Real Salt Lake left back Danilo Acosta pushed up to join the attack, but his pass meant for Joao Plata went to Rapids defender Marlon Hairston’s feet instead. Hairston turned, and Acosta took him out with a slide tackle from behind, earning a red card and putting RSL down a man against Colorado on Saturday night.
“He’s a young, eager kid,” RSL coach Mike Petke said of the 19-year-old defender, “and him, Justen [Glad], Brooks [Lennon], [Sebastian Saucedo], guys like that are going to have moments in their learning curve. So when we look at the video, we’ll have a conversation with him. It’s happened to me many times as a player.”
But when RSL went down a man in the 57th minute, something special happened. The team demonstrated a newfound flexibility, both in style of play and depth of roster, in a 4-1 win at Rio Tinto Stadium.
RSL had a 2-0 lead when Acosta was sent off, so midfielder Luke Mulholland dropped back to help out on the left side defensively. Petke also subbed out winger Jefferson Savarino for defender Chris Wingert in the 63rd minute to shore up the back line.
“I think that their character has been tested many times,” Petke said, “since I’ve gotten here, to be honest with you, but really over the last couple of weeks and handful of games. And to see going down a man how they reacted, how they responded. Very different than how we want to play, which is going forward, explosive.”
RSL played a man down for 20 minutes before Colorado’s Alan Gordon earned his second yellow card and was sent off, evening the numbers for the final 20-plus minutes. And in a 10-on-10 game, RSL could go back to its preferred style of play.
Colorado cut the RSL lead to 2-1 during the 10-on-10 stretch, but RSL tallied two goals in the seven-plus minutes of injury time to add some shine to the final scoreline. Non-starters had a hand in both, showing off the strength of Real Salt Lake’s bench.
Lennon, who replaced Joao Plata in the 73rd minute, played a long ball from practically the goal line to the center circle to give Luis Silva 60 yards of open space ahead of him.
Mike Petke's anecdote about Plata says a lot about how the team has adjusted with Petke at the helm: pic.twitter.com/dijc3DN9xn
— Maddie Lee (@maddie_m_lee) August 27, 2017
“I just saw [the Rapids’] last guy,” Silva said, “it passed over him and once that happened, I took off, looked behind me, and I had a few yards in front of him. As soon as I got one-on-one with the keeper, I just thought about keeping it on frame. He dove one way and I played it the other way.”
Saucedo came in two minutes later for Silva, and soon after combined with Lennon for RSL’s fourth and final goal of the night. Saucedo settled a long ball and put a cross in front of the goal with his second touch as goalkeeper Tim Howard came off his line. Lennon converted with a simple strike on a wide-open net.