Saturday night is a night that Real Salt Lake fans have been waiting for ever since the 2015 MLS Expansion Draft, the night that former head coach Jason Kreis and his new club, New York City FC, take the field at Rio Tinto Stadium for the first time since he left RSL in 2014.
Kreis won’t be the only one making his return to Salt Lake City. Assistant coaches Miles Joseph and C.J. Brown will also return to their former sideline, as well as a bevy of players who used to dawn the claret and cobalt of RSL.
Midfielders Ned Grabavoy, Sebastian Velasquez, and Mehdi Ballouchy, defenders Chris Wingert and Kwame Watson-Siriboe, and goalkeeper Josh Saunders all played in Salt Lake at one time or another. Grabavoy, Wingert, and Velasquez graced Rio Tinto’s pitch just last season, with the former two being important parts of RSL’s years-long run of success.
Wingert played in Salt Lake for eight years from 2007-2014, amassing 16,767 minutes played in 204 games. Grabavoy played six years from 2009-2014, with 11,571 minutes played and 10 goals in 159 games.
Over their illustrious careers in Salt Lake the pair aided in an MLS Cup title for RSL in 2009, a CONCACAF Champions League finals appearance in 2011 and an MLS Western Conference title in 2013.
But while Wingert and Grabavoy enjoyed relatively consistent success during their time with RSL, their current head coach had a rough go as the franchise’s first ever player.
Jason Kreis was acquired by RSL via a trade with the Dallas Burn to become the first player in club history, he also scored the club’s first goal in a 3-1 defeat to the LA Galaxy. While Kreis enjoyed relative success as an aging striker in MLS, his club was mired in mediocrity. It was early in the 2007 season when Kreis made one of his most important career decisions, hanging up his cleats in order to take over the reins of RSL as their new head coach after the departure of John Ellinger.
It turned out to be an excellent move for Kreis as he finished his coaching experience in Salt Lake with a 102-77-60 overall record while leading one of the league’s smallest markets to a run of dominance that perhaps only the LA Galaxy have bettered in recent years.
Under head coach Jeff Cassar, RSL has struggled to replicate the success they enjoyed while under Kreis. While the club was able to continue their playoff streak in 2014, they were swiftly and decisively booted in the first round by the eventual champion Galaxy. 2015 has brought even more struggles, as injuries and inconsistent play have nagged at RSL while they continue to try and transition from Kreis’4-4-2 diamond formation to a 4-3-3.
While Cassar continues to piece together a consistent lineup and formation for RSL, Kreis is dealing with his own struggles trying to build a winning mentality in an expansion organization.
There’s no doubt that NYCFC has had the worst luck of the two clubs, they are currently in the midst of a nine-game winless streak, including a demoralizing 2-1 defeat by their New York neighbors in the Red Bulls two weeks ago.
While RSL has been able to salvage results here and there, they have only won a single game in their last seven matches and are fresh off of a 4-1 demolition by the lowly Montreal Impact (who with the result grabbed their first MLS victory of the season).
In order to get back to their winning ways, Cassar told Matt Gaschk of RealSaltLake.com that his squad must start winning the individual battles and force their opponents into difficult situations more often.
“At the end of the day, it’s just executing,” Cassar said. “[NYCFC] have quality players. All the players that Jason has at his disposal are the ones that he’s handpicked through expansion and through discovery. So they have a very good team. They’re trying to build cohesion like every team is.”
Both clubs are desperate for a victory as three points would catapult each club back into playoff positioning in their respective conferences. RSL would also like to gain some much needed momentum before a two game road stretch against Western Conference powers LA and Vancouver.
RSL and NYCFC will kickoff from Rio Tinto Stadium Saturday night at 8:00 pm MST.
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