Petke takes blame, says 11-man RSL would walk away victors over FC Dallas

45 seconds.

Forty-five seconds.

Forty-five seconds after the first whistle, Real Salt Lake conceded a goal.

They eventually equalized inside the first half — one unfortunate center back injury and one red card later.

Forty-five seconds after making this a new game, Real Salt Lake conceded again.

We gave up a third goal. Two minutes later, we scored our second. Three minutes later, we gave up our fourth.

In reality, though, this game was over 45 seconds in, and that’s not close to good enough at home.

Sure, we can debate the red card. And of course it makes a difference — after all, we scored two goals down a man, and it’s not hard to imagine we would have been better at full strength.

And sure, we can debate what would have happened if Erik Holt hadn’t been injured inside the first 15 minutes.

I don’t want to deny context in all this. Context is important. But it’s like I wrote earlier this week: I’m tired of Real Salt Lake having an excuse.

But you know what there’s absolutely no excuse for? Conceding a goal inside the first minute. That’s the sign of a team that’s not prepared from the opening whistle. Further, there’s no excuse for giving up a goal less than a minute after we score one ourselves. Real Salt Lake absolutely has to be better prepared.

Is this on the coach? I mean, insofar as he’s part of this team, yes. He’s certainly not solely to blame.

Here’s a snippet of what Mike Petke said after the match:

Even though we gave up a goal in the first minute — we finish with 11 guys tonight, we win this game.

I mean, I don’t know that I disagree — but this is unknowable. It seems intuitive enough, so I don’t want to argue it. Still, I’m not sure how I feel.

Of course, I don’t want to cherry-pick here. Mike Petke took at least some public blame on this one.

We didn’t get it done. It’s our fault. It’s my fault.

That’s the tough part, letting them know it’s 2-1 right now — we did have opportunities ... one bad pass, one miscue ... we shot ourselves in the foot tonight, and it starts with me. I thought we had a phenomenal week or preparation, but perhaps we didn’t.

So there you go.

Let’s end with some words from a gentleman whose best work was with another team.