Game 1: at Real Salt Lake (preview)

By: Sean | March 29th, 2008

There’s a certain amount of disingenuity in writing a game preview for two teams one hasn’t seen play. One of the advantages of blogs, though, is that I can just note it and then move on to purely subjective opining, without trying to pretend I’m all objective and remote like a journalist would. In other words, at least I’m honest about being clueless.

If you, Dear Reader, would like some of that type of exposition, well, the only thing I could find was this game preview from AP’s Nicolino DiBenedetto. Luis Arroyave from the Trib chimes in with a general season-preview kind of story. Annnnnnd that’s it.

Abandoned, then, by the professionals, it’s left for us unpaid whack jobs (err, fan bloggers, I mean) to pretend to understand what’s about to happen. Yeah! So to begin, forthwith … no delaying … here it is for realizes … the Game Preview.

MLS Game 1: RSL v. Fire
The Enemy
Probable lineup (per MLS)
……Espindola – Movsisyan
……………Morales
…Beckerman – Talley – Williams
.Joy – Borchers – Mantilla – Beltran
……………Rimando

Real Salt Lake enters Year Two of the Jason Kreis Experience with – yet again – a retooled roster. Midway through the season, Kreis & Co. seemed to get religion on the whole importing-South-Americans thing. Importing Argentines Espindola, Morales and Mantilla seemed to calm and stabilize the squad; while the results didn’t improve markedly, the play on the field was noticeably more akin to football.

I’ve lined the probable starters up in a modern 4-3-1-2, since it looks like they’re going to look for width from Joy and Beltran. Unless Kreis is smoking something really fantastic, and decided that a good box-to-box midfielder like Beckerman would look just super waaay out on the touchline.

This group doesn’t include Salt Lake’s two Olympic team members, Robbie Findley or Nate Sturgis. Don’t be surprised to see Sturgis start, and Findley’s presence on the bench means the Fire need to avoid having to chase the game down the stretch.

The Good Guys
Probable lineup (per MLS)
……….Barrett……. Frankowski
Mapp…………. Blanco…. Rolfe
……………Pause ………………..Prideaux
….Segares – Gutierrez – Soumare
……….……………Busch

I’ve tried to render the half-this, half-that nature of the Fire’s predicted lineup with the alignment here. Looks like a sort of hybrid 4-4-2/3-5-2, with Prideaux moving up the pitch from right back to cover for a pinched-in Rolfe on the right midfield. This does put Rolfe closer to goal and closer to Blanco, where they can use each other for combination play, so that’s lovely.

The lineup noticeably doesn’t include an apparently healthy Dasan Robinson, nor Wilman Conde, who is listed as ‘Probable’ with an ankle knock. Sliding either (or both) into the defensive lineup certainly wouldn’t hurt things.

Key Matchup
Look for the RSL midfield trio of Beckerman, Talley and Williams to take turns kicking Blanco to the turf. If Señor White’s frustration level can take the pounding, the Fire will get plenty of chances to show off their training-ground set piece routines.

Keep Your Eyes On
Chris Rolfe in the midfield. We know that Chris is tricky and quick. We know he has good vision and passes the ball well. I’m going to be watching how he reacts to change of possession, mostly – is he getting caught upfield? Or is his concern about positioning making it hard for him to join the attack?

Daydream scenario
Fire play keepaway for 60 of the 90 minutes. Two goals from the run of play (Frankowski, Rolfe) and one Blanco free kick for the highlight reels – 0-3, Fire, and 2008 is started in style.

Nightmare scenario
Beckerman and Talley disrupt everything in the middle of the field. Jon Busch blows out his knee during warm-ups. Chad Barrett starts to understand Spanish profanities through simple repetition. Frankowski looks like a guy who hasn’t scored since 2006. Conde tells the press afterwards that he’s too good for the team.