RSL vs. D.C. United: Three takeaways from a disappointing draw

Real Salt Lake controlled tonight’s match against D.C. United without too much controversy, but this — inevitably — won’t be at that.

After leading 1-0 through a chipped Burrito Martinez goal, Real Salt Lake conceded a late, late equalizer. That’s what we’ll be remembering tonight, and with good reason.

Here’s what we learned.

RSL, somehow, can’t finish

I’m starting to wonder if this is actually not a case of “too many cooks” (I apologize if that’s now stuck in your head, kind of) and more a question of a lack of confidence in front of goal. It’s hard to say, really.

But if you think back a little bit, you might remember that earlier in the season, we were criticizing RSL for not shooting enough. Now, are we ... shooting too much? I don’t know. But friend of the blog Charles Barnard had an interesting statistic from the last two matches.

It’s not like the players don’t recognize this. Yura Movsisyan’s quote emphasizes this.

But you have to wonder what’s going on that’s keeping the floodgates from opening. There were four or five clear-cut chances that weren’t exactly squandered, but it wasn’t like it was far off.

Burrito Martinez is amazing

I know, I’m being particularly inane with this one, but I thought you might like to see this nice angle of RSL’s goal.

Seriously. Chop, chip, goal.

We still need to sign a defender

I am wholly on the Justen Glad train, but at some point, you have to recognize that young players tend to commit worse and more frequent errors. Glad is no exception, and while we’re giving him amazing on-the-job training, you have to think that Craig Waibel is looking around the world for center backs to sign to a contract.

After all, the transfer window opens on Monday. (Yes, it opens on a bank holiday. No, I don’t get it.)