After snatching victory from the jaws of defeat earlier this week, Real Salt Lake have another massive fixture on Saturday when they host the San Jose Earthquakes at Rio Tinto Stadium.
Claret and Cobalt moved back above the playoff line in the Western Conference with a come from behind victory, 2-1 over Dallas, while the Quakes will miss the postseason for the third time in their last four campaigns after falling 2-0 to the Portland Timbers.
Match preview
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It is the time of the year where every game is seemingly a make or break one for RSL, and they realized that just in the nick of time on Wednesday as they erased a 1-0 deficit with a pair of goals in the final 10 minutes to earn their first road victory in their last four contests.
Just like it was in their previous two fixtures, the pressure will be squarely on the shoulders of Pablo Mastroeni and his players once again this weekend as they are holding down the final postseason berth simply because they have more wins and a better goal difference than Minnesota United.
Rarely have we seen a Western Conference side still in the playoff race slip-up down the stretch of this campaign, and Mastroeni knows that they cannot afford another setback if they want to return to the postseason after missing out in 2020.
The formula for RSL is simple, win and you're in, and with three games remaining and things so tight, it does not matter how you get it done.
Salt Lake have gotten the job done thanks to their individual quality, namely Damir Kreilach and Albert Rusnak, who each scored to reverse their fortunes on Wednesday, something that both star players have been able to do on multiple occasions this year.
Before leaving to join the Seattle Sounders coaching staff, their former boss Freddy Juarez emphasized to his players the importance of putting in that extra 1% to make the difference, and that is something which we have seen them do multiple times this year when their backs are up against the wall, with two of their last three victories coming right at the end of a match.
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The dream of playoff soccer returning to Silicon Valley will have to wait, as the Quakes could not find a way through the Timbers on Wednesday, losing for a third straight time away from home.
The Timbers were able to pick their spots wisely, as a Diego Chara strike in the 34th minute forced Matias Almeyda to change his tactics in the second half.
As a result, the Quakes left a lot of open spaces, conceding a total of 13 shots on target versus Portland with the Timbers icing the game thanks to a stunning piece of individual brilliance from Dairon Asprilla, scoring off a bicycle kick.
When they look back and reflect on what went wrong this year, individual mistakes will be near the top of the list of things to correct as they have been burdened with a ton of them throughout the year, including the blunder made by goalkeeper JT Marcinkowski in midweek, spilling the ball out of his arms, leading to the spectacular goal from Asprilla.
This team thrive when keeping the ball out wide, and they enjoy stretching the field as much as possible, but they have problems winning a lot of balls in those dirty areas in the middle of the pitch.
There are undoubtedly some quality individual players on this team, but collectively they have not played well enough at every position consistently, while struggling to control the tempo of a match without an established playmaker.
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Team News
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No player was more relieved by the RSL comeback on Wednesday than goalkeeper David Ochoa, who journeyed out into no man's land, allowing Matt Hedges to score what we thought was going to be the winning goal until a late rally.
Zack Farnsworth, Toni Datkovic, Marcelo Silva and Jeizon Ramirez remain out of the lineup for the team because of undisclosed injuries.
Justin Meram assisted on both RSL goals, giving him four on the season and moving him past Jonathan Menendez, who got his first start on Wednesday since September 15, while Bobby Wood returned to the starting 11 for the first time since August 18.
Despite his error on the second goal, Marcinkowski still made a single-game career-high in saves with 10, many coming in the second half as the Timbers were pouring it on.
Even though his career is winding down, and he does not play as much as he used to, Chris Wondolowski is still a popular name amongst MLS fans, with his jersey being the 12th best-selling one in the league, while the 38-year-old striker also has 12 goals in his career against RSL, the most among all Quakes players.
Luciano Abecasis has a lower leg injury, while Almeyda made one change to the starting 11 on Wednesday, with Nathan starting at the back instead of Paul Marie.
Real Salt Lake possible starting lineup:
Ochoa; Glad, Holt, Herrera; Meram, Brody, Luiz, Menendez; Rusnak; Kreilach, Rubin
San Jose Earthquakes possible starting lineup:
Vega; Beason, Nathan, Yueill, Marie; Skahan, Remedi; Fierro, Lopez, Cowell; Wondolowski
We say: Real Salt Lake 2-1 San Jose Earthquakes
They have been playing with fire lately, but when you have the kind of quality that RSL possess in Kreilach and Rusnak, you can play poorly at times and still win, especially against non-playoff teams like Dallas and San Jose because all it takes is one opening for everything to change.
The Quakes know precisely where they are going to end up as they cannot finish any higher or lower than 10th, so we expect to see plenty of new faces in the starting 11 and some old ones who do not feature much anymore, so with all of that being said we may not see a ton of motivation from the Goonies in this one.
Top tip
Joel Lefevre
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Real Salt Lake win with a probability of 55.54%. A draw had a probability of 22.6% and a win for San Jose Earthquakes had a probability of 21.9%.
The most likely scoreline for a Real Salt Lake win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.87%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (9.73%) and 2-0 (9.08%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (10.58%), while for a San Jose Earthquakes win it was 1-2 (5.76%). The actual scoreline of 3-4 was predicted with a 0.3% likelihood.
