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RSL vs San Jose: What we learned

A journey into disjunction

San Jose Earthquakes v Real Salt Lake: Knockout Round - MLS Is Back Tournament Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images

This was a weird game. It was exciting and disappointing and frustrating and all fell apart at the end.

Here’s the thing. RSL is not a great team. Also, we’re not a terrible team. We’re a kinda good team sometimes. There’re worse teams; there’re better teams. We need to be better. We need to have an attack. We need to play as a team and not let frustrations derail our performance.

McMath

Tonight was not his night. Watching him try to decide how to put the ball back into play and then deciding on the throw was a huge mistake. The ball dropped to the feet of San Jose.

Discipline

Two red cards. Two PKs given away. Where’s the discipline? I get the frustration. I’m scaring my new neighbors with all of my shouting in frustration. Professionals, however, need to do better. Need to be better.

A failure to team

Was Rusnák even out there tonight? If we’re going to do well, the play must go through him. Yeah, Kreilach scored, but he was quiet. Baird felt both overexcited and selfish much of the time.

The defense wasn’t together. The team was playing, but it just didn’t feel like they were playing together. Where was the communication?

I was proud of Martínez, at least, for keeping calm and putting his shot away.

What did we learn most of all? It’s just not good enough.

Please be courteous and wear your masks.

Overreactions

I think the team overreacted for all of us in this one.

Sigh.