Champions League in 2010. The CONCACAF Champions’ League is a competition between the best soccer teams from all over North America.
So far in this 2016 season, RSL hasn’t gotten off on the best foot. We currently have a record of 1-2-0 (that’s W-D-L). The only team Real has beaten is the Seattle Sounders, who have lost all three games they’ve played. Unfortunately, the outlook for Real doesn’t look to great going into their next game.
The next game RSL plays is against Sporting Kansas City on April 2. For this game, RSL will be playing on the road, against the number 2 team in the Western Conference. In addition, we will be without two of our best players, Captain Kyle Beckerman and Jamison Olave. Both defensive midfielder Beckerman and central defender Olave received red card ejections in last Saturday’s game against the Portland Timbers. Red card ejections remove the fouling player from the game and the team is not allowed to replace their position, causing them to play down a man for the rest of the game. In addition to being immediately ejected from the game, the player is also suspended for another game.
In addition to the inevitable holes caused by the red card ejections, Real Salt Lake has been struggling a bit this year with execution of technique. As a soccer enthusiast, I expect a team that is up by two goals with only ten more minutes of game play left to win, not tie. Real Salt Lake has twice now given up a two-point lead. One of those ties can be attributed to the aforementioned red cards since the team was down to playing with nine players against the other team’s eleven. But the other tie should have been a win. Obviously RSL is having some defensive line issues that need to be addressed promptly.
At this point in the season, it’s quite difficult to pinpoint how well any team will do in the season, but it’s also a forecast for the season. Since, you are now brought up to speed on soccer and being a RSL fan, you can hope for a better season than is expected. Just like the rest of us.
