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Real Salt Lake needed to stop the bleeding, and that was the first order of business tonight against Portland Timbers.
Thankfully for all of us here, they managed it, drawing 0-0 with Portland Timbers in a match that lacked sharpness from both sides.
- The only particularly notable unforced change (at least, we haven’t been told it was forced by any sort of injury) — Everton Luiz started over Scott Caldwell.
- 16’ Zac MacMath had his first save of the match, stopping a middling header from crossing the line without too much trouble. This play is notable because Portland played a short-ish corner that exposed a huge gap for RSL.
- 18’ A bit of an opportunity for RSL in Portland’s box with Aljaz Ivacic fumbling a bit in the box. Nothing really came of it except a couple long throw-ins, but the scoreline remained locked at 0-0.
- Halftime already? Well, Maikel Chang took a boot to the hand (and perhaps the head?) from Sergio Cordova, and Everton Luiz had a bicycle kick clearance land at the feet of a Portland player, who forced a good save. It’s not been pretty, but the score is still level.
- 57’ Everton Luiz did it again. He tried a bicycle kick in the penalty box. It was an intensely bad decision, and it nearly landed directly to a Portland player in the box. Please stop that. Moments later,
- 66’ Pablo Ruiz pings the post with a really nice shot in the box, picks up the rebound, and has his subsequent shot blocked. It was quite a play from the midfielder, who was unlucky not to put RSL ahead.
- 73’ A musing on Justen Glad: He’s really good. He just tends to be in the right places defensively, and it’s been a huge part of why this game is 0-0.
- 76’ Maikel Chang sort of tests the goalkeeper with a shot that bounces off of him from close range. It was a nice pass that almost created something out of nothing.
- 77’ Portland’s Claudio Bravo is shown a yellow card for a pretty bad tackle on Aaron Herrera, who thankfully appears to be OK.
- 89’ MacMath looks like he’s going to play the ball quickly and thinks better of it. Smart.
- Six minutes of stoppage time, huh?
- Well, this is a good result, isn’t it? It’s not a great result. It’s a good one.
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