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RSL was unable to close the game down in the dying minutes of regulation and ended up losing on PKs 7 to 6. In regulation, the first half of play was fairly broken up and it took a while for either side to establish any sort of rhythm. The players looked overly anxious on both sides and it wasn't until the second half that the game started to really take shape. Alvaro Saborio scored off of a fantastic no-look pass from Kyle Beckerman. Sabo was able to place the ball perfectly with his shoulder and slotted the ball nicely past his defender and the Sporting KC keeper. RSL played with real confidence and controlled the better portion of the second half after that until Collin was able to put in a header off of an assist from Graham Zusi in the 76th minute.
The goal posts and crossbar proved to be unfriendly to RSL though with Javier Morales literally an inch or two away from the ball bouncing in on a very nice take from the Argentine. The play that sent the trophy to KC was a PK shot off the crossbar from Lovel Palmer. The PK shootout went to 10 shots from each club and RSL started slow not being able to convert their first two shots, one by Saborio and the other by Grabavoy. RSL clawed back in the best of five shootout but ultimately lost in a long back and forth affair with a lot of momentum shifts.
The game feels like the beginning of the end of an era for Real Salt Lake with a lot of uncertainty around Jason Kreis as well as a couple of other RSL veterans that may or may not fit into RSL's "three-year-plan" as GM Lagerway refers to it.